From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 27 14:19:42 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60A921065671 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:19:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gary.jennejohn@freenet.de) Received: from mout2.freenet.de (mout2.freenet.de [IPv6:2001:748:100:40::2:4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 236498FC22 for ; Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:19:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gary.jennejohn@freenet.de) Received: from [195.4.92.24] (helo=14.mx.freenet.de) by mout2.freenet.de with esmtpa (ID gary.jennejohn@freenet.de) (port 25) (Exim 4.69 #19) id 1KYLs5-0000bp-Fc for freebsd-current@freebsd.org; Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:19:41 +0200 Received: from ra3cb.r.pppool.de ([89.54.163.203]:44095 helo=peedub.jennejohn.org) by 14.mx.freenet.de with esmtpa (ID gary.jennejohn@freenet.de) (port 25) (Exim 4.69 #12) id 1KYLs5-0002Hq-73 for freebsd-current@freebsd.org; Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:19:41 +0200 Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:19:40 +0200 From: Gary Jennejohn To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20080827161940.1b4403ee@peedub.jennejohn.org> In-Reply-To: References: <20080826124335.GD3305@carrot.paeps.cx> <48B416E7.70905@163.com> <20080827091255.GH3305@carrot.paeps.cx> <20080827132141.593e728d@peedub.jennejohn.org> <20080827114623.GA52927@keltia.freenix.fr> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.5.0 (GTK+ 2.10.14; amd64-portbld-freebsd8.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Enormous utmp since mpsafetty X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: gary.jennejohn@freenet.de List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:19:42 -0000 On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:50:17 +0100 (BST) Robert Watson wrote: > On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Ollivier Robert wrote: > > > According to Gary Jennejohn: > >> There are many more pseudo-ttys in /etc/ttys now. AFAIK utmp allocates an > >> entry for every one of them at startup. > > > > utmp concepts are ancient. It is indexed by the tty/pty number so can grow > > rather large but it should be a sparse one too. I remember talks about > > replacing it with something a bit more modern. Backward compatibility is > > assured through login(3) although it would break programs digging in the > > utmp file itself. SVR4 had utmp/utmpx and setutline/getutline BTW... > > Right -- utmp growing to 256K would be an excellent example of utmp format > inefficiency. On the other hand, utmp growing to 998M is probably an example > of a bug rather than an inefficient design. freefall.FreeBSD.org, a > relatively busy shell box, has a utmp of around 5k, so common use doesn't > generally exercise that inefficiency... > But freefall is running FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE #34: Sat Apr 12, so it doesn't have the new tty stuff running, although I don't suppose that completely explains the gigantic utmp which OT reported. --- Gary Jennejohn