Status of TSAFS 1

[LawnBoy]

I see there have been some <ahem> problems with TSAFS since it was released and I was wondering how everybody stands on it today. Perusing through the archives in this forum, it looks as if most people's problems with TSAFS were fixed with SP2. Is this true? How's it working with SP3 and SP3a?

I need to load SP3 and SP3a on a couple of servers but thought it might be a good idea to back them up to tape first...

 

[marvhuffaker]

I personally despise TSAFS. Never have I seen more problems than with that little NLM.

I would have thought that after this long in production, they would have gotten the problems fixed. But I still see memory leaks after 2 years, 16 or 17 interim fixes, and 3 major service packs.

Good luck.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[LawnBoy]

So the /CacheMemoryThreshold=1 setting is not the panacea it should have been? That's not good news.

Are you using TSA600 on 6.5 instead? I know Novell says not to use it, but if it works... Can I get it from the latest 6.0 SP?

I'm gonna give TSAFS a whirl, I just wanna be prepared if it falls over.

 

[marvhuffaker]

Ok.. the /CacheMemoryThreshold limits the amount of RAM that TSAFS can use to 1% of the total system memory. But that alone won't fix everything. I still see memory leaks. With SP2, I was able to achieve stability with that parameter and several other Post SP2 patches including eDir 8.7.3.5. But SP3 changed all that and the code was rewritten etc. Everything I learned with SP2 went out the door. With SP3, they recommend NOT tweaking the parameters that they DID recommend with SP2.. It's very frustrating.

I haven't tested with any post SP3 code. I have aborted any plans to install SP3 on stable SP1 or SP2 systems.

I have clients that use TSA600 and never have a problem. I just make sure that I have the latest released version.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[LawnBoy]

Boy, you are really cheering me up, Marvin [/sarcasm].
I've gotta get that 3a patch loaded, my SP2 server.exe hoses these two servers every couple of months. One of the crashes damaged my NDPS dB, but that's another thread.

 

[marvhuffaker]

Oh, did I mention how SP2 will thrash your C: partition under the right conditions? I need to make a laundry list...

But still, it probably just irritates me because I'm used to having servers that are solid and just run for a while. Even if I gotta reboot every month or so to clear up a leak, the NetWare servers still do better than any MS servers do.


Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[LawnBoy]

Hey, I'd rather have Netware problems than Windows problems anytime.

Looking at TID 10091980, they're still recommending the /CacheMemoryThreshold=1 switch even with SP3 or 3a. I'll update with issues I find.

 

[marvhuffaker]

I'm installing a server today from scratch so I'm going to give SP3 another shot. I will also let you know what issues, if any, I have.

 

[LawnBoy]

NW6.5 sp2, TSAFS with no switches. Running 1 week, no problems so far.

 

[marvhuffaker]

How much RAM do you have?

 

[LawnBoy]

4 Gb. I'm watching the memory consumption in NoRM, nothing unusual so far. It'll be exercised in a big way tonite with a major backup...

 

[LawnBoy]

Yuck. Last nite's backup caused tsafs to double it's Total and quadruple it's Allocated memory. Cache, stack, and code memory remained the same, but I now have 2% fragmented kernel space.

This ain't gonna fly. Hopefully I can get SP3 and 3a loaded soon to see what that fixes.

 

[marvhuffaker]

From what I have experienced, TSAFS is what causes the most serious memory problems on the server.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com