Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 17:09:31 -0800 (PST) From: "Bryn Wm. Moslow" <bryn@nwlink.com> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Password file rebuilds (pwd_mkdb) Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.971102164454.22404G-100000@utah>
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First of all, a big thanks to R.D. Thrush for reminding me I have source
code and of what I can do with it, modify... Thanks to all who responded
with some insightful and very interesting ideas - I appreciate your time
very much.
And so, my problem was that pwd_mkdb was taking far too long to build my
password databases and while doing so was more or less stopping anything
else from going on while this was being done. When I was running BSDI and
building these same databases I had the option (pwd_mkdb -c XXXX) of
changing the cache size on the command line. FreeBSD uses a -c option but
to my surprise only for validity checking the input to pwd_mkdb. I didn't
really fret too much about it until the system was dropped into production
and had umpteen sendmail processes running and many more pop3 sessions all
waiting for file system access. *NOW*, I had a problem.
The solution: I edited the source code for pwd_mkdb and changed the cache
size in pwd_mkdb.c to '8192 * 1024' as this is what I had used with BSDI.
The result: to coin a phrase, "BLAMMO!" What was taking well over a minute
to two minutes now takes between 15 and 20 seconds and the rest of the
system barely notices. The load is low and steady and the hiccups are
gone. Thanks again to everyone who responded, good stuff!
/\ /\ /| Bryn Wm. Moslow
/ \ / \ / | Northwest Link Systems Administrator
/ \ / \ / | Manager of Information Systems
/ \ / \ /\ / | (425) 451-1151 -or- (800) 390-1270
/ \/ \/ \/ |_______ http://www.nwlink.com
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