From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 26 13:45:32 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3116B16A4CE for ; Tue, 26 Oct 2004 13:45:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from otter3.centtech.com (moat3.centtech.com [207.200.51.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ACB2143D3F for ; Tue, 26 Oct 2004 13:45:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from anderson@centtech.com) Received: from [10.177.171.220] (neutrino.centtech.com [10.177.171.220]) by otter3.centtech.com (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id i9QDjS6u096214; Tue, 26 Oct 2004 08:45:29 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from anderson@centtech.com) Message-ID: <417E54E9.7030401@centtech.com> Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 08:45:13 -0500 From: Eric Anderson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20041025 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "R. Payette" References: <0327434A-26F4-11D9-A907-0030658DC702@altern.org> In-Reply-To: <0327434A-26F4-11D9-A907-0030658DC702@altern.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Disk buffer / memory utilization X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 13:45:32 -0000 R. Payette wrote: > I'm trying to get the best performances from a ratter limited system. My > question is 2 fold : > > 1- the 'buf' column in top, I thought freebsd ( and other modern OSes ) > used free memory for disk buffer until it is required for something > else. But I see on my system that the 'buf' is always 14 M no matter the > load on the server, even in heavy swapping situations, it remains 14 M. > > 2- how to reduce the wired memory ? I have a lean custom built kernel > and 17M ( around 22M after a few hour of utilization ) is a little to > much to be normal. I mean, out of the 64M this machine has, 36M are > locked out by the bare system which has, a network card, a hard disk and > an unused video card ( headless machine ). > > Is there something I can tune in sysctl or my kernel conf ? or is it a > concept I don't get correctly ? I would strongly suggest reading the 'tuning' man page - it's really pretty good, and should answer some of your questions (maybe not specifically, but indirectly about tuning some sysctl's and such). Which such a small amount of memory, you're going to have to work harder at getting it just right. You should also mention what you are trying to make perform well on this system, what version of FreeBSD, and maybe also the hardware information. Eric -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Anderson Sr. Systems Administrator Centaur Technology Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. ------------------------------------------------------------------