From owner-freebsd-stable Wed Nov 27 11:35:46 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4F8B237B401 for ; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:35:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from ops.tamu.edu (ops.tamu.edu [165.91.250.112]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00F5543EB2 for ; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:35:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nipsy@ops.tamu.edu) Received: from nipsy by ops.tamu.edu with local (Exim 4.10) id 18H7yK-000E2T-00 for freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 13:35:44 -0600 Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 13:35:44 -0600 From: Mark Nipper To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: question about swap files and crash dumps Message-ID: <20021127193544.GA4399@ops.tamu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG As I have misconfigured a machine with an inappropriate amount of dedicated swap space, I'm having to add a swap file. The only reason I'm doing this even is because I've been experiencing bizarre reboots (about once a week) with both RELENG_4_6 (up to 4.6.2-p5) and RELENG_4_7. So I'm going to enable crash dumps to see if I can start figuring out why! However, as I said before, I've misconfigured the machine and so I do not have enough dedicated swap space to hold a crash dump of my main memory. I have 768MB of physical RAM and only 512MB of swap. Don't ask... :) The question is, if I add a swap file using the vnode driver, will the kernel know to make use of the space or does the crash dump handler only use dedicated swap partitions? Also, given my current VM configuration, how much swap space should I allocate for the new swap file I'm creating, given the kernel's desire to somehow balance swap usage? If necessary, I can just dump my dedicated swap partition all together, although this probably isn't a good idea. And lastly, is the swap file any slower than a dedicated swap partition? -- Mark Nipper e-contacts: Computing and Information Services nipsy@tamu.edu Texas A&M University http://arrakis.tamu.edu/nipsy/ College Station, TX 77843-3142 AIM: texasnipsy ICQ: 66971617 (979)575-3193 Yahoo: texasnipsy -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- GG/IT d- s++:+ a-- C++$ UBL+++$ P--->+++ L+++$ E--- W++ N+ o K++ w(---) O++ M V(--) PS+++(+) PE(--) Y+ PGP++(+) t 5 X R tv b+++ DI+(++) D+ G e h r++ y+(**) ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ---begin random quote of the moment--- In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. ----end random quote of the moment---- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message