From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 12 16:59:30 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2CCD316A4CE for ; Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:59:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from farside.isc.org (farside.isc.org [204.152.187.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FEC443D6A for ; Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:59:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from Peter_Losher@isc.org) Received: from tardis.isc.org (tardis.isc.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:3:bb:230:1bff:fe31:a192]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-MD5 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by farside.isc.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D836A829; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:59:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Peter_Losher@isc.org) From: Peter Losher Organization: ISC Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:59:26 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.94 To: current@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <200401121659.26614.Peter_Losher@isc.org> cc: Peter Losher Subject: FreeBSD 5.x performance tips (ISC) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:59:30 -0000 =2D----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 So, as many of you know ISC hosts a quad-Xeon server running FreeBSD 5.1 (-p10 to be precise) which hosts half of ftp.freebsd.org, etc. Many of yo= u=20 helped out with some teething pains w/ virtual memory sizes, and kernel=20 panics. Thanks :) The issue with the system now is that while the kernel is SMP-aware, and as= I=20 watch 5.2-REL get downloaded today, this system is like the arm muscle that= =20 is developed to lift that barbell, but not enough blood is getting=20 everywhere, so the barbell is slowly moving up while the muscle cramps like= =20 hell. In this case the system is ~70% idle, and around 150 processes are=20 locked and the performance starts to seriously decrease at times. (Entropy= =20 stops getting collected, etc.) Not a pretty sight. The CPU's are all=20 spinlocking on an I/O channel. so high I/O translates into artificial high= =20 cpu and load averages. So where can I look for pointers on how I can squeeze better performance out of this configuration? I already have the usual sysctl entries installed. Any chance moving to 5.2 will help the situation?=20 Best Wishes - Peter =2D -- Peter_Losher@isc.org | ISC | OpenPGP 0xE8048D08 | "The bits must flow" =2D----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFAA0LuPtVx9OgEjQgRAkPiAKDE3eQ+kSxu3oj4EQgPHTggX8ZcrQCZAdc8 9H4a+dJi61Zty4E/VXV8Nos=3D =3Dct3f =2D----END PGP SIGNATURE-----