memory detection and performance on forking new processes

[henning_(_dot_)_brauer_(_at_)_bsmail_(_dot_)_de]

Hi all,

i've set up a new server a few days ago. it's a not even small webserver,
apache statically compiled. There are typically 50 to 100 httpd-processes
running (total 90 to 150 processes on the machine) and apache serves the
pages (even the dynamic ones) really really really fast.
I notices that forking new processes takes a long time, for example when
starting an editor (jed in my case), for about 5 seconds happens nothing
and then it fires up very fast. And there are some nfs-problems
(client-machine on linux complains about "can't get slot" what seems to be
related to the nfs-server-responsetime).
I've looked in "top" and have seen it only reports 75Megs of Memory - but
the machine has 128MB as seen in dmesg below - is think dmesg (and sysctl)
are right, but i'm not sure. I've seen linux on athlon-machines only seeing
64 of the 128 or more megs of ram, there i needed to set the mem=XXXm
boot-parameter.
Anonther question is about the parameter "maxusers" in
kernel-configuration. I found no docs about it (yes, I've read man config),
only that (at least in freebsd) maxfiles is calculated from that value. Is
there anywhere a document like "optimize openbsd for large servers" ors
something like that? which parameters to modify? shouldn't i set maxfiles,
maxprocs, ip-queuelenght and such parameters to higher values?

Thanks for your help!

Greetings from Germany

Henning Brauer
Hostmaster BSWS




OpenBSD 2.7-stable (BSS008) #4: Wed Oct 11 18:08:29 CEST 2000
    brahe_(_at_)_bss008:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/BSS008
cpu0: AMD K7 (Athlon) ("AuthenticAMD" 686-class) 706 MHz
cpu0:
FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SYS,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR
real mem  = 133726208 (130592K)
avail mem = 121679872 (118828K)
using 1658 buffers containing 6791168 bytes (6632K) of memory
mainbus0 (root)
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+(9c) BIOS, date 08/21/00
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2 (BIOS mgmt disabled)
apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (no bios)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 vendor "VIA", unknown product 0x305 rev 0x02
ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 vendor "VIA", unknown product 0x8305 rev 0x00
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
pcib0 at pci0 dev 4 function 0 "VIA VT82C686A (Apollo 133) PCI-ISA" rev
0x22
pciide0 at pci0 dev 4 function 1 "VIA VT82C586A IDE" rev 0x10: DMA, channel
0 configured to compatibility, channel 1 configured to compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <IBM-DTTA-371440>
wd0: can use 32-bit, PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 2
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 13783MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 28229040
sectors
pciide0: channel 0 interrupting at irq 14
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (using DMA data
transfers)
pciide0: channel 1 ignored (disabled)
pchb1 at pci0 dev 4 function 4 "VIA VT82C686A (Apollo 133) SMBus" rev 0x30
rl0 at pci0 dev 12 function 0 "Realtek 8139" rev 0x10: irq 11 address
00:00:cb:58:07:9e
rlphy0 at rl0 phy 0: RTL internal phy
vendor "Promise", unknown product 0xd30 (class mass storage, subclass
miscellaneous, rev 0x02) at pci0 dev 17 function 0 not configured
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: using exception 16
pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
pccom1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
pcvt: got KEYB_R_RESEND
pcvt: no kbd detected
vt0 at isa0 port 0x60/16 irq 1: ega, mono, 8 scr, unknown kbd
biomask 4000 netmask 4800 ttymask 4882
pctr: user-level cycle counter enabled
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
dkcsum: wd0 matched BIOS disk 80
root on wd0a
rootdev=0x0 rrootdev=0x300 rawdev=0x302

------------------------------------------------------------
Henning Brauer      | Hostmaster BSWS
BS Web Services     | www.bsws.de
Roedingsmarkt 14    | hostmaster_(_at_)_bsws_(_dot_)_de
20459 Hamburg
Germany