kern/120749: [request] Suggest upping the default kern.ps_arg_cache_limit

Peter Schuller peter.schuller at infidyne.com
Tue May 18 18:02:51 UTC 2010


> There was some recent comments that suggested this was beneficial with
> various Tomcat/Java applications, which otherwise experienced their
> command lines being truncated in the rc.d script for tomcat. What is
> the trade of increasing this - increased memory usage?

Tomcat/Java stuff is a great example of how many real-life command
lines are much longer nowadays. As I originally stated, this is why I
think a (to me, seemingly) more "modern" default is appropriate. Yes,
it can be changed. But why should one have to, unless there is a clear
disadvantage? (I do, and it doesn't affect me, but I am thinking of
other people and new users.)

I would be surprised if "ps auxww | grep X" not yielding output has
not confused quite a lot of people, not neccessarly even aware that
there is *a* limit, let alone how to change it.

And as I said originally in the PR submission, I cannot speak to
whether there are technical reasons other than memory use why this
cannot be increased. But if the *only* issue is memory use, that seems
like a complete non-issue to me given that even minimalistic simple C
programs will typically depend on a stack size significantly larger
than this. Again, even if the memory is in fact wired, it seems like a
completely acceptable trade-off to me on any reasonable, modern,
general-purpose system.

I don't have any personal stake in this since I adjust the sysctl
appropriately on all installations I manage, but I think this is an
almost text book example of a seemingly small "detail" that may
detract from the overall FreeBSD experience for new users in
particular (and probably not-so-new users too).

-- 
/ Peter Schuller


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