Size of /tmp 3

[mikeclark]

I have a 4x400MHZ ultrasparc II Server with 2GB RAM.
Swap is setup as 5Gb. Format confirms this.
swap of course in mounted om /tmp
If I run df -k /tmp shown size of 910944 (it varies a bit, but around this figure)
The problem is users process large graphics files and the Server runs out of /tmp space and stops.
I need to increase /tmp ( a lot) how do I do this?
All help greatfully appreciated.
MikeC

 

[jaSun]

Hmmm..... That kind of sounds strange. Format says that you have a 5G partition for /tmp but a df -k on /tmp reports 900M total? (or was it 900M available?) Is there any way you could run the following commands and post the output? I may be able to understand the problem a little better with more info:

vmstat 1 15
swap -s
swap -l

Thanks....
Jason

 

[mikeclark]

jason
wbaw1%vmstat 1 15
procs memory page disk faults cpu
r b w swap free re mf pi po fr de sr m0 m1 m2 m3 in sy cs us sy id
0 0 35 11032 11856 1 44 1075 124 567 0 110 1 0 1 3 1494 2540 3112 14 5 81
0 0 39 441024 86088 0 48 2056 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2129 8398 3543 20 8 71
2 0 39 438936 81928 0 0 2056 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1918 6943 3160 22 8 70
0 0 39 436872 77848 0 2 2064 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1913 7003 3216 22 6 72
0 0 39 434752 73624 0 0 2152 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1930 7216 3125 22 4 73
0 0 39 432632 69416 2 9 2136 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1955 7215 3053 21 6 73
0 0 39 430416 64952 0 1 2024 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1842 6823 3000 22 5 73
0 0 39 428360 60888 0 1 2104 0 0 0 0 6 0 2 3 2156 7077 3056 20 11 70
0 0 39 426264 56728 0 1 1928 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1967 8333 3437 20 8 71
0 0 39 424304 52848 0 1 2144 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1939 7273 3000 22 7 71
0 0 39 422080 48456 0 0 2112 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1955 7288 3247 20 8 72
0 0 39 419952 44200 0 0 1568 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1477 9509 2509 20 5 74
0 0 39 418664 42008 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 328 17940 656 19 8 73
0 0 39 418728 42072 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 289 17938 625 16 10 74
0 0 39 418888 42232 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 309 18039 654 20 5 75
bawbaw2%swap -s
total: 969376k bytes allocated + 262280k reserved = 1231656k used, 420392k available
bawbaw3%swap -l
No swap devices configured

 

[jaSun]

I am certainly not a Solaris memory expert, but I think that I see some issues that you may want to look at.

1.) I think that the 5G partition that was allocated for swap that you are seeing when you run the format command is not actually being used. When you ran the swap -l command, you got "No swap devices configured" in return, and when you do a swap -s , it shows only 969M. You may want to check your /etc/vfstab because I think that there may not be an entry for swap in there pointing to your 5G partition.

2.) About the 5G partition: Technically, if you have 2G of RAM, then you should only need a 2G swap partition at most. Unless you have applications, such as compilers, that use lots of space in /tmp, you should not need a 5G swap partition.

3.) Check to see if you have enough physical memory. A quick check is to look at the (po) or page outs section of the vmstat command. I couldn't really make out what was in this column in your post above because the output got "wrapped", but run the command again and check out the po and sr setions. If these numbers are consistanly above zero, then you may need to add more physical memory.

4.) To answer your original question above (after my long winded confusing attempt to help ;-) ), you can add space to your allocated swap by doing the following:

1. make a new emply file
2. add the file to swap
3. update the /etc/vfstab to reflect the addition

Ex. Here is how you would add a 1G file named "/export/moreswap" to swap

1. mkfile 1000m /export/moreswap
2. swap -a /export/moreswap
3. add the a this line to your /etc/vfstab:
/export/moreswap - - swap - no -

I hope this helps!
Jason

 

[mikeclark]

jaSun
Thanks for all the help.
You didn't give the answer as such, but got me trying things in the right direction.
Firstly users run large graphical applications which is why /tmp needs to be large.
Your suggection on adding extra swap space led me to the problem. I couldn't add extra swap space, swap -a produces not owner message. The swap command had wrong permissions which is why the swap space I had setup wasn't working.
All setup and working correctly now. Thanks again.
MikeC