Xref: utzoo comp.unix.sysv386:2313 comp.unix.questions:27042 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!unixland!bill From: bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.questions Subject: Tuning SYSVR3 (Esix Rev D) (LONG!) Message-ID: <1990Nov20.194829.6977@unixland.uucp> Date: 20 Nov 90 19:48:29 GMT Organization: The Think_Tank BBS & Public Access Unix Lines: 79 My Esix system is used for some program development (mostly programs for school), some running VP/ix to run a few DOS apps, USENET News, and BBS software. The SAR report I have enclosed is fairly typical of an average day. I'm concerned about the high figures in the %wio and %sys columns. Is this typical for this kind of system? The biggest user right now is usenet news, processing between 7 and 12MB of news per day. [system description: 80386/25 no cache, 8mb 70ns DRAMS, 300MB SCSI drive (CDC Wren IV), drive caching turned ON, Adaptec 1542b host adapter, ATI VGA Wonder, NEC Multisync II)]. If this is atypical, I'm interested in hearing suggestions on which kernel parameters I might change to improve system performance. For example, should I increase the amount of buffer cache? If I need to do things like that, and need more RAM, I can beef it up to 16MB. Under most circumstances, the system has a couple of megs free, although of course it drops right down when I run Xwindows. Thanks in advance for advice on this topic. (would a "sar -a" be more useful than just this report?) unixland unixland 3.2 2 i386 11/20/90 00:00:00 %usr %sys %wio %idle 00:20:00 0 0 1 99 00:40:02 0 0 1 99 01:00:03 3 5 2 91 01:20:05 3 39 58 0 01:40:07 6 15 79 0 02:00:01 8 11 38 42 02:20:04 5 35 28 33 02:40:03 1 1 11 86 03:00:00 0 0 1 99 03:20:00 0 0 1 99 03:40:02 0 0 1 99 04:00:00 0 0 1 99 04:20:00 0 0 1 99 04:40:02 0 0 1 99 05:00:01 0 0 1 98 05:20:00 0 0 1 99 05:40:02 2 30 1 68 06:00:00 4 10 35 50 06:20:00 0 0 1 99 06:40:02 0 0 1 99 07:00:01 1 7 1 91 07:20:00 3 14 22 61 07:40:02 0 0 1 98 08:00:02 1 6 5 88 08:20:00 2 2 8 87 08:40:03 2 4 8 86 09:00:00 1 2 4 93 09:20:00 0 0 1 99 09:40:03 1 1 2 96 10:00:00 1 3 3 93 10:20:00 0 0 3 96 10:40:02 0 0 1 98 11:00:00 0 0 1 99 11:20:00 1 1 2 96 11:40:02 1 3 2 94 12:00:00 2 3 4 91 12:20:00 2 1 1 96 12:40:02 4 3 4 90 13:00:01 1 7 3 89 13:20:05 7 34 29 30 13:40:02 2 2 5 90 14:00:01 3 9 3 84 14:20:06 6 19 26 48 14:40:02 2 3 6 89 Average 2 6 9 83 -- home: ...!{uunet,bloom-beacon,esegue}!world!unixland!bill bill@unixland.uucp, bill%unixland.uucp@world.std.com Public Access Unix - Esix SYSVR3 - (508) 655-3848 other: heiser@world.std.com Public Access Unix (617) 739-9753