Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 5 Nov 1997 20:42:13 -0700 (MST)
From:      Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>
To:        Joe McGuckin <joe@via.net>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 'sys' is consuming %50 of cpu
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.95.971105203431.20950I-100000@alive.znep.com>
In-Reply-To: <199711052011.MAA27359@monk.via.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 5 Nov 1997, Joe McGuckin wrote:

> I've got a web server that was just upgraded to a 300Mhz Pentium II.
> 
> Now the load average is down to a more manageable '20'.

What web server are you running on it?

What version of FreeBSD are you using?  If 2.2-stable, from exactly what
date?  

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     2 users    Load 18.18 12.81 13.37                  Wed Nov  5 11:53
>  
> Mem:KB 3112    1108   464516     1316   41264         VN PAGER  SWAP PAGER
>       54716    1976  3927692     8464    Free         in  out     in  out
> Act  111568    1108   466136     1316   49780 count    86
> All  247736    1980  3942260     8556         pages   163         358
>     75     3420      3024  485 5417 1359  198  346  59600 cow    Interrupts
> Proc:r  p  d  s  w    Csw  Trp  Sys  Int  Sof  Flt  49884 zfod   1336 total
> 64.5%Sys  17.3%Intr 16.44  509 4984 1336 1.99  374  59180 wire    092 clk0 irq0
>                                                    139168 act      38 rtc0 irq8
> 68.0%Sys  16.4%Intr 14.=========+++++++++>>>>>>>     2096 inact  1082 pci irq10

IRQ10 is your NIC I assume?

> Is there anything I can do to reduce the amount of cpu the kernel is using?
> With this many network connections, would I gain anything by making the TCBHASHSIZE
> larger?

You could give it a try.

> 
> What about turning off FAILSAFE? Would that make a noticable difference?

No.

> 
> Also, the ethernet card I'm using is a 100mb 3COM (VX driver). I notice that
> the man page for the vx driver implies that this card is a poor performer.
> Is that still true? What card should I get?

As others have said, definitely try upgrading this.  DEC chipsets are OK,
but some people stay away from them because there are so many different
vendors of cards using it and so many chip versions that it can be a pain. 
Intel EtherExpress Pro 100/B is my preferred choice, although recently
they have started becoming a minor pain as well with changes in chips
(especially PHY chips). 

What sort of network traffic are you pushing in terms of bytes/sec and
packets/sec?




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.95.971105203431.20950I-100000>