Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!uunet!in1.uu.net!134.48.1.31!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!news1.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail
From: dillon@flea.best.net (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: help improve news server performance
Date: 2 Jul 1997 14:00:23 -0700
Organization: Best Internet Communications, Inc. - 415 964 BEST
Lines: 50
Message-ID: <5pefh7$4h9$1@flea.best.net>
References: <5padjp$1ot$1@news.futuresouth.com> <33B9FCA9.59@OntheNet.com.au> <50rdp5.43a.ln@shift.utell.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: flea.best.net
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:43840
:In article <50rdp5.43a.ln@shift.utell.net>,
:Brian Somers <brian@awfulhak.org, brian@utell.co.uk> wrote:
:>In article <33B9FCA9.59@onthenet.com.au>,
:> Tony Griffiths <tonyg@OntheNet.com.au> writes:
:>> I notice that you have an ISA-bus NE2000 (or clone) card yet you have a
>> PCI-bus machine!!! I've tossed ALL by SVEC NE2000 clone cards in some
:>> dark, dusty corner never to see the light of day again... They are VERY
:>> BAD NEWS on Pentium/PCI machines and I suspect the same on K5's. The
:>> small amount of receive buffering meant that any other reasonable NIC on
:>> the LAN could 'flood' the NE2000 resulting in ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL tcp/ip
:>> performance (av 5-15 Kb/s for file transfers!!!).
:>[.....]
:>
:>I have an SMC ISA card (dunno which brand) in a P100 here that gives
:>the same performance as my original NE2000 clone on a 486DX33 at home
:>years ago - 850k per seconds - that's almost 7Mbps !
:>
:>There's nothing bad about ISA NICs.
:>
:>> Tony
:>
:>--
:>Brian <brian@awfulhak.org> <brian@freebsd.org>
:> <http://www.awfulhak.org>
:>Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour !
I find the best tool for tracking down article rate problems
with INN is 'ktrace' and 'kdump'. You need to compile your
kernel with the KTRACE option, but it's well worth it.
alias kt 'ktrace -t cns'
alias kd 'kdump -R'
(find inn process)
kt -p inndpid
kd -l
NOTE: remember to turn off the ktrace with 'ktrace -C' (or kt -C)
when you are through tracing or you will run the machine out of
disk space :-) man ktrace/kdump for more information.
Usually, INN's biggest problem under FreeBSD boxes is writing
out article files. You have to make sure that certain spool
directories (misc/jobs/offered, other jobs groups, control/cancel)
do not get too large.
-Matt