topic Re: inode table warnings in Operating System - HP-UX

inode table warnings

Karl oliver — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:17:47 GMT

Hello folks
we run a program sarcheck that analyzes sar stats.
Started appearing on HP-UX B.11.23
Is this anything to worry about ?

It is showing following warning about inode table

WARNING: A possible problem was seen in reading the size of the inode
table/cache. The min/max size as seen by the freemem utility was
4880/4880 and the min/max size as seen by the sar utility was
345932/345932. The inode cache data from the sar and freemem utilities
was inconsistent so no recommendations have been made. The following
analysis of the inode cache is based on the sar -v statistics and may
not be reliable.

Re: inode table warnings

Bill Hassell — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:34:58 GMT

You need to contact SarCheck to see if they have a version that is more compatible with 11.23. Also verify that your ninode kernel parameter is not outrageously large (like more than 10000). Historically, the ninode value was set by a useless formula and on big systems, ninode could be huge (way larger than 100k). Use kctune to see if the ninode value is really 345k -- if so, you are wasting a large amount of kernel memory. Replace the formula with a fixed number, perhaps 4000 to 8000.

Re: inode table warnings

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:59:07 GMT

Hi Karl:

To add to Bill's comments, 'ninode' is applicable only to HFS filesystems, not VxFS ones. Hence the kernel value of 'ninode' can be set quite low (e.g. to a value of 400 if '/stand' is your only HFS filesystem).

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: inode table warnings

Karl oliver — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:46:02 GMT

thanks for comments chaps
The kernal parameter is set as follows
ninode 4880 Default

so where does sar get it value from ?
345932/345932.
been hunting round but cant find it . Thought would be in /stand somewhere ?

Re: inode table warnings

Tim Nelson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:50:42 GMT

check kctune vx_ninode and see if it matches or comes close to the sar info...

if vx_ninode is set to 0 then it is calculated at boot based on amount of RAM. ( this is a good parameter to tune if you are tight on memory )

Re: inode table warnings

Karl oliver — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:41:21 GMT

does anyone have the formulae
for Tims comment please.

Re: inode table warnings

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:03:27 GMT

Hi (again) Karl:

There is a discussion of 'vx_ninode' in:

http://www.docs.hp.com/en/7779/commonMisconfig.pdf

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: inode table warnings

Karl oliver — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:19:19 GMT

Thanks for help guys - I have contacted sarcheck people and they have fixed the report