Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 16:52:08 -0500 (EST) From: Mike D Tancsa <mdtancsa@sentex.net> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: News machine FreeBSD config Question Message-ID: <199612032152.QAA25764@granite.sentex.net>
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Hello, I am trying to configure our news machine for optimal performance running
FreeBSD 2.1.5R and I have a few config type questions I hope you can help me
with...
(*NOTE I have searched through the FreeBSD mailing lists and done a few
searches on DejaNews and did not find all the answers to my questions. If
however all this is in an FAQ somewhere that I missed, sorry to waste time
and could you please point me to the right document.*)
The hardware is the following
Pentium 133 with 128Meg of EDO RAM
NE2000 NIC
AHA 2940 SCSI adapter
/dev/wd0a 31775 15651 13582 54% /
/dev/wd0s1e 1440639 1105935 219453 83% /usr
/dev/sd0s1e 998879 246095 672874 27% /usr/local/news
/dev/sd1e 3868777 2381285 1177990 67% /usr/local/newsspool
This is the main news spoool
/dev/sd2e 580303 153198 380681 29% /usr/local/newsspool/misc
kinda a waste right now, but will change it...
/dev/sd2f 628662 379097 199272 66% /usr/local/newsspool/rec
/dev/sd2g 785902 158492 564538 22% /usr/local/newsspool/over.view
I am starting InterNetNews server INN 1.4unoff4 05-Mar-96 ready with the
following...
unlimit datasize
unlimit stacksize
limit openfiles 1000
limit maxproc 400
We are not really feeding anyone else save a few UUCP customers who have
perhaps 10-15meg a day that they slurp down from us. In terms of NNRP
connections, we have perhaps 10 or so at peak times... Our active file
contains around 16,000 groups of which in one week only 1500 were only
accessed in a one week period :-(
My questions are
1: I will be adding another Hawk SCSI 1 gig drive... How should I make use
of it? put the comp.* on it or use it for logs? the IDE is currently being
used just to spool /var/log/news and so on... watching vmstat, there is not
a lot of activity on IDE however. Will getting rid of the IDE make a
significant difference?
2: Should I get rid of the NE2000 for a PCI based NIC ? Again, will it make
a big diff? If so, what is the PCI NIC of choice for FreeBSD ?
3: Kernel configs.... Currently I have the following options...
----------------------
#options MATH_EMULATE #Support for x87 emulation
options INET #InterNETworking
options FFS #Berkeley Fast Filesystem
options NFS #Network Filesystem
#options MSDOSFS #MSDOS Filesystem
options "CD9660" #ISO 9660 Filesystem
options PROCFS #Process filesystem
options "COMPAT_43" #Compatible with BSD 4.3
options "SCSI_DELAY=15" #Be pessimistic about Joe SCSI device
#options BOUNCE_BUFFERS #include support for DMA
bounce buffers
options UCONSOLE #Allow users to grab the console
maxusers 64
options "CHILD_MAX=128"
options "OPEN_MAX=1024"
options EXTRAVNODES=1
#the extravnodes I saw in another mailling list post and havent tried it yet...
options SYSVSHM
options SYSVSEM
options SYSVMSG
options MAXMEM=131072
----------------------
Should I increase the maxusers even higher ? Are there any other kernel
settings (undocumented or what not) that I should fiddle with?
4: Innd doesnt *seem* to be taking advantage of the memory I have in the
system... Its only about 18meg right now as reported by ps...
news 20373 9.0 13.7 18372 17688 ?? SNs Sun09AM 250:23.06
/usr/local/news/etc/innd -p7 -i0
Top reports the following info
load averages: 0.08, 0.28, 0.23
15:47:27
43 processes: 2 running, 41 sleeping
Cpu states: 0.9% user, 0.9% nice, 7.8% system, 0.9% interrupt, 89.5% idle
Mem: 41M Active, 2068K Inact, 13M Wired, 70M Cache, 4855K Buf, 176K Free
Swap: 144M Total, 64K Used, 144M Free
PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU CPU COMMAND
20373 news -6 4 18M 18M biowai 250:30 8.13% 8.13% innd
5: As you can see, innd has reniced itself to 4... Should I fiddle with this
value? If so, how do I prevent the spawned nnrpd's from also getting a
higher priorty?
6: Has anyone using FreeBSD upgraded to INND 1.5? Is it worth it to upgrade
to it?
and...
7: Should I go through our active file and nuke groups that people really
are not reading? Will it make a big difference to go down from 16,000 to
about 10K?
8: At what point should I add another SCSI controller ?
Thanks for looking this over and I appriciate any insights / suggestions you
can provide,
---Mike
**********************************************************************
Mike Tancsa (mike@sentex.net) * To do is to be -- Nietzsche
Sentex Communications Corp, * To be is to do -- Sartre
Waterloo, Ontario * Do be do be do -- Sinatre
(http://www.sentex.net/~mdtancsa) *
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