About This Manual

This manual contains information about tuning HP Tru64 UNIX for high performance and high availability. This manual also provides tuning recommendations for Oracle, Network File System (NFS), and Web server applications, and for specific Tru64 UNIX operating system components.

For Tru64 UNIX system administration, we recommend that you use the graphical user interface (GUI). This GUI is presented by SysMan, an application that is loaded by default when the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) software is loaded on your system. The SysMan applications are available in the Application Manager, which you can access from the CDE Front Panel.

Audience

This manual is intended for system administrators who are responsible for managing a Tru64 UNIX operating system. Administrators should have an in-depth knowledge of their applications and users, in addition to operating system concepts, commands, and utilities. Such an understanding is crucial to successfully tuning a system for better performance.

New and Changed Features

Additions and changes that have been made to the manual for this version of Tru64 UNIX include the following:

• This manual has been reorganized into three parts:

  • Introduction to System Tuning — Includes new hardware configuration information and diagrams.

  • Tuning by Application Type — Includes three ways to tune different applications: Oracle, Network File Systems, and Internet servers. This part includes detailed information about tunable attributes and system monitoring tools for each application type.

  • Tuning by Component — Includes tuning information on how to tune system resources, disk storage, network, file system, memory, and CPU. This part also includes detailed information about specific tunable attributes for each component.

• This manual describes only kernel subsystem attributes that can be used to improve system performance. All kernel subsystem attributes are documented in the reference pages. See sys_attrs(5) for more information.

• Kernel subsystem attributes use only underscores instead of combinations of dashes and underscores.

• The Advanced File System (AdvFS) buffer cache is no longer used. AdvFS user and application data and metadata are now cached in the Unified Buffer Cache (UBC). See Section 11.1.4 for more information.

  Documentation sections that described kernel subsystem attributes that related to the AdvFS buffer cache were removed.

• UNIX File System (UFS) supports smooth sync functionality and I/O throttling to improve UFS performance. See Section 11.3.3.1 for more information.

Organization

This manual consists of thirteen chapters and a glossary:

Related Documents

The System Administration manual provides information on managing and monitoring your system. The Programmer's Guide provides information on the tools for programming on the Tru64 UNIX operating system. It also provides information on how to optimize the code used to create an application program, and how to optimize the results of the build process. The Asynchronous Transfer Mode manual contains information about tuning Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).

The following Tru64 UNIX manuals also provide useful, relevant information:

• Technical Overview

• Network Administration: Connections

• Logical Storage Manager

• AdvFS Administration

• Tru64 UNIX Version 5.1B QuickSpecs

• TruCluster Server Version 5.1B QuickSpecs

• Hardware Management

Icons on Tru64 UNIX Printed Manuals

The printed version of the Tru64 UNIX documentation uses letter icons on the spines of the manuals to help specific audiences quickly find the manuals that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from HP.) The following list describes this convention:

Some manuals in the documentation help meet the needs of several audiences. For example, the information in some system manuals is also used by programmers. Keep this in mind when searching for information on specific topics.

The Documentation Overview provides information on all of the manuals in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set.

Reader's Comments

HP welcomes any comments and suggestions you have on this and other Tru64 UNIX manuals.

You can send your comments in the following ways:

• Fax: 603-884-0120 Attn: UBPG Publications, ZKO3-3/Y32

• Internet electronic mail: readers_comment@zk3.dec.com

  A Reader's Comment form is located on your system in the following location:

  /usr/doc/readers_comment.txt

Please include the following information along with your comments:

• The full title of the manual and the order number. (The order number appears on the title page of printed and PDF versions of a manual.)

• The section numbers and page numbers of the information on which you are commenting.

• The version of Tru64 UNIX that you are using.

• If known, the type of processor that is running the Tru64 UNIX software.

The Tru64 UNIX Publications group cannot respond to system problems or technical support inquiries. Please address technical questions to your local system vendor or to the appropriate HP technical support office. Information provided with the software media explains how to send problem reports to HP.

Conventions

The following conventions are used in this manual:

#

A number sign represents the superuser prompt.

% cat

Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.

file

Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.

[ | ]
{ | }

In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.

colored text

In syntax definitions, literal elements are colored green. Variable values, placeholders, and function argument names are colored red. No special colored text is used outside of syntax descriptions.

.
.
.

A vertical ellipsis indicates that a portion of an example that would normally be present is not shown.

cat(1)

A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.