Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 11:13:17 +0000 (GMT) From: "Jonathan A. Zdziarski" <jonz@netrail.net> To: "Bryn Wm. Moslow" <bryn@nwlink.com> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Password file builds Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.971031111301.26180A-100000@netrail.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971030131812.20446B-100000@wingnut.spacemonster.org>
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Why don't you build the file on another machine and rdist the password databases back to the mail server? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan A. Zdziarski NetRail Incorporated Systems Engineering Manager 230 Peachtree St. Suite 500 jonz@netrail.net Atlanta, GA 30303 http://www.netrail.net (888) - NETRAIL ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Bryn Wm. Moslow wrote: :Hello, : :I'm running 2.2.2-RELEASE on a mail server that has several thousand :users. The new box is pretty beefy: PPro 200, 256MB RAM, Adaptec 2940UW. :The server it replaced was running BSD/OS 2.1 on a P133 w/ 80MB RAM Fast :SCSI-2 (Buslogic). The mail system runs beautifully - very fast, very :nice. I only have one rather annoying problem: Password file rebuilds just :absolutely HAMMER the system. Whenever pwd_mkdb is running the whole box :literally comes to a standstill (things still work - just VERY slowly.) :This happens every 15 minutes if there has been a change to the :master.passwd file I'm building from. The spwd.db and pwd.db are nearly :5MB and I'm using DES as I have several other boxes (Non-FreeBSD) that I :have to stay compatible with for passwords. Someday they'll all be FreeBSD :and no problem =). : :I've been running the password build under a nice value of '15' but if I'm :watching top almost everything else on the box is in one of four STATEs: :ufslk, getblk, wait, sbwait. The waits I get but I can't find anything on :ufslk or getblk in the man pages or handbook. Maybe I'm on the wrong track :but I'm thinking I've got disk I/O blockage. The disk is running furiously :while pwd_mkdb is running but the system load actually DROPS while this is :going on (presumably because everything is waiting) and then spikes way up :for a minute as soon as it's finished and all the popper and sendmail :processes get their time on the silicon and platters. : :I've been toying with the idea of running the filesystem(s) async but was :hoping for something a little more solid. If I had another machine to :build into an NIS server I might be inclined to do my builds elsewhere. :Additionally, NIS would be a hard sell to the company president. He just :don't like it. I've been avoiding it myself because of some horror stories :and personal experiences. : :Right now, authentication (for popper and logins) is SLOW for the couple :of minutes that pwd_mkdb is running. Every time my boss uses Eudora and :has to see that blue bar I hear about it. Terminal Sessions are nearly :unusable during the build. It irks me to say this but BSDI took almost no :performance hit on a slower machine with slower drives with the same :password files. Suggestions? : : : /\ /\ /| Bryn Wm. Moslow : / \ / \ / | Northwest Link Systems Administrator : / \ / \ /\ / | (425) 451-1151 :/ \/ \/ \/ |_____ http://www.nwlink.com :
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