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Date:      Tue, 18 May 2010 19:31:11 +0200
From:      Peter Schuller <peter.schuller@infidyne.com>
To:        Antony Mawer <lists@mawer.org>, jhb@freebsd.org
Cc:        freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org, bug-followup@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: kern/120749: [request] Suggest upping the default  kern.ps_arg_cache_limit
Message-ID:  <AANLkTim6C7BNpc3XfBQo0dgsPBKrA9960Uyjh6Z6eeuI@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <201005171610.o4HGA51L079188@freefall.freebsd.org>
References:  <201005171610.o4HGA51L079188@freefall.freebsd.org>

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> There was some recent comments that suggested this was beneficial with
> various Tomcat/Java applications, which otherwise experienced their
> command lines being truncated in the rc.d script for tomcat. What is
> the trade of increasing this - increased memory usage?

Tomcat/Java stuff is a great example of how many real-life command
lines are much longer nowadays. As I originally stated, this is why I
think a (to me, seemingly) more "modern" default is appropriate. Yes,
it can be changed. But why should one have to, unless there is a clear
disadvantage? (I do, and it doesn't affect me, but I am thinking of
other people and new users.)

I would be surprised if "ps auxww | grep X" not yielding output has
not confused quite a lot of people, not neccessarly even aware that
there is *a* limit, let alone how to change it.

And as I said originally in the PR submission, I cannot speak to
whether there are technical reasons other than memory use why this
cannot be increased. But if the *only* issue is memory use, that seems
like a complete non-issue to me given that even minimalistic simple C
programs will typically depend on a stack size significantly larger
than this. Again, even if the memory is in fact wired, it seems like a
completely acceptable trade-off to me on any reasonable, modern,
general-purpose system.

I don't have any personal stake in this since I adjust the sysctl
appropriately on all installations I manage, but I think this is an
almost text book example of a seemingly small "detail" that may
detract from the overall FreeBSD experience for new users in
particular (and probably not-so-new users too).

-- 
/ Peter Schuller



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