Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 11:00:23 -0500 From: "Scott I. Remick" <scott@computeralt.com> To: Greg Black <gjb@comkey.com.au> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Out of Swap Space hangs system Message-ID: <4.2.0.32.19990325105011.03a9fc30@mail.computeralt.com> In-Reply-To: <19990325111202.23942.qmail@alpha.comkey.com.au> References: <4.2.0.32.19990323175122.0370cf00@mail.computeralt.com> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903232021440.76938-100000@gwdu60.gwdg.de> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903232021440.76938-100000@gwdu60.gwdg.de> <4.2.0.32.19990323175122.0370cf00@mail.computeralt.com>
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At 06:12 AM 3/25/1999 , you wrote: >It's impossible to advise you on the basis of the information >you have provided. >Most of my current BSD >boxes have 256 MB of swap whether they need it or not. Here are >the results of pstat -s on five of them: Well, after I read the following: > It's not a serious problem -- a properly setup Unix system will never > crash from lack of swap. I've been running Unix machines for the best > part of 20 years and never seen a panic from lack of swap. Some of > those machines had 0.5 MB of RAM and a single 50 MB disk, supported > several users in a commercial environment and only ever fell over when > somebody yanked the power cord. My interpretation was that 50MB was indeed adequate swap space, and the secret lay in other settings elsewhere to handle running out of swap space more elegantly (as opposed to crashing). It seems that from what you're saying, a "properly setup Unix system" is one that simply has lots of swap space (and/or RAM) configured so that there's never a condition that forces you to run out of swap. I misunderstood where the answer was. I still must say though that throwing more RAM or HDD space at a problem in the hopes of avoiding it seems more an answer from the Microsoft textbook and not one I'd expect for a unix-based OS. I don't doubt those of you who say it's difficult to program, but it's unfortunate that we have this big hole in our team's defenses. :( Oh well. I guess now after several years, I can no longer say that our unix server has never crashed (I'm pretty much the only pro-unix advocate in a company of NT-heads). ----------------------- Scott I. Remick scott@computeralt.com Network and Information (802)388-7545 ext. 236 Systems Manager FAX:(802)388-3697 Computer Alternatives, Inc. http://www.computeralt.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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