2003-02-13 22:24:49

by Alan Powell

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: nfsd tuning - please help me!

Linux NFS gurus: I need your help! I've spent the
better part of the week trying to tune our NFS server.
It's serving about 30Mbit/sec sustained, but the
latency for serving NFS requests is high. When I
access an NFS mount from a client machine, it can
sometimes take several seconds to do even a simple
directory listing. However, doing the same operations
on the NFS server locally is always fast, even if I'm
doing the operation from an NFS client that is under
minimal load. So I'm pretty sure that the problem is
NFS server specific. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that
this is not a hardware issue, so my question is if we
are just running the Linux NFS daemon up to its
limits? WAt this point we're very close to buying a
NetApp filer to alleviate the problem, b/c I've heard
some amazing stats from their salespeople, but I
wanted to check with you guys first. Thank you!

Here's some more info:
- We're using the latest RH 7.3 kernel
(2.4.18-24.7.xsmp) on both the server and clients.
- We use only NFS v3.
- For the most part of the day, we're serving about
100 random 30KB file reads per second (minimal
writes), resulting in 30Mbit transfer.
- We are not hardware constrained (CPU is 90% idle,
and the disks perform fine when doing local file
operations). The latency only occurs for NFS
operations.
- There are no network issues (there are hardly any
retransmissions according to nfsstat). Also, using
ttcp to test the network connection, we're able to
utilize the remaining 70Mbit on the ethernet card.
- We have a max limit of 32 NFS daemon processes, and
according to /proc/net/rpc/nfsd, that is more than we
need.
- NFS is mounted with the following options, and
increasing [rw]size beyond 8192 has made no
difference: rw,hard,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,actimeo=120
- Adjusting [rw]mem_default and [rw]mem_max in
/proc/sys/net/core beyond the default 64KB has made no
difference.

I rebooted the NFS server about 20 hours ago, and here
are nfsstat and iostat numbers for it since the
counters were cleared out 20 hours ago:

[root@server etc]# nfsstat -s
Server rpc stats:
calls badcalls badauth badclnt xdrcall
47303390 0 0 0 0

Server nfs v3:
null getattr setattr lookup access
readlink
0 0% 12498418 26% 16824 0% 7556878 15% 224714
0% 54 0%
read write create mkdir symlink
mknod
26663116 56% 225950 0% 19573 0% 1 0% 0
0% 0 0%
remove rmdir rename link readdir
readdirplus
7936 0% 0 0% 14880 0% 248 0% 36450 0%
605 0%
fsstat fsinfo pathconf commit
14 0% 37 0% 0 0% 37766 0%


[root@server etc]# iostat -x
Linux 2.4.18-24.7.xsmp (server.domain.com) 02/13/2003

avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %idle
0.27 0.01 7.78 91.94

Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s
rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm
%util
/dev/rd/c0d0
280.34 6.17 0.00 0.00 5172.83 67.25
2586.41 33.63 0.00 0.29 0.00 0.00
10.37


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2003-02-14 11:33:21

by Steve Dickson

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: nfsd tuning - please help me!

Here is a few suggestions I've seen floating around...
Your mileage my vary...

* Increased the number of server threads from the default 8 to 64.
This is done by changing the value of RPCNFSCOUNT in /etc/init.d/nfs.

* Increased the size of the socket input queue buffers by adding the
following two lines to /etc/ sysctl.conf:
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 262144

*Increased the fragmented packet queue length upper and lower bounds:
net.ipv4.ipfrag_high_thresh = 524288
net.ipv4.ipfrag_low_thresh = 393216

Also make sure your network interfaces are full duplex...
You can use the mii-tool for that...

SteveD.

Alan Powell wrote:

>Linux NFS gurus: I need your help! I've spent the
>better part of the week trying to tune our NFS server.
>It's serving about 30Mbit/sec sustained, but the
>latency for serving NFS requests is high. When I
>access an NFS mount from a client machine, it can
>sometimes take several seconds to do even a simple
>directory listing. However, doing the same operations
>on the NFS server locally is always fast, even if I'm
>doing the operation from an NFS client that is under
>minimal load. So I'm pretty sure that the problem is
>NFS server specific. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that
>this is not a hardware issue, so my question is if we
>are just running the Linux NFS daemon up to its
>limits? WAt this point we're very close to buying a
>NetApp filer to alleviate the problem, b/c I've heard
>some amazing stats from their salespeople, but I
>wanted to check with you guys first. Thank you!
>
>Here's some more info:
>- We're using the latest RH 7.3 kernel
>(2.4.18-24.7.xsmp) on both the server and clients.
>- We use only NFS v3.
>- For the most part of the day, we're serving about
>100 random 30KB file reads per second (minimal
>writes), resulting in 30Mbit transfer.
>- We are not hardware constrained (CPU is 90% idle,
>and the disks perform fine when doing local file
>operations). The latency only occurs for NFS
>operations.
>- There are no network issues (there are hardly any
>retransmissions according to nfsstat). Also, using
>ttcp to test the network connection, we're able to
>utilize the remaining 70Mbit on the ethernet card.
>- We have a max limit of 32 NFS daemon processes, and
>according to /proc/net/rpc/nfsd, that is more than we
>need.
>- NFS is mounted with the following options, and
>increasing [rw]size beyond 8192 has made no
>difference: rw,hard,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,actimeo=120
>- Adjusting [rw]mem_default and [rw]mem_max in
>/proc/sys/net/core beyond the default 64KB has made no
>difference.
>
>I rebooted the NFS server about 20 hours ago, and here
>are nfsstat and iostat numbers for it since the
>counters were cleared out 20 hours ago:
>
>[root@server etc]# nfsstat -s
>Server rpc stats:
>calls badcalls badauth badclnt xdrcall
>47303390 0 0 0 0
>
>Server nfs v3:
>null getattr setattr lookup access
>readlink
>0 0% 12498418 26% 16824 0% 7556878 15% 224714
>0% 54 0%
>read write create mkdir symlink
>mknod
>26663116 56% 225950 0% 19573 0% 1 0% 0
>0% 0 0%
>remove rmdir rename link readdir
>readdirplus
>7936 0% 0 0% 14880 0% 248 0% 36450 0%
>605 0%
>fsstat fsinfo pathconf commit
>14 0% 37 0% 0 0% 37766 0%
>
>
>[root@server etc]# iostat -x
>Linux 2.4.18-24.7.xsmp (server.domain.com) 02/13/2003
>
>avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %idle
> 0.27 0.01 7.78 91.94
>
>Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s
> rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm
>%util
>/dev/rd/c0d0
> 280.34 6.17 0.00 0.00 5172.83 67.25
>2586.41 33.63 0.00 0.29 0.00 0.00
>10.37
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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>http://shopping.yahoo.com
>
>
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2003-02-14 17:44:53

by Alan Powell

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: nfsd tuning - please help me!

Unfortunately, we've tried all that already. So given
that we are not hardware/network constrained, does all
this mean that the Linux kernel NFS runs into
performance issues beyond 100 file reads/sec?


--- Steve Dickson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here is a few suggestions I've seen floating
> around...
> Your mileage my vary...
>
> * Increased the number of server threads from the
> default 8 to 64.
> This is done by changing the value of RPCNFSCOUNT
> in /etc/init.d/nfs.
>
> * Increased the size of the socket input queue
> buffers by adding the
> following two lines to /etc/ sysctl.conf:
> net.core.rmem_default = 262144
> net.core.rmem_max = 262144
>
> *Increased the fragmented packet queue length upper
> and lower bounds:
> net.ipv4.ipfrag_high_thresh = 524288
> net.ipv4.ipfrag_low_thresh = 393216
>
> Also make sure your network interfaces are full
> duplex...
> You can use the mii-tool for that...
>
> SteveD.
>
> Alan Powell wrote:
>
> >Linux NFS gurus: I need your help! I've spent the
> >better part of the week trying to tune our NFS
> server.
> >It's serving about 30Mbit/sec sustained, but the
> >latency for serving NFS requests is high. When I
> >access an NFS mount from a client machine, it can
> >sometimes take several seconds to do even a simple
> >directory listing. However, doing the same
> operations
> >on the NFS server locally is always fast, even if
> I'm
> >doing the operation from an NFS client that is
> under
> >minimal load. So I'm pretty sure that the problem
> is
> >NFS server specific. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure
> that
> >this is not a hardware issue, so my question is if
> we
> >are just running the Linux NFS daemon up to its
> >limits? WAt this point we're very close to buying a
> >NetApp filer to alleviate the problem, b/c I've
> heard
> >some amazing stats from their salespeople, but I
> >wanted to check with you guys first. Thank you!
> >
> >Here's some more info:
> >- We're using the latest RH 7.3 kernel
> >(2.4.18-24.7.xsmp) on both the server and clients.
> >- We use only NFS v3.
> >- For the most part of the day, we're serving about
> >100 random 30KB file reads per second (minimal
> >writes), resulting in 30Mbit transfer.
> >- We are not hardware constrained (CPU is 90% idle,
> >and the disks perform fine when doing local file
> >operations). The latency only occurs for NFS
> >operations.
> >- There are no network issues (there are hardly any
> >retransmissions according to nfsstat). Also, using
> >ttcp to test the network connection, we're able to
> >utilize the remaining 70Mbit on the ethernet card.
> >- We have a max limit of 32 NFS daemon processes,
> and
> >according to /proc/net/rpc/nfsd, that is more than
> we
> >need.
> >- NFS is mounted with the following options, and
> >increasing [rw]size beyond 8192 has made no
> >difference:
> rw,hard,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,actimeo=120
> >- Adjusting [rw]mem_default and [rw]mem_max in
> >/proc/sys/net/core beyond the default 64KB has made
> no
> >difference.
> >
> >I rebooted the NFS server about 20 hours ago, and
> here
> >are nfsstat and iostat numbers for it since the
> >counters were cleared out 20 hours ago:
> >
> >[root@server etc]# nfsstat -s
> >Server rpc stats:
> >calls badcalls badauth badclnt xdrcall
> >47303390 0 0 0 0
>
> >
> >Server nfs v3:
> >null getattr setattr lookup access
>
> >readlink
> >0 0% 12498418 26% 16824 0% 7556878 15%
> 224714
> >0% 54 0%
> >read write create mkdir symlink
>
> >mknod
> >26663116 56% 225950 0% 19573 0% 1 0% 0
>
> >0% 0 0%
> >remove rmdir rename link readdir
>
> >readdirplus
> >7936 0% 0 0% 14880 0% 248 0% 36450
> 0%
> >605 0%
> >fsstat fsinfo pathconf commit
> >14 0% 37 0% 0 0% 37766 0%
> >
> >
> >[root@server etc]# iostat -x
> >Linux 2.4.18-24.7.xsmp (server.domain.com)
> 02/13/2003
> >
> >avg-cpu: %user %nice %sys %idle
> > 0.27 0.01 7.78 91.94
> >
> >Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s
> wsec/s
> > rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm
> >%util
> >/dev/rd/c0d0
> > 280.34 6.17 0.00 0.00 5172.83
> 67.25
> >2586.41 33.63 0.00 0.29 0.00 0.00
> >10.37
> >
> >
> >__________________________________________________
> >Do you Yahoo!?
> >Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
> >http://shopping.yahoo.com
> >
> >
>
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> SSL security issues.
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> >
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>
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2003-02-14 20:32:30

by Ion Badulescu

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: nfsd tuning - please help me!

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 09:44:53 -0800 (PST), Alan Powell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Unfortunately, we've tried all that already. So given
> that we are not hardware/network constrained, does all
> this mean that the Linux kernel NFS runs into
> performance issues beyond 100 file reads/sec?

It's quite possible...

What I'd recommend, however, is testing this again with a non-RedHat
kernel on the client. More precisely, try running 2.4.20 plus the
NFSALL patch from Trond's site <http://www.fys.uio.no/~trondmy/src/>.

We've had significant performance problems over here with the RedHat
kernels, which mostly went away when we replaced the NFS client code
with 2.4.20+NFSALL.

Hope this helps,
Ion

--
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than to open it and remove all doubt.


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2003-02-17 02:58:23

by Yusuf Goolamabbas

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: nfsd tuning - please help me!

Maybe RH can put their kernel's through a fstress routine

http://www.cs.duke.edu/ari/fstress/

According to the author Darell Anderson,

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1126014+0+archive/2003/freebsd-current/20030216.freebsd-current

It can emulates SPECsfs

> > Unfortunately, we've tried all that already. So given
> > that we are not hardware/network constrained, does all
> > this mean that the Linux kernel NFS runs into
> > performance issues beyond 100 file reads/sec?
>
> It's quite possible...
>
> What I'd recommend, however, is testing this again with a non-RedHat
> kernel on the client. More precisely, try running 2.4.20 plus the
> NFSALL patch from Trond's site <http://www.fys.uio.no/~trondmy/src/>.
>
> We've had significant performance problems over here with the RedHat
> kernels, which mostly went away when we replaced the NFS client code
> with 2.4.20+NFSALL.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Ion


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2003-02-18 02:28:40

by Alan Powell

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: nfsd tuning - please help me!

Good idea. Note that we need to get the directory
indexing kernel patch applied (see separate thread I
started), or else bozos like me will blame NFS for
ext3's horrendous performance in dealing with
directories containing large numbers of files!

--- Yusuf Goolamabbas <[email protected]> wrote:
> Maybe RH can put their kernel's through a fstress
> routine
>
> http://www.cs.duke.edu/ari/fstress/
>
> According to the author Darell Anderson,
>
>
http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1126014+0+archive/2003/freebsd-current/20030216.freebsd-current
>
> It can emulates SPECsfs
>
> > > Unfortunately, we've tried all that already. So
> given
> > > that we are not hardware/network constrained,
> does all
> > > this mean that the Linux kernel NFS runs into
> > > performance issues beyond 100 file reads/sec?
> >
> > It's quite possible...
> >
> > What I'd recommend, however, is testing this again
> with a non-RedHat
> > kernel on the client. More precisely, try running
> 2.4.20 plus the
> > NFSALL patch from Trond's site
> <http://www.fys.uio.no/~trondmy/src/>.
> >
> > We've had significant performance problems over
> here with the RedHat
> > kernels, which mostly went away when we replaced
> the NFS client code
> > with 2.4.20+NFSALL.
> >
> > Hope this helps,
> > Ion
>
>
>
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