1.\" Copyright (c) 2001, Matthew Dillon. Terms and conditions are those of 2.\" the BSD Copyright as specified in the file "/usr/src/COPYRIGHT" in 3.\" the source tree. 4.\" 5.\" $FreeBSD$ 6.\" 7.Dd May 25, 2001 8.Dt TUNING 7 9.Os 10.Sh NAME 11.Nm tuning 12.Nd performance tuning under FreeBSD 13.Sh SYSTEM SETUP - DISKLABEL, NEWFS, TUNEFS, SWAP 14When using 15.Xr disklabel 8 16or 17.Xr sysinstall 8 18to lay out your filesystems on a hard disk it is important to remember 19that hard drives can transfer data much more quickly from outer tracks 20than they can from inner tracks. 21To take advantage of this you should 22try to pack your smaller filesystems and swap closer to the outer tracks, 23follow with the larger filesystems, and end with the largest filesystems. 24It is also important to size system standard filesystems such that you 25will not be forced to resize them later as you scale the machine up. 26I usually create, in order, a 128M root, 1G swap, 128M 27.Pa /var , 28128M 29.Pa /var/tmp , 303G 31.Pa /usr , 32and use any remaining space for 33.Pa /home . 34.Pp 35You should typically size your swap space to approximately 2x main memory. 36If you do not have a lot of RAM, though, you will generally want a lot 37more swap. 38It is not recommended that you configure any less than 39256M of swap on a system and you should keep in mind future memory 40expansion when sizing the swap partition. 41The kernel's VM paging algorithms are tuned to perform best when there is 42at least 2x swap versus main memory. 43Configuring too little swap can lead 44to inefficiencies in the VM page scanning code as well as create issues 45later on if you add more memory to your machine. 46Finally, on larger systems 47with multiple SCSI disks (or multiple IDE disks operating on different 48controllers), we strongly recommend that you configure swap on each drive 49(up to four drives). 50The swap partitions on the drives should be approximately the same size. 51The kernel can handle arbitrary sizes but 52internal data structures scale to 4 times the largest swap partition. 53Keeping 54the swap partitions near the same size will allow the kernel to optimally 55stripe swap space across the N disks. 56Do not worry about overdoing it a 57little, swap space is the saving grace of 58.Ux 59and even if you do not normally use much swap, it can give you more time to 60recover from a runaway program before being forced to reboot. 61.Pp 62How you size your 63.Pa /var 64partition depends heavily on what you intend to use the machine for. 65This 66partition is primarily used to hold mailboxes, the print spool, and log 67files. 68Some people even make 69.Pa /var/log 70its own partition (but except for extreme cases it is not worth the waste 71of a partition ID). 72If your machine is intended to act as a mail 73or print server, 74or you are running a heavily visited web server, you should consider 75creating a much larger partition \(en perhaps a gig or more. 76It is very easy 77to underestimate log file storage requirements. 78.Pp 79Sizing 80.Pa /var/tmp 81depends on the kind of temporary file usage you think you will need. 82128M is 83the minimum we recommend. 84Also note that sysinstall will create a 85.Pa /tmp 86directory, but it is usually a good idea to make 87.Pa /tmp 88a softlink to 89.Pa /var/tmp 90after the fact. 91Dedicating a partition for temporary file storage is important for 92two reasons: first, it reduces the possibility of filesystem corruption 93in a crash, and second it reduces the chance of a runaway process that 94fills up 95.Oo Pa /var Oc Ns Pa /tmp 96from blowing up more critical subsystems (mail, 97logging, etc). 98Filling up 99.Oo Pa /var Oc Ns Pa /tmp 100is a very common problem to have. 101.Pp 102In the old days there were differences between 103.Pa /tmp 104and 105.Pa /var/tmp , 106but the introduction of 107.Pa /var 108(and 109.Pa /var/tmp ) 110led to massive confusion 111by program writers so today programs haphazardly use one or the 112other and thus no real distinction can be made between the two. 113So it makes sense to have just one temporary directory. 114However you handle 115.Pa /tmp , 116the one thing you do not want to do is leave it sitting 117on the root partition where it might cause root to fill up or possibly 118corrupt root in a crash/reboot situation. 119.Pp 120The 121.Pa /usr 122partition holds the bulk of the files required to support the system and 123a subdirectory within it called 124.Pa /usr/local 125holds the bulk of the files installed from the 126.Xr ports 7 127hierarchy. 128If you do not use ports all that much and do not intend to keep 129system source 130.Pq Pa /usr/src 131on the machine, you can get away with 132a 1 gigabyte 133.Pa /usr 134partition. 135However, if you install a lot of ports 136(especially window managers and Linux-emulated binaries), we recommend 137at least a 2 gigabyte 138.Pa /usr 139and if you also intend to keep system source 140on the machine, we recommend a 3 gigabyte 141.Pa /usr . 142Do not underestimate the 143amount of space you will need in this partition, it can creep up and 144surprise you! 145.Pp 146The 147.Pa /home 148partition is typically used to hold user-specific data. 149I usually size it to the remainder of the disk. 150.Pp 151Why partition at all? 152Why not create one big 153.Pa / 154partition and be done with it? 155Then I do not have to worry about undersizing things! 156Well, there are several reasons this is not a good idea. 157First, 158each partition has different operational characteristics and separating them 159allows the filesystem to tune itself to those characteristics. 160For example, 161the root and 162.Pa /usr 163partitions are read-mostly, with very little writing, while 164a lot of reading and writing could occur in 165.Pa /var 166and 167.Pa /var/tmp . 168By properly 169partitioning your system fragmentation introduced in the smaller more 170heavily write-loaded partitions will not bleed over into the mostly-read 171partitions. 172Additionally, keeping the write-loaded partitions closer to 173the edge of the disk (i.e. before the really big partitions instead of after 174in the partition table) will increase I/O performance in the partitions 175where you need it the most. 176Now it is true that you might also need I/O 177performance in the larger partitions, but they are so large that shifting 178them more towards the edge of the disk will not lead to a significant 179performance improvement whereas moving 180.Pa /var 181to the edge can have a huge impact. 182Finally, there are safety concerns. 183Having a small neat root partition that 184is essentially read-only gives it a greater chance of surviving a bad crash 185intact. 186.Pp 187Properly partitioning your system also allows you to tune 188.Xr newfs 8 , 189and 190.Xr tunefs 8 191parameters. 192Tuning 193.Xr newfs 8 194requires more experience but can lead to significant improvements in 195performance. 196There are three parameters that are relatively safe to tune: 197.Em blocksize , bytes/i-node , 198and 199.Em cylinders/group . 200.Pp 201.Fx 202performs best when using 8K or 16K filesystem block sizes. 203The default filesystem block size is 16K, 204which provides best performance for most applications, 205with the exception of those that perform random access on large files 206(such as database server software). 207Such applications tend to perform better with a smaller block size, 208although modern disk characteristics are such that the performance 209gain from using a smaller block size may not be worth consideration. 210Using a block size larger than 16K 211can cause fragmentation of the buffer cache and 212lead to lower performance. 213.Pp 214The defaults may be unsuitable 215for a filesystem that requires a very large number of i-nodes 216or is intended to hold a large number of very small files. 217Such a filesystem should be created with an 8K or 4K block size. 218This also requires you to specify a smaller 219fragment size. 220We recommend always using a fragment size that is 1/8 221the block size (less testing has been done on other fragment size factors). 222The 223.Xr newfs 8 224options for this would be 225.Dq Li "newfs -f 1024 -b 8192 ..." . 226.Pp 227If a large partition is intended to be used to hold fewer, larger files, such 228as a database files, you can increase the 229.Em bytes/i-node 230ratio which reduces the number of i-nodes (maximum number of files and 231directories that can be created) for that partition. 232Decreasing the number 233of i-nodes in a filesystem can greatly reduce 234.Xr fsck 8 235recovery times after a crash. 236Do not use this option 237unless you are actually storing large files on the partition, because if you 238overcompensate you can wind up with a filesystem that has lots of free 239space remaining but cannot accommodate any more files. 240Using 32768, 65536, or 262144 bytes/i-node is recommended. 241You can go higher but 242it will have only incremental effects on 243.Xr fsck 8 244recovery times. 245For example, 246.Dq Li "newfs -i 32768 ..." . 247.Pp 248.Xr tunefs 8 249may be used to further tune a filesystem. 250This command can be run in 251single-user mode without having to reformat the filesystem. 252However, this is possibly the most abused program in the system. 253Many people attempt to 254increase available filesystem space by setting the min-free percentage to 0. 255This can lead to severe filesystem fragmentation and we do not recommend 256that you do this. 257Really the only 258.Xr tunefs 8 259option worthwhile here is turning on 260.Em softupdates 261with 262.Dq Li "tunefs -n enable /filesystem" . 263(Note: in 264.Fx 4.5 265and later, softupdates can be turned on using the 266.Fl U 267option to 268.Xr newfs 8 , 269and 270.Xr sysinstall 8 271will typically enable softupdates automatically for non-root filesystems). 272Softupdates drastically improves meta-data performance, mainly file 273creation and deletion. 274We recommend enabling softupdates on most filesystems; however, there 275are two limitations to softupdates that you should be aware of when 276determining whether to use it on a filesystem. 277First, softupdates guarantees filesystem consistency in the 278case of a crash but could very easily be several seconds (even a minute!) 279behind updating the physical disk. 280If you crash you may lose more work 281than otherwise. 282Secondly, softupdates delays the freeing of filesystem 283blocks. 284If you have a filesystem (such as the root filesystem) which is 285close to full, doing a major update of it, e.g.\& 286.Dq Li "make installworld" , 287can run it out of space and cause the update to fail. 288.Pp 289A number of run-time 290.Xr mount 8 291options exist that can help you tune the system. 292For this reason, softupdates will not be enabled on the root file system 293during a typical install. 294The most obvious and most dangerous one is 295.Cm async . 296Do not ever use it, it is far too dangerous. 297A less dangerous and more 298useful 299.Xr mount 8 300option is called 301.Cm noatime . 302.Ux 303filesystems normally update the last-accessed time of a file or 304directory whenever it is accessed. 305This operation is handled in 306.Fx 307with a delayed write and normally does not create a burden on the system. 308However, if your system is accessing a huge number of files on a continuing 309basis the buffer cache can wind up getting polluted with atime updates, 310creating a burden on the system. 311For example, if you are running a heavily 312loaded web site, or a news server with lots of readers, you might want to 313consider turning off atime updates on your larger partitions with this 314.Xr mount 8 315option. 316However, you should not gratuitously turn off atime 317updates everywhere. 318For example, the 319.Pa /var 320filesystem customarily 321holds mailboxes, and atime (in combination with mtime) is used to 322determine whether a mailbox has new mail. 323You might as well leave 324atime turned on for mostly read-only partitions such as 325.Pa / 326and 327.Pa /usr 328as well. 329This is especially useful for 330.Pa / 331since some system utilities 332use the atime field for reporting. 333.Sh STRIPING DISKS 334In larger systems you can stripe partitions from several drives together 335to create a much larger overall partition. 336Striping can also improve 337the performance of a filesystem by splitting I/O operations across two 338or more disks. 339The 340.Xr vinum 8 341and 342.Xr ccdconfig 8 343utilities may be used to create simple striped filesystems. 344Generally 345speaking, striping smaller partitions such as the root and 346.Pa /var/tmp , 347or essentially read-only partitions such as 348.Pa /usr 349is a complete waste of time. 350You should only stripe partitions that require serious I/O performance, 351typically 352.Pa /var , /home , 353or custom partitions used to hold databases and web pages. 354Choosing the proper stripe size is also 355important. 356Filesystems tend to store meta-data on power-of-2 boundaries 357and you usually want to reduce seeking rather than increase seeking. 358This 359means you want to use a large off-center stripe size such as 1152 sectors 360so sequential I/O does not seek both disks and so meta-data is distributed 361across both disks rather than concentrated on a single disk. 362If 363you really need to get sophisticated, we recommend using a real hardware 364RAID controller from the list of 365.Fx 366supported controllers. 367.Sh SYSCTL TUNING 368.Xr sysctl 8 369variables permit system behavior to be monitored and controlled at 370run-time. 371Some sysctls simply report on the behavior of the system; others allow 372the system behavior to be modified; 373some may be set at boot time using 374.Xr rc.conf 5 , 375but most will be set via 376.Xr sysctl.conf 5 . 377There are several hundred sysctls in the system, including many that appear 378to be candidates for tuning but actually are not. 379In this document we will only cover the ones that have the greatest effect 380on the system. 381.Pp 382The 383.Va kern.ipc.shm_use_phys 384sysctl defaults to 0 (off) and may be set to 0 (off) or 1 (on). 385Setting 386this parameter to 1 will cause all System V shared memory segments to be 387mapped to unpageable physical RAM. 388This feature only has an effect if you 389are either (A) mapping small amounts of shared memory across many (hundreds) 390of processes, or (B) mapping large amounts of shared memory across any 391number of processes. 392This feature allows the kernel to remove a great deal 393of internal memory management page-tracking overhead at the cost of wiring 394the shared memory into core, making it unswappable. 395.Pp 396The 397.Va vfs.vmiodirenable 398sysctl defaults to 1 (on). 399This parameter controls how directories are cached 400by the system. 401Most directories are small and use but a single fragment 402(typically 1K) in the filesystem and even less (typically 512 bytes) in 403the buffer cache. 404However, when operating in the default mode the buffer 405cache will only cache a fixed number of directories even if you have a huge 406amount of memory. 407Turning on this sysctl allows the buffer cache to use 408the VM Page Cache to cache the directories. 409The advantage is that all of 410memory is now available for caching directories. 411The disadvantage is that 412the minimum in-core memory used to cache a directory is the physical page 413size (typically 4K) rather than 512 bytes. 414We recommend turning this option off in memory-constrained environments; 415however, when on, it will substantially improve the performance of services 416that manipulate a large number of files. 417Such services can include web caches, large mail systems, and news systems. 418Turning on this option will generally not reduce performance even with the 419wasted memory but you should experiment to find out. 420.Pp 421There are various buffer-cache and VM page cache related sysctls. 422We do not recommend modifying these values. 423As of 424.Fx 4.3 , 425the VM system does an extremely good job tuning itself. 426.Pp 427The 428.Va net.inet.tcp.sendspace 429and 430.Va net.inet.tcp.recvspace 431sysctls are of particular interest if you are running network intensive 432applications. 433This controls the amount of send and receive buffer space 434allowed for any given TCP connection. 435The default sending buffer is 32K; the default receiving buffer 436is 64K. 437You can often 438improve bandwidth utilization by increasing the default at the cost of 439eating up more kernel memory for each connection. 440We do not recommend 441increasing the defaults if you are serving hundreds or thousands of 442simultaneous connections because it is possible to quickly run the system 443out of memory due to stalled connections building up. 444But if you need 445high bandwidth over a fewer number of connections, especially if you have 446gigabit Ethernet, increasing these defaults can make a huge difference. 447You can adjust the buffer size for incoming and outgoing data separately. 448For example, if your machine is primarily doing web serving you may want 449to decrease the recvspace in order to be able to increase the 450sendspace without eating too much kernel memory. 451Note that the routing table (see 452.Xr route 8 ) 453can be used to introduce route-specific send and receive buffer size 454defaults. 455.Pp 456As an additional management tool you can use pipes in your 457firewall rules (see 458.Xr ipfw 8 ) 459to limit the bandwidth going to or from particular IP blocks or ports. 460For example, if you have a T1 you might want to limit your web traffic 461to 70% of the T1's bandwidth in order to leave the remainder available 462for mail and interactive use. 463Normally a heavily loaded web server 464will not introduce significant latencies into other services even if 465the network link is maxed out, but enforcing a limit can smooth things 466out and lead to longer term stability. 467Many people also enforce artificial 468bandwidth limitations in order to ensure that they are not charged for 469using too much bandwidth. 470.Pp 471Setting the send or receive TCP buffer to values larger then 65535 will result 472in a marginal performance improvement unless both hosts support the window 473scaling extension of the TCP protocol, which is controlled by the 474.Va net.inet.tcp.rfc1323 475sysctl. 476These extensions should be enabled and the TCP buffer size should be set 477to a value larger than 65536 in order to obtain good performance out of 478certain types of network links; specifically, gigabit WAN links and 479high-latency satellite links. 480RFC1323 support is enabled by default. 481.Pp 482The 483.Va net.inet.tcp.always_keepalive 484sysctl determines whether or not the TCP implementation should attempt 485to detect dead TCP connections by intermittently delivering 486.Dq keepalives 487on the connection. 488By default, this is enabled for all applications; by setting this 489sysctl to 0, only applications that specifically request keepalives 490will use them. 491In most environments, TCP keepalives will improve the management of 492system state by expiring dead TCP connections, particularly for 493systems serving dialup users who may not always terminate individual 494TCP connections before disconnecting from the network. 495However, in some environments, temporary network outages may be 496incorrectly identified as dead sessions, resulting in unexpectedly 497terminated TCP connections. 498In such environments, setting the sysctl to 0 may reduce the occurrence of 499TCP session disconnections. 500.Pp 501The 502.Va kern.ipc.somaxconn 503sysctl limits the size of the listen queue for accepting new TCP connections. 504The default value of 128 is typically too low for robust handling of new 505connections in a heavily loaded web server environment. 506For such environments, 507we recommend increasing this value to 1024 or higher. 508The service daemon 509may itself limit the listen queue size (e.g.\& 510.Xr sendmail 8 , 511apache) but will 512often have a directive in its configuration file to adjust the queue size up. 513Larger listen queues also do a better job of fending off denial of service 514attacks. 515.Pp 516The 517.Va kern.maxfiles 518sysctl determines how many open files the system supports. 519The default is 520typically a few thousand but you may need to bump this up to ten or twenty 521thousand if you are running databases or large descriptor-heavy daemons. 522The read-only 523.Va kern.openfiles 524sysctl may be interrogated to determine the current number of open files 525on the system. 526.Pp 527The 528.Va vm.swap_idle_enabled 529sysctl is useful in large multi-user systems where you have lots of users 530entering and leaving the system and lots of idle processes. 531Such systems 532tend to generate a great deal of continuous pressure on free memory reserves. 533Turning this feature on and adjusting the swapout hysteresis (in idle 534seconds) via 535.Va vm.swap_idle_threshold1 536and 537.Va vm.swap_idle_threshold2 538allows you to depress the priority of pages associated with idle processes 539more quickly then the normal pageout algorithm. 540This gives a helping hand 541to the pageout daemon. 542Do not turn this option on unless you need it, 543because the tradeoff you are making is to essentially pre-page memory sooner 544rather then later, eating more swap and disk bandwidth. 545In a small system 546this option will have a detrimental effect but in a large system that is 547already doing moderate paging this option allows the VM system to stage 548whole processes into and out of memory more easily. 549.Sh LOADER TUNABLES 550Some aspects of the system behavior may not be tunable at runtime because 551memory allocations they perform must occur early in the boot process. 552To change loader tunables, you must set their values in 553.Xr loader.conf 5 554and reboot the system. 555.Pp 556.Va kern.maxusers 557controls the scaling of a number of static system tables, including defaults 558for the maximum number of open files, sizing of network memory resources, etc. 559As of 560.Fx 4.5 , 561.Va kern.maxusers 562is automatically sized at boot based on the amount of memory available in 563the system, and may be determined at run-time by inspecting the value of the 564read-only 565.Va kern.maxusers 566sysctl. 567Some sites will require larger or smaller values of 568.Va kern.maxusers 569and may set it as a loader tunable; values of 64, 128, and 256 are not 570uncommon. 571We do not recommend going above 256 unless you need a huge number 572of file descriptors; many of the tunable values set to their defaults by 573.Va kern.maxusers 574may be individually overridden at boot-time or run-time as described 575elsewhere in this document. 576Systems older than 577.Fx 4.4 578must set this value via the kernel 579.Xr config 8 580option 581.Cd maxusers 582instead. 583.Pp 584.Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters 585may be adjusted to increase the number of network mbufs the system is 586willing to allocate. 587Each cluster represents approximately 2K of memory, 588so a value of 1024 represents 2M of kernel memory reserved for network 589buffers. 590You can do a simple calculation to figure out how many you need. 591If you have a web server which maxes out at 1000 simultaneous connections, 592and each connection eats a 16K receive and 16K send buffer, you need 593approximate 32MB worth of network buffers to deal with it. 594A good rule of 595thumb is to multiply by 2, so 32MBx2 = 64MB/2K = 32768. 596So for this case 597you would want to set 598.Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters 599to 32768. 600We recommend values between 6011024 and 4096 for machines with moderates amount of memory, and between 4096 602and 32768 for machines with greater amounts of memory. 603Under no circumstances 604should you specify an arbitrarily high value for this parameter, it could 605lead to a boot-time crash. 606The 607.Fl m 608option to 609.Xr netstat 1 610may be used to observe network cluster use. 611Older versions of 612.Fx 613do not have this tunable and require that the 614kernel 615.Xr config 8 616option 617.Dv NMBCLUSTERS 618be set instead. 619.Pp 620More and more programs are using the 621.Xr sendfile 2 622system call to transmit files over the network. 623The 624.Va kern.ipc.nsfbufs 625sysctl controls the number of filesystem buffers 626.Xr sendfile 2 627is allowed to use to perform its work. 628This parameter nominally scales 629with 630.Va kern.maxusers 631so you should not need to modify this parameter except under extreme 632circumstances. 633.Sh KERNEL CONFIG TUNING 634There are a number of kernel options that you may have to fiddle with in 635a large scale system. 636In order to change these options you need to be 637able to compile a new kernel from source. 638The 639.Xr config 8 640manual page and the handbook are good starting points for learning how to 641do this. 642Generally the first thing you do when creating your own custom 643kernel is to strip out all the drivers and services you do not use. 644Removing things like 645.Dv INET6 646and drivers you do not have will reduce the size of your kernel, sometimes 647by a megabyte or more, leaving more memory available for applications. 648.Pp 649.Dv SCSI_DELAY 650and 651.Dv IDE_DELAY 652may be used to reduce system boot times. 653The defaults are fairly high and 654can be responsible for 15+ seconds of delay in the boot process. 655Reducing 656.Dv SCSI_DELAY 657to 5 seconds usually works (especially with modern drives). 658Reducing 659.Dv IDE_DELAY 660also works but you have to be a little more careful. 661.Pp 662There are a number of 663.Dv *_CPU 664options that can be commented out. 665If you only want the kernel to run 666on a Pentium class CPU, you can easily remove 667.Dv I386_CPU 668and 669.Dv I486_CPU , 670but only remove 671.Dv I586_CPU 672if you are sure your CPU is being recognized as a Pentium II or better. 673Some clones may be recognized as a Pentium or even a 486 and not be able 674to boot without those options. 675If it works, great! 676The operating system 677will be able to better-use higher-end CPU features for MMU, task switching, 678timebase, and even device operations. 679Additionally, higher-end CPUs support 6804MB MMU pages which the kernel uses to map the kernel itself into memory, 681which increases its efficiency under heavy syscall loads. 682.Sh IDE WRITE CACHING 683.Fx 4.3 684flirted with turning off IDE write caching. 685This reduced write bandwidth 686to IDE disks but was considered necessary due to serious data consistency 687issues introduced by hard drive vendors. 688Basically the problem is that 689IDE drives lie about when a write completes. 690With IDE write caching turned 691on, IDE hard drives will not only write data to disk out of order, they 692will sometimes delay some of the blocks indefinitely when under heavy disk 693loads. 694A crash or power failure can result in serious filesystem 695corruption. 696So our default was changed to be safe. 697Unfortunately, the 698result was such a huge loss in performance that we caved in and changed the 699default back to on after the release. 700You should check the default on 701your system by observing the 702.Va hw.ata.wc 703sysctl variable. 704If IDE write caching is turned off, you can turn it back 705on by setting the 706.Va hw.ata.wc 707loader tunable to 1. 708More information on tuning the ATA driver system may be found in 709.Xr ata 4 . 710.Pp 711There is a new experimental feature for IDE hard drives called 712.Va hw.ata.tags 713(you also set this in the boot loader) which allows write caching to be safely 714turned on. 715This brings SCSI tagging features to IDE drives. 716As of this 717writing only IBM DPTA and DTLA drives support the feature. 718Warning! 719These 720drives apparently have quality control problems and I do not recommend 721purchasing them at this time. 722If you need performance, go with SCSI. 723.Sh CPU, MEMORY, DISK, NETWORK 724The type of tuning you do depends heavily on where your system begins to 725bottleneck as load increases. 726If your system runs out of CPU (idle times 727are perpetually 0%) then you need to consider upgrading the CPU or moving to 728an SMP motherboard (multiple CPU's), or perhaps you need to revisit the 729programs that are causing the load and try to optimize them. 730If your system 731is paging to swap a lot you need to consider adding more memory. 732If your 733system is saturating the disk you typically see high CPU idle times and 734total disk saturation. 735.Xr systat 1 736can be used to monitor this. 737There are many solutions to saturated disks: 738increasing memory for caching, mirroring disks, distributing operations across 739several machines, and so forth. 740If disk performance is an issue and you 741are using IDE drives, switching to SCSI can help a great deal. 742While modern 743IDE drives compare with SCSI in raw sequential bandwidth, the moment you 744start seeking around the disk SCSI drives usually win. 745.Pp 746Finally, you might run out of network suds. 747The first line of defense for 748improving network performance is to make sure you are using switches instead 749of hubs, especially these days where switches are almost as cheap. 750Hubs 751have severe problems under heavy loads due to collision backoff and one bad 752host can severely degrade the entire LAN. 753Second, optimize the network path 754as much as possible. 755For example, in 756.Xr firewall 7 757we describe a firewall protecting internal hosts with a topology where 758the externally visible hosts are not routed through it. 759Use 100BaseT rather 760than 10BaseT, or use 1000BaseT rather then 100BaseT, depending on your needs. 761Most bottlenecks occur at the WAN link (e.g.\& 762modem, T1, DSL, whatever). 763If expanding the link is not an option it may be possible to use 764.Xr dummynet 4 765feature to implement peak shaving or other forms of traffic shaping to 766prevent the overloaded service (such as web services) from affecting other 767services (such as email), or vice versa. 768In home installations this could 769be used to give interactive traffic (your browser, 770.Xr ssh 1 771logins) priority 772over services you export from your box (web services, email). 773.Sh SEE ALSO 774.Xr netstat 1 , 775.Xr systat 1 , 776.Xr ata 4 , 777.Xr dummynet 4 , 778.Xr login.conf 5 , 779.Xr rc.conf 5 , 780.Xr sysctl.conf 5 , 781.Xr firewall 7 , 782.Xr hier 7 , 783.Xr ports 7 , 784.Xr boot 8 , 785.Xr ccdconfig 8 , 786.Xr config 8 , 787.Xr disklabel 8 , 788.Xr fsck 8 , 789.Xr ifconfig 8 , 790.Xr ipfw 8 , 791.Xr loader 8 , 792.Xr mount 8 , 793.Xr newfs 8 , 794.Xr route 8 , 795.Xr sysctl 8 , 796.Xr sysinstall 8 , 797.Xr tunefs 8 , 798.Xr vinum 8 799.Sh HISTORY 800The 801.Nm 802manual page was originally written by 803.An Matthew Dillon 804and first appeared 805in 806.Fx 4.3 , 807May 2001. 808