Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 11:40:18 -0500 From: Joe Nall <joe@nall.com> To: lambert@cswnet.com Cc: FreeBSD-ISP@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: pwd_mkdb and system processes Message-ID: <37B44A72.94B35E78@nall.com> References: <199908131617.LAA98264@troi.csw.net>
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lambert@cswnet.com wrote: > > I've been trying to track down a problem on my e-mail server where it > stops processing smtp and pop processes for 5 minutes at a time. > > # wc -l /etc/passwd > 14945 /etc/passwd > > We rebuild this file once per hour to add or remove customers. > > I finally caught it with a top session running at the time. > > Inetd was accepting new connections and starting popper but people can't > authenticate. > Sendmail accepts new connections but they stall until pwd_mkdb goes away. > When I try to run a command from the command line, it doesn't execute > until pwd_mkdb gets done. > The CPU is 97% idle during this time. > > Does all file access in the system stop while pwd_mkdb runs? No but all password lookups do. Both of theses commands rely on the file you are rebuilding and the files involved are locked during the process. You might try pwd_mkdp -d /tmp <> followed by a mv of the relevant files into /etc or try pwd_mkdb -u <user> at the time the passwd file gets modified and avoid the overhead of the total rebuild. YMMV, I haven't used the -d option. Joe To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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