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Date:      Mon, 20 Sep 1999 14:09:18 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Kip Macy <kip@lyris.com>
To:        Doug <Doug@gorean.org>
Cc:        Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>, Joao Carlos <jcarlos@bahianet.com.br>, hitech@bahianet.com.br, chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Out of mbuf clusters
Message-ID:  <Pine.SOL.4.05.9909201407370.25063-100000@luna>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909201353360.5712-100000@dt014nb6.san.rr.com>

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As I wrote in a later post which was posted only to a subset of the
original: 

I stand corrected.


On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Doug wrote:

> [Re-directed to -chat since none of the 3(!) lists were appropriate]
> 
> On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Kip Macy wrote:
> 
> > Here is where your philosophy diverges from many others -- I and I believe
> > many others think that a server operating system should at least be robust
> > out of the box.
> 
> 	You have a fundamental flaw in your logic here, and in most of the
> other sentences in this post. Namely, you fail to adequately define the
> problem domain that you're proposing freebsd as a solution for. More
> precisely, a server OS should be robust _for what application_ out of the
> box? 
> 
> > Neither Linux nor Solaris is vulnerable to running out of
> > mbufs as a result of malicious code. I don't think FreeBSD should be
> > either. 
> 
> 	So, how many mbuf clusters should freebsd assign in a default
> configuration, and how will you justify the massive amount of ram (massive
> relative to other kernel structures) that they will consume? Before you
> answer, keep in mind that I can direct an attack against your box that
> will easily consume more than 15,000 mbuf's without even breathing hard.
> (BTW, you're also wrong about linux and solaris not being vulnerable to
> high server load problems out of the box.)
> 
> > This is in no way a rant against FreeBSD, but rather a rant against the
> > attitude that one needs to know about OS internals to run a lightweight
> > server.
> 
> 	As someone else already pointed out, you don't need to know the OS
> internals to run a lightweight server. You DO need to know them to run a
> heavyweight server, or in the case of the original poster to run a clone
> flooding script designed to take down a heavyweight server. You cannot
> define a default configuration that will be perfect for every use. It's
> simply not possible. 
> 
> > If all of core insisted that Joe User had to know about internals
> > to use FreeBSD as a server, FreeBSD would be little more than a hobbyist
> > OS,
> 
> 	But -core has stated explicitly that freebsd IS a hobbyist OS. I
> believe Jordan's exact words were that, "FreeBSD is a vanity OS by and for
> the developers." The fact that it's also useful for doing productive
> things is purely an accident, resulting from the fact that the hobbyists
> involved like to spend their time doing productive things. 
> 
> > rather than what it is -- the best OS currently available.
> 
> 	Once again, this whole thesis is just plain silly. FreeBSD is not
> the best OS available for every possible application. It happens to be a
> really good OS for a lot of things, in fact I ran what was at the time the
> largest IRC server in the world on a freebsd machine. However my success
> came from long hours of learning about how the OS works, combined with a
> lot of help from knowledgeable people. A lot of what we learned is in the
> base system now, but I can pretty much guarantee you that it won't set any
> records for high performance servers "out of the box." 
> 
> Doug
> -- 
> "My mama told me, my mama said, 'don't cry.' She said, 'you're too young a man
> to have as many women you got.' I looked at my mother dear and didn't even
> crack a smile. I said, 'If women kill me, I don't mind dyin!'" 
> 
>     - John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues, "I Don't Know"
> 
> 
> 




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