Call Netapp tech support, and ask for a kernel for your box with the directory prefetch fixes, and try it out. I think it has a -D8 suffix.

That seems to help.

On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Chris Caputo wrote:

Hi. Yes, it is news. When you say "different kernel" do you mean on the client unix box or the NetApp? Any details?

The problem does not happen when the news server (inn) is just processing the incoming news flow. When it starts handling many readers, then the problem kicks in and gets worse the more busy it is.

Thanks, Chris

On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Jaye Mathisen wrote:

...

You don't mention what application you're using on the toaster, but if it's news, you may need a different kernel.

On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, Chris Caputo wrote:

...

I just the sent the following to support@netapp, but was also curious if anyone here had any insight.

Is everyone on 4.1d happy?

Chris

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 11:47:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Caputo ccaputo@alt.net To: support@netapp.com

Hi. We constantly (several times a minute) get the following and I have a feeling (because the drive lights go dark) it is affecting the performance of our NetApp box. At some point discussion on the toasters mailing list made me think that this was something that was going to be fixed after 4.0.1c, which is what we are running.

Can you let us know if this is fixed in 4.1d? Should we upgrade regardless?

Thanks, Chris Caputo President, Altopia Corporation

PS: Here are the messages - they happen all of the time...

Sep 18 11:43:51 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:43:52 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:43:55 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:43:56 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:43:57 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:43:57 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:43:59 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:43:59 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:03 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:04 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:07 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:07 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:08 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:08 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:09 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:09 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:11 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:12 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:14 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:14 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:21 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:21 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:25 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:25 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:26 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:26 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:32 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:33 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:36 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:36 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:36 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:37 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:39 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:39 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:40 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:40 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:42 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:42 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:43 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:44 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:44 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:45 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:49 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:49 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:51 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:51 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:44:56 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:44:56 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:01 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:01 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:01 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:02 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:03 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:03 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:04 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:05 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:06 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:06 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:11 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:11 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:15 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:16 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:19 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:19 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:24 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:24 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:30 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:35 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:35 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:41 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:42 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:47 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:48 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:48 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:49 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:49 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:45:50 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:50 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:45:50 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:04 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:05 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:13 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:13 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:15 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:15 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:33 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:33 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:39 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:40 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:42 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:42 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:43 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:43 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again Sep 18 11:46:44 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: not responding Sep 18 11:46:44 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/home: is alive again

On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, Brian Tao wrote:

I was getting very poor response when it was first installed, but

that was due to a misconfiguration with the overviews. nnrpd was looking in the wrong directory, and thus fell back to scanning the spool to generate overview records. Once that was remedied, the problems disappeared. Are you using NFSv2 and UDP? How big are your control.cancel and misc.jobs.offered spool directories?

Thanks! We are using NFSv2 with TCP. UDP fails to work with our client box (BSD/OS 3.0), because under heavy reader load (500+ readers) the box gets slower and slower, and CPU system time goes to 90+% and idle time goes to 0%. Something wrong is happening - I think this is due to bugs in BSD/OS. Interestingly, the

Sep 21 11:30:23 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: not responding Sep 21 11:30:24 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: is alive again Sep 21 11:30:32 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: not responding Sep 21 11:30:32 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: is alive again Sep 21 11:30:37 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: not responding Sep 21 11:30:37 tofu kernel: nfs server netapp1.alt.net:/spool: is alive again

messages do not happen when using UDP - they only happen with TCP.

We use TCP because that works better than UDP on this particular machine. We will be moving the readers to a FreeBSD machine soon and hopefully that we will better with nfsv2/udp. Anyone seeing problems or success with FreeBSD? ;-)

We upgraded to 4.1cD3 to see if that would help, because of the directory prefetch fixes, but it didn't.

control.cancel contains 9,076 files and is 284k big:

tofu: {162} % ls -ld control/cancel drwxrwxr-x 2 news news 290816 Sep 21 11:28 control/cancel

misc.jobs.offered contains 61,515 files and is 1924k big:

tofu: {165} % ls -ld misc/jobs/offered drwxrwxr-x 3 news news 1970176 Sep 21 08:51 misc/jobs/offered

Rock on!

Chris