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  • From: "Reapl Paratorn" <reapl AT reapl.net>
  • To: "'sm-discuss'" <sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [SM-Discuss] Benchmarking Spell?
  • Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 20:20:32 +1000

Ummm....I don't think I was clear excuse me befuddled mind, but can't sleep.

I wasn't saying we didnt need the reboot. I was just saying I didn't know if
we should currently write a spell to have it automatically kick off the
performance of a test on a reboot when any disk cache would be free.

I thought the startup/init stuff will exactly work is still being defined so
instead suggest this cludge of a spell that had two steps.

One make sure the file areas on the disk are clean, but not execute test.
Then on next running the files wouldnt be found so ask the user if they have
rebooted and if they say they have then perform the test.

Maybe the first step should more correctly be something like summon source
and execute a clean on it so there is clean source. Then tell user to
reboot. Then have second step from above. Again reminding user to make sure
they have rebooted to clean the disk cache and only doing test when they
confirm they have.

I think I am repeating myself...off to bed...to get better....sorry if I
have fucked up.

Reapl



-----Original Message-----
From: sm-discuss-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:sm-discuss-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Andrew Stitt
Sent: Sunday, 4 August 2002 7:51 PM
To: 'sm-discuss'
Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Benchmarking Spell?


>
> Don't know how we could easily make it do the test after a reboot, at
least
> not until we have standardised the startup/init stuff. Maybe the steps
need
> to be more like:
>
> - if you find any of the files in the file systems delete them, and
don't
> allow execution of test on this run.
> - if you don't find files, query user to see if they have rebooted
> machine to make sure disk caches will also be clean, if they answer yes
then
> perform test.
>
the problem with doing just that is the disk cache. Basically once the
system accesses something from the (relatively) slow disk it gets thrown
into the (relatively) fast ram with the hope that we will access it again
soon. try running "time find / >dev/null" twice in short succession. The
first test will take a while for all the fs metadata to get read off
the disk, the second time it should all be cached at which point it will
run an order of magnitude faster. On my system the first test took about
36 seconds, then second 0.5 seconds. Thats a big difference especially
when compounded over 50 megs of files instead of at most a few megs of
fs metadata. So thats why reseting to the same state is preferable to
just making sure all the files are deleted from the system. I suppose
there might be a system call to completely flush the disk cache, but
there may be other variables involved that also can be just as easily
and more reliably reset by just a reboot.
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