HP-UX Kernel Parameters

[Joanne Crawley]

Does anyone know if there exists a document, or a book that explains the Kernel Parameters in somewhat more depth that SAM's one-liners. I am particularly interested in those that concern memory tuning, and tuning for Oracle, but I am curious about all the others

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Try this document for an explanation of kernel parameters:
http://docs.hp.com//hpux/onlinedocs/os/KCparams.OverviewAll.html

I also have a book 'HP-UX Tuning and Performance: Concepts, Tools and Methods' by Robert F. Sauers and Peter S. Weygant. The ISBN number is 0-13-102716-6. You can probably get it from Barnes and Noble or Amazon. I think I got mine while at one of the HP World shows.

[Rita C Workman]

The site that Patrick listed is one I keep handy. I highly recommend you bookmark this url, as you will use it often until you get more comfortable with setting parms.
Watch out for dbc_max_pct...some folks leave this at the default of 50 (which I don't recommend).
For Oracle...here's a thread that gives a general formula for setting up your semaphores..(I copied this from a book and keep it handy whenever we startup another db..)
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x10ca6af52b04d5118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

Hope this helps,
/rcw

[Shannon Petry]

Both those are great links. Thanks. I have my own docs I keep, but these help.

A warning about dbc_max_pct is not to go TOO low!
Oracle recommends 3-5% and so do other sources. If your datachunks moving from oracle are large, then you will see performance degredation with these settings. I use 10%-20%, depending on which DB is running. You may have to experiment to find your best numbers.

Regards,
Shannon