Article View: mod.computers.apollo
Article #360Re: Apollo disk space erosion
From: peterson
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1987 18:10
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1987 18:10
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1731 bytes
Unlike native Unix boxes, Apollos do not have an explicit swap area. Instead, user paging space is allocated from the general pool of free disk space. If a diskless node crashes or a process dies abnormally (e.g, "sigp -blast" or vanishes with a "process not found") space used by the process may not be reclaimed. The result is that over a period of weeks disk space leaks away. The best way to reclaim this space is to take the node down and run SALVOL. There is another program, find_orphans, that tracks down objects that are allocated on the disk but don't have a directory entry (these can also result from crashes or abnormal process terminations). However, only run find_orphans when there is no activity on the disk. Otherwise, it might decide a file is an orphan if it finds it while it's being created...) There is a major advantage to this way of allocating swap space - it makes adding or removing diskless partners a fairly trivial process. (If you've ever watched a Sun adminstrator reformat a disk all night to build new swap partitions you'll know what I mean. I think Sun is switching to the global paging pool scheme in their next release...)
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!UTAH-CS.ARPA!peterson From: peterson@UTAH-CS.ARPA.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.computers.apollo Subject: Re: Apollo disk space erosion Message-ID: <8702051810.AA04259@utah-cs.ARPA> Date: Thu, 5-Feb-87 13:10:26 EST Article-I.D.: utah-cs.8702051810.AA04259 Posted: Thu Feb 5 13:10:26 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Feb-87 15:38:16 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 22 Approved: apollo@yale-comix.arpa