Mailing List Archive: quota and running CIFS

quota and running CIFS

Jun 20, 2002, 4:29 PM

Post #1 of 3 (2829 views)

Comrades,

I have a filer running NFS & CIFS with about 200Gb of data. We run quota
reports fairly often (used to be every 15 minutes but now every 4 hours)
to keep track of user account space. We've noticed that when quota runs,
the performance of the box takes a big hit. The CPU gets pegged at 100%
for up to 2 minutes, the NFS performance degrades such that moving a large
file (say 10MB) can take nearly a minute!

We don't see this sort of thing on straight-NFS filers, only on our F840
filer (running 6.1.R1) running both protocols. The mode running is NFS
(not mixed). Normally a quota run on an NFS filer with the same amount of
files/users is less than 30 seconds, if that. But this NFS/CIFS box is
taking AGES.

The hit on the box is so strong that it's really affecting our serving
files to web users that have webpages hosted on the box. It's reached a
point where I think Netapp's CIFS and/or quota implementation is
seriously screwed. I might have to look at BlueArc or some other vendor
for running our CIFS-based apps, as this is just not cutting it.

Anyone else notice this sort of thing on other boxes, be it F840s or
F760s?

-Scott

Re: quota and running CIFS [ In reply to ]

sethmoskowitz at hotmail

Jun 21, 2002, 8:56 AM

Post #2 of 3 (2707 views)

Permalink

Scott,

You are seeing a performance hit because the Filer needs to do SID lookups
to run the quota reports for CIFS. Unfortunately there is no way around this
except to not run the quota reports as often (as you discovered) or schedule
them to run off hours (if you have any). My understanding is that OnTap
6.2R2 does SID caching so once you get to that version of OnTap (assuming it
does the cache the SID) you shouldn't see this as a problem any longer.

>From: Scott Mikusko <guerilla@concentric.net>
>Reply-To: Scott Mikusko <guerilla@concentric.net>
>To: toasters@mathworks.com
>Subject: quota and running CIFS
>Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 19:29:59 -0400 (EDT)
>
>
>Comrades,
>
>I have a filer running NFS & CIFS with about 200Gb of data. We run quota
>reports fairly often (used to be every 15 minutes but now every 4 hours)
>to keep track of user account space. We've noticed that when quota runs,
>the performance of the box takes a big hit. The CPU gets pegged at 100%
>for up to 2 minutes, the NFS performance degrades such that moving a large
>file (say 10MB) can take nearly a minute!
>
>We don't see this sort of thing on straight-NFS filers, only on our F840
>filer (running 6.1.R1) running both protocols. The mode running is NFS
>(not mixed). Normally a quota run on an NFS filer with the same amount of
>files/users is less than 30 seconds, if that. But this NFS/CIFS box is
>taking AGES.
>
>The hit on the box is so strong that it's really affecting our serving
>files to web users that have webpages hosted on the box. It's reached a
>point where I think Netapp's CIFS and/or quota implementation is
>seriously screwed. I might have to look at BlueArc or some other vendor
>for running our CIFS-based apps, as this is just not cutting it.
>
>Anyone else notice this sort of thing on other boxes, be it F840s or
>F760s?
>
>
>-Scott

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RE: quota and running CIFS [ In reply to ]

lnail at ti

Jun 21, 2002, 10:29 AM

Post #3 of 3 (2713 views)

Permalink

6.2 does have sid caching enabled by default... Settings are:

cifs.sidcache.enable on
cifs.sidcache.lifetime 1440

-----Original Message-----
From: Seth Moskowitz [mailto:sethmoskowitz@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 10:57 AM
To: guerilla@concentric.net; toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: Re: quota and running CIFS

Scott,

You are seeing a performance hit because the Filer needs to do SID lookups
to run the quota reports for CIFS. Unfortunately there is no way around this

except to not run the quota reports as often (as you discovered) or schedule

them to run off hours (if you have any). My understanding is that OnTap
6.2R2 does SID caching so once you get to that version of OnTap (assuming it

does the cache the SID) you shouldn't see this as a problem any longer.

>From: Scott Mikusko <guerilla@concentric.net>
>Reply-To: Scott Mikusko <guerilla@concentric.net>
>To: toasters@mathworks.com
>Subject: quota and running CIFS
>Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 19:29:59 -0400 (EDT)
>
>
>Comrades,
>
>I have a filer running NFS & CIFS with about 200Gb of data. We run
>quota reports fairly often (used to be every 15 minutes but now every 4
>hours) to keep track of user account space. We've noticed that when
>quota runs, the performance of the box takes a big hit. The CPU gets
>pegged at 100% for up to 2 minutes, the NFS performance degrades such
>that moving a large file (say 10MB) can take nearly a minute!
>
>We don't see this sort of thing on straight-NFS filers, only on our
>F840 filer (running 6.1.R1) running both protocols. The mode running
>is NFS (not mixed). Normally a quota run on an NFS filer with the same
>amount of files/users is less than 30 seconds, if that. But this
>NFS/CIFS box is taking AGES.
>
>The hit on the box is so strong that it's really affecting our serving
>files to web users that have webpages hosted on the box. It's reached
>a point where I think Netapp's CIFS and/or quota implementation is
>seriously screwed. I might have to look at BlueArc or some other vendor
>for running our CIFS-based apps, as this is just not cutting it.
>
>Anyone else notice this sort of thing on other boxes, be it F840s or
>F760s?
>
>
>-Scott

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