When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server. SuSE 8.2. PIV server with 1024Mb and 40Gb IDE. 18 off PII 450 clients. 3 daisy chained switches. Any bottlneck help much appreciated. Steve.
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports) HTH
SuSE 8.2. PIV server with 1024Mb and 40Gb IDE. 18 off PII 450 clients. 3 daisy chained switches.
Any bottlneck help much appreciated. Steve.
-- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:45, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports)
Yeah. That's what I thought. Each user has over 1000+ files before they have done any work under kde. All these have to be pulled in from the server I expect. Will try the async tomorrow. BTW we moved from ext3 to reiser over the summer. I wish I'd never done that.
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:16 pm, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:45, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports)
Yeah. That's what I thought. Each user has over 1000+ files before they have done any work under kde. All these have to be pulled in from the server I expect.
Well, only the directory info for each unless a file is opened.
Will try the async tomorrow. BTW we moved from ext3 to reiser over the summer. I wish I'd never done that.
In my experience that is a Bad Move when it comes to NFS Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 20:50, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:16 pm, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:45, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports)
Yeah. That's what I thought. Each user has over 1000+ files before they have done any work under kde. All these have to be pulled in from the server I expect.
Well, only the directory info for each unless a file is opened.
Will try the async tomorrow. BTW we moved from ext3 to reiser over the summer. I wish I'd never done that.
In my experience that is a Bad Move when it comes to NFS
Do you mean the asnyc or the reiser. I think you mean the latter..I'm stuck with it until our next downtime at Xmas. Anything else I might try? I've been toying with the idea of losing the daisy-chain switches and putting up a nic for each switch instead. Would each nic on the server have the same IP? May this improve the NFS throughput? Steve.
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 14:56, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 20:50, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:16 pm, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:45, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports)
Yeah. That's what I thought. Each user has over 1000+ files before they have done any work under kde. All these have to be pulled in from the server I expect.
Well, only the directory info for each unless a file is opened.
Will try the async tomorrow. BTW we moved from ext3 to reiser over the summer. I wish I'd never done that.
In my experience that is a Bad Move when it comes to NFS
Do you mean the asnyc or the reiser. I think you mean the latter..I'm stuck with it until our next downtime at Xmas. Anything else I might try? I've been toying with the idea of losing the daisy-chain switches and putting up a nic
The ideal setup with switches is to have one as the "master" that the other switches and servers plug into. This should also be the best switch that you can afford.
for each switch instead. Would each nic on the server have the same IP? May this improve the NFS throughput? Steve.
-- Ken Schneider unix user since 1989 linux user since 1994 SuSE user since 1998
The ideal setup with switches is to have one as the "master" that the other switches and servers plug into. This should also be the best switch that you can afford.
Do you mean that the master switch *only* has the server and the connections to our three other switches? Or can that switch have some clients plugged into it too?
Steve, fsanta wrote:
Do you mean that the master switch *only* has the server and the connections to our three other switches? Or can that switch have some clients plugged into it too?
It can have clients too - probably your heaviest users. Sounds like the switch back to ext3 at Christmas will have more of an effect though. Damian
On Thursday 25 September 2003 08:21, Damian O'Hara wrote:
Steve,
fsanta wrote:
Do you mean that the master switch *only* has the server and the connections to our three other switches? Or can that switch have some clients plugged into it too?
It can have clients too - probably your heaviest users. Sounds like the switch back to ext3 at Christmas will have more of an effect though.
Damian
Free beer and pizza to anyone who would like to get involved in reformatting and reloading 20 boxes ext3. Xmas 2003. I wish I had never listened to the reiser mob. Steve.
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 05:01 pm, fsanta wrote:
Free beer and pizza to anyone who would like to get involved in reformatting and reloading 20 boxes ext3. Xmas 2003. I wish I had never listened to the reiser mob.
As long as they are similar hardware cloneboot will do it for you. Pause during booting, re-partition, re-mkfs and copy the old system across. Then it comes up, all in one reboot. -- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166
-----Original Message-----
From: fsanta
The ideal setup with switches is to have one as the "master" that the other switches and servers plug into. This should also be the best switch that you can afford.
Do you mean that the master switch *only* has the server and the connections to our three other switches? Or can that switch have some clients plugged into it too?
Yes it can. Ken
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:56 pm, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 20:50, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:16 pm, fsanta wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 19:45, Dylan wrote:
On Wednesday 24 September 2003 18:13 pm, fsanta wrote:
When a user logs on they request a mount from the server. Where is that mount? Is it physically copied to the client or are bits of it it NFS'd from the server each time he does something with it or is there a link to it on his machine. . .? We've been getting some very slow progress just recently, with open office under kde and especially as the file count grows on the server.
The files are 'NFS'd' to the client as demanded - effectively. NFS can get very slow if the directories have very high file counts (at least, I've notices the same effect on directories will 1000+ files.) It may also depend on the filesystem you are exporting. You could try using the async export option (see man exports)
Yeah. That's what I thought. Each user has over 1000+ files before they have done any work under kde. All these have to be pulled in from the server I expect.
Well, only the directory info for each unless a file is opened.
Will try the async tomorrow. BTW we moved from ext3 to reiser over the summer. I wish I'd never done that.
In my experience that is a Bad Move when it comes to NFS
Do you mean the asnyc or the reiser. I think you mean the latter..I'm stuck with it until our next downtime at Xmas.
I mean the Reiser - all the 'issues' are supposed to be dealt with, but when I wan using Reiser and nfs (both from 8.2) I had endless trouble with speen and failed mounts which simply vanished when I went to ext3.
Anything else I might try? I've been toying with the idea of losing the daisy-chain switches and putting up a nic for each switch instead. Would each nic on the server have the same IP?
No, in fact each would have to be on a separate subnet as well as a separate IP, unless you did some nifty routing setup.
May this improve the NFS throughput?
Quite possibly - since the network layer would be able to handle (theoretically) four times the traffic (having four connections to use). The nfs server itself would only run at the same rate. Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg
participants (5)
-
Damian O'Hara -
Dylan -
fsanta -
Ken Schneider -
Michael.James＠csiro.au