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 2654.5 266and later, softupdates can be turned on using the 267.Fl U 268option to 269.Xr newfs 8 , 270and 271.Xr sysinstall 8 272will typically enable softupdates automatically for non-root filesystems). 273Softupdates drastically improves meta-data performance, mainly file 274creation and deletion. 275We recommend enabling softupdates on most filesystems; however, there 276are two limitations to softupdates that you should be aware of when 277determining whether to use it on a filesystem. 278First, softupdates guarantees filesystem consistency in the 279case of a crash but could very easily be several seconds (even a minute!) 280behind updating the physical disk. 281If you crash you may lose more work 282than otherwise. 283Secondly, softupdates delays the freeing of filesystem 284blocks. 285If you have a filesystem (such as the root filesystem) which is 286close to full, doing a major update of it, e.g.\& 287.Dq Li "make installworld" , 288can run it out of space and cause the update to fail. 289.Pp 290A number of run-time 291.Xr mount 8 292options exist that can help you tune the system. 293For this reason, softupdates will not be enabled on the root file system 294during a typical install. 295The most obvious and most dangerous one is 296.Cm async . 297Do not ever use it, it is far too dangerous. 298A less dangerous and more 299useful 300.Xr mount 8 301option is called 302.Cm noatime . 303.Ux 304filesystems normally update the last-accessed time of a file or 305directory whenever it is accessed. 306This operation is handled in 307.Fx 308with a delayed write and normally does not create a burden on the system. 309However, if your system is accessing a huge number of files on a continuing 310basis the buffer cache can wind up getting polluted with atime updates, 311creating a burden on the system. 312For example, if you are running a heavily 313loaded web site, or a news server with lots of readers, you might want to 314consider turning off atime updates on your larger partitions with this 315.Xr mount 8 316option. 317However, you should not gratuitously turn off atime 318updates everywhere. 319For example, the 320.Pa /var 321filesystem customarily 322holds mailboxes, and atime (in combination with mtime) is used to 323determine whether a mailbox has new mail. 324You might as well leave 325atime turned on for mostly read-only partitions such as 326.Pa / 327and 328.Pa /usr 329as well. 330This is especially useful for 331.Pa / 332since some system utilities 333use the atime field for reporting. 334.Sh STRIPING DISKS 335In larger systems you can stripe partitions from several drives together 336to create a much larger overall partition. 337Striping can also improve 338the performance of a filesystem by splitting I/O operations across two 339or more disks. 340The 341.Xr vinum 8 342and 343.Xr ccdconfig 8 344utilities may be used to create simple striped filesystems. 345Generally 346speaking, striping smaller partitions such as the root and 347.Pa /var/tmp , 348or essentially read-only partitions such as 349.Pa /usr 350is a complete waste of time. 351You should only stripe partitions that require serious I/O performance, 352typically 353.Pa /var , /home , 354or custom partitions used to hold databases and web pages. 355Choosing the proper stripe size is also 356important. 357Filesystems tend to store meta-data on power-of-2 boundaries 358and you usually want to reduce seeking rather than increase seeking. 359This 360means you want to use a large off-center stripe size such as 1152 sectors 361so sequential I/O does not seek both disks and so meta-data is distributed 362across both disks rather than concentrated on a single disk. 363If 364you really need to get sophisticated, we recommend using a real hardware 365RAID controller from the list of 366.Fx 367supported controllers. 368.Sh SYSCTL TUNING 369.Xr sysctl 8 370variables permit system behavior to be monitored and controlled at 371run-time. 372Some sysctls simply report on the behavior of the system; others allow 373the system behavior to be modified; 374some may be set at boot time using 375.Xr rc.conf 5 , 376but most will be set via 377.Xr sysctl.conf 5 . 378There are several hundred sysctls in the system, including many that appear 379to be candidates for tuning but actually are not. 380In this document we will only cover the ones that have the greatest effect 381on the system. 382.Pp 383The 384.Va kern.ipc.shm_use_phys 385sysctl defaults to 0 (off) and may be set to 0 (off) or 1 (on). 386Setting 387this parameter to 1 will cause all System V shared memory segments to be 388mapped to unpageable physical RAM. 389This feature only has an effect if you 390are either (A) mapping small amounts of shared memory across many (hundreds) 391of processes, or (B) mapping large amounts of shared memory across any 392number of processes. 393This feature allows the kernel to remove a great deal 394of internal memory management page-tracking overhead at the cost of wiring 395the shared memory into core, making it unswappable. 396.Pp 397The 398.Va vfs.vmiodirenable 399sysctl defaults to 1 (on). 400This parameter controls how directories are cached 401by the system. 402Most directories are small and use but a single fragment 403(typically 1K) in the filesystem and even less (typically 512 bytes) in 404the buffer cache. 405However, when operating in the default mode the buffer 406cache will only cache a fixed number of directories even if you have a huge 407amount of memory. 408Turning on this sysctl allows the buffer cache to use 409the VM Page Cache to cache the directories. 410The advantage is that all of 411memory is now available for caching directories. 412The disadvantage is that 413the minimum in-core memory used to cache a directory is the physical page 414size (typically 4K) rather than 512 bytes. 415We recommend turning this option off in memory-constrained environments; 416however, when on, it will substantially improve the performance of services 417that manipulate a large number of files. 418Such services can include web caches, large mail systems, and news systems. 419Turning on this option will generally not reduce performance even with the 420wasted memory but you should experiment to find out. 421.Pp 422There are various buffer-cache and VM page cache related sysctls. 423We do not recommend modifying these values. 424As of 425.Fx 4.3 , 426the VM system does an extremely good job tuning itself. 427.Pp 428The 429.Va net.inet.tcp.sendspace 430and 431.Va net.inet.tcp.recvspace 432sysctls are of particular interest if you are running network intensive 433applications. 434This controls the amount of send and receive buffer space 435allowed for any given TCP connection. 436The default sending buffer is 32K; the default receiving buffer 437is 64K. 438You can often 439improve bandwidth utilization by increasing the default at the cost of 440eating up more kernel memory for each connection. 441We do not recommend 442increasing the defaults if you are serving hundreds or thousands of 443simultaneous connections because it is possible to quickly run the system 444out of memory due to stalled connections building up. 445But if you need 446high bandwidth over a fewer number of connections, especially if you have 447gigabit Ethernet, increasing these defaults can make a huge difference. 448You can adjust the buffer size for incoming and outgoing data separately. 449For example, if your machine is primarily doing web serving you may want 450to decrease the recvspace in order to be able to increase the 451sendspace without eating too much kernel memory. 452Note that the routing table (see 453.Xr route 8 ) 454can be used to introduce route-specific send and receive buffer size 455defaults. 456.Pp 457As an additional management tool you can use pipes in your 458firewall rules (see 459.Xr ipfw 8 ) 460to limit the bandwidth going to or from particular IP blocks or ports. 461For example, if you have a T1 you might want to limit your web traffic 462to 70% of the T1's bandwidth in order to leave the remainder available 463for mail and interactive use. 464Normally a heavily loaded web server 465will not introduce significant latencies into other services even if 466the network link is maxed out, but enforcing a limit can smooth things 467out and lead to longer term stability. 468Many people also enforce artificial 469bandwidth limitations in order to ensure that they are not charged for 470using too much bandwidth. 471.Pp 472Setting the send or receive TCP buffer to values larger then 65535 will result 473in a marginal performance improvement unless both hosts support the window 474scaling extension of the TCP protocol, which is controlled by the 475.Va net.inet.tcp.rfc1323 476sysctl. 477These extensions should be enabled and the TCP buffer size should be set 478to a value larger than 65536 in order to obtain good performance out of 479certain types of network links; specifically, gigabit WAN links and 480high-latency satellite links. 481RFC1323 support is enabled by default. 482.Pp 483The 484.Va net.inet.tcp.always_keepalive 485sysctl determines whether or not the TCP implementation should attempt 486to detect dead TCP connections by intermittently delivering 487.Dq keepalives 488on the connection. 489By default, this is enabled for all applications; by setting this 490sysctl to 0, only applications that specifically request keepalives 491will use them. 492In most environments, TCP keepalives will improve the management of 493system state by expiring dead TCP connections, particularly for 494systems serving dialup users who may not always terminate individual 495TCP connections before disconnecting from the network. 496However, in some environments, temporary network outages may be 497incorrectly identified as dead sessions, resulting in unexpectedly 498terminated TCP connections. 499In such environments, setting the sysctl to 0 may reduce the occurrence of 500TCP session disconnections. 501.Pp 502The 503.Va kern.ipc.somaxconn 504sysctl limits the size of the listen queue for accepting new TCP connections. 505The default value of 128 is typically too low for robust handling of new 506connections in a heavily loaded web server environment. 507For such environments, 508we recommend increasing this value to 1024 or higher. 509The service daemon 510may itself limit the listen queue size (e.g.\& 511.Xr sendmail 8 , 512apache) but will 513often have a directive in its configuration file to adjust the queue size up. 514Larger listen queues also do a better job of fending off denial of service 515attacks. 516.Pp 517The 518.Va kern.maxfiles 519sysctl determines how many open files the system supports. 520The default is 521typically a few thousand but you may need to bump this up to ten or twenty 522thousand if you are running databases or large descriptor-heavy daemons. 523The read-only 524.Va kern.openfiles 525sysctl may be interrogated to determine the current number of open files 526on the system. 527.Pp 528The 529.Va vm.swap_idle_enabled 530sysctl is useful in large multi-user systems where you have lots of users 531entering and leaving the system and lots of idle processes. 532Such systems 533tend to generate a great deal of continuous pressure on free memory reserves. 534Turning this feature on and adjusting the swapout hysteresis (in idle 535seconds) via 536.Va vm.swap_idle_threshold1 537and 538.Va vm.swap_idle_threshold2 539allows you to depress the priority of pages associated with idle processes 540more quickly then the normal pageout algorithm. 541This gives a helping hand 542to the pageout daemon. 543Do not turn this option on unless you need it, 544because the tradeoff you are making is to essentially pre-page memory sooner 545rather then later, eating more swap and disk bandwidth. 546In a small system 547this option will have a detrimental effect but in a large system that is 548already doing moderate paging this option allows the VM system to stage 549whole processes into and out of memory more easily. 550.Sh LOADER TUNABLES 551Some aspects of the system behavior may not be tunable at runtime because 552memory allocations they perform must occur early in the boot process. 553To change loader tunables, you must set their values in 554.Xr loader.conf 5 555and reboot the system. 556.Pp 557.Va kern.maxusers 558controls the scaling of a number of static system tables, including defaults 559for the maximum number of open files, sizing of network memory resources, etc. 560As of 561.Fx 4.5 , 562.Va kern.maxusers 563is automatically sized at boot based on the amount of memory available in 564the system, and may be determined at run-time by inspecting the value of the 565read-only 566.Va kern.maxusers 567sysctl. 568Some sites will require larger or smaller values of 569.Va kern.maxusers 570and may set it as a loader tunable; values of 64, 128, and 256 are not 571uncommon. 572We do not recommend going above 256 unless you need a huge number 573of file descriptors; many of the tunable values set to their defaults by 574.Va kern.maxusers 575may be individually overridden at boot-time or run-time as described 576elsewhere in this document. 577Systems older than 578.Fx 4.4 579must set this value via the kernel 580.Xr config 8 581option 582.Cd maxusers 583instead. 584.Pp 585.Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters 586may be adjusted to increase the number of network mbufs the system is 587willing to allocate. 588Each cluster represents approximately 2K of memory, 589so a value of 1024 represents 2M of kernel memory reserved for network 590buffers. 591You can do a simple calculation to figure out how many you need. 592If you have a web server which maxes out at 1000 simultaneous connections, 593and each connection eats a 16K receive and 16K send buffer, you need 594approximate 32MB worth of network buffers to deal with it. 595A good rule of 596thumb is to multiply by 2, so 32MBx2 = 64MB/2K = 32768. 597So for this case 598you would want to set 599.Va kern.ipc.nmbclusters 600to 32768. 601We recommend values between 6021024 and 4096 for machines with moderates amount of memory, and between 4096 603and 32768 for machines with greater amounts of memory. 604Under no circumstances 605should you specify an arbitrarily high value for this parameter, it could 606lead to a boot-time crash. 607The 608.Fl m 609option to 610.Xr netstat 1 611may be used to observe network cluster use. 612Older versions of 613.Fx 614do not have this tunable and require that the 615kernel 616.Xr config 8 617option 618.Dv NMBCLUSTERS 619be set instead. 620.Pp 621More and more programs are using the 622.Xr sendfile 2 623system call to transmit files over the network. 624The 625.Va kern.ipc.nsfbufs 626sysctl controls the number of filesystem buffers 627.Xr sendfile 2 628is allowed to use to perform its work. 629This parameter nominally scales 630with 631.Va kern.maxusers 632so you should not need to modify this parameter except under extreme 633circumstances. 634.Sh KERNEL CONFIG TUNING 635There are a number of kernel options that you may have to fiddle with in 636a large scale system. 637In order to change these options you need to be 638able to compile a new kernel from source. 639The 640.Xr config 8 641manual page and the handbook are good starting points for learning how to 642do this. 643Generally the first thing you do when creating your own custom 644kernel is to strip out all the drivers and services you do not use. 645Removing things like 646.Dv INET6 647and drivers you do not have will reduce the size of your kernel, sometimes 648by a megabyte or more, leaving more memory available for applications. 649.Pp 650.Dv SCSI_DELAY 651and 652.Dv IDE_DELAY 653may be used to reduce system boot times. 654The defaults are fairly high and 655can be responsible for 15+ seconds of delay in the boot process. 656Reducing 657.Dv SCSI_DELAY 658to 5 seconds usually works (especially with modern drives). 659Reducing 660.Dv IDE_DELAY 661also works but you have to be a little more careful. 662.Pp 663There are a number of 664.Dv *_CPU 665options that can be commented out. 666If you only want the kernel to run 667on a Pentium class CPU, you can easily remove 668.Dv I386_CPU 669and 670.Dv I486_CPU , 671but only remove 672.Dv I586_CPU 673if you are sure your CPU is being recognized as a Pentium II or better. 674Some clones may be recognized as a Pentium or even a 486 and not be able 675to boot without those options. 676If it works, great! 677The operating system 678will be able to better-use higher-end CPU features for MMU, task switching, 679timebase, and even device operations. 680Additionally, higher-end CPUs support 6814MB MMU pages which the kernel uses to map the kernel itself into memory, 682which increases its efficiency under heavy syscall loads. 683.Sh IDE WRITE CACHING 684.Fx 4.3 685flirted with turning off IDE write caching. 686This reduced write bandwidth 687to IDE disks but was considered necessary due to serious data consistency 688issues introduced by hard drive vendors. 689Basically the problem is that 690IDE drives lie about when a write completes. 691With IDE write caching turned 692on, IDE hard drives will not only write data to disk out of order, they 693will sometimes delay some of the blocks indefinitely when under heavy disk 694loads. 695A crash or power failure can result in serious filesystem 696corruption. 697So our default was changed to be safe. 698Unfortunately, the 699result was such a huge loss in performance that we caved in and changed the 700default back to on after the release. 701You should check the default on 702your system by observing the 703.Va hw.ata.wc 704sysctl variable. 705If IDE write caching is turned off, you can turn it back 706on by setting the 707.Va hw.ata.wc 708loader tunable to 1. 709More information on tuning the ATA driver system may be found in 710.Xr ata 4 . 711.Pp 712There is a new experimental feature for IDE hard drives called 713.Va hw.ata.tags 714(you also set this in the boot loader) which allows write caching to be safely 715turned on. 716This brings SCSI tagging features to IDE drives. 717As of this 718writing only IBM DPTA and DTLA drives support the feature. 719Warning! 720These 721drives apparently have quality control problems and I do not recommend 722purchasing them at this time. 723If you need performance, go with SCSI. 724.Sh CPU, MEMORY, DISK, NETWORK 725The type of tuning you do depends heavily on where your system begins to 726bottleneck as load increases. 727If your system runs out of CPU (idle times 728are perpetually 0%) then you need to consider upgrading the CPU or moving to 729an SMP motherboard (multiple CPU's), or perhaps you need to revisit the 730programs that are causing the load and try to optimize them. 731If your system 732is paging to swap a lot you need to consider adding more memory. 733If your 734system is saturating the disk you typically see high CPU idle times and 735total disk saturation. 736.Xr systat 1 737can be used to monitor this. 738There are many solutions to saturated disks: 739increasing memory for caching, mirroring disks, distributing operations across 740several machines, and so forth. 741If disk performance is an issue and you 742are using IDE drives, switching to SCSI can help a great deal. 743While modern 744IDE drives compare with SCSI in raw sequential bandwidth, the moment you 745start seeking around the disk SCSI drives usually win. 746.Pp 747Finally, you might run out of network suds. 748The first line of defense for 749improving network performance is to make sure you are using switches instead 750of hubs, especially these days where switches are almost as cheap. 751Hubs 752have severe problems under heavy loads due to collision backoff and one bad 753host can severely degrade the entire LAN. 754Second, optimize the network path 755as much as possible. 756For example, in 757.Xr firewall 7 758we describe a firewall protecting internal hosts with a topology where 759the externally visible hosts are not routed through it. 760Use 100BaseT rather 761than 10BaseT, or use 1000BaseT rather then 100BaseT, depending on your needs. 762Most bottlenecks occur at the WAN link (e.g.\& 763modem, T1, DSL, whatever). 764If expanding the link is not an option it may be possible to use 765.Xr dummynet 4 766feature to implement peak shaving or other forms of traffic shaping to 767prevent the overloaded service (such as web services) from affecting other 768services (such as email), or vice versa. 769In home installations this could 770be used to give interactive traffic (your browser, 771.Xr ssh 1 772logins) priority 773over services you export from your box (web services, email). 774.Sh SEE ALSO 775.Xr netstat 1 , 776.Xr systat 1 , 777.Xr ata 4 , 778.Xr dummynet 4 , 779.Xr login.conf 5 , 780.Xr rc.conf 5 , 781.Xr sysctl.conf 5 , 782.Xr firewall 7 , 783.Xr hier 7 , 784.Xr ports 7 , 785.Xr boot 8 , 786.Xr ccdconfig 8 , 787.Xr config 8 , 788.Xr disklabel 8 , 789.Xr fsck 8 , 790.Xr ifconfig 8 , 791.Xr ipfw 8 , 792.Xr loader 8 , 793.Xr mount 8 , 794.Xr newfs 8 , 795.Xr route 8 , 796.Xr sysctl 8 , 797.Xr sysinstall 8 , 798.Xr tunefs 8 , 799.Xr vinum 8 800.Sh HISTORY 801The 802.Nm 803manual page was originally written by 804.An Matthew Dillon 805and first appeared 806in 807.Fx 4.3 , 808May 2001. 809