Extreme load with local password db lookups

[Eugene Grosbein]

On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 11:37:50AM +0100, Patrick van Iersel wrote:

> Here's the situation. We have an web/ftp server with around 74000 users
> defined in the local unix password database. On 4.9-stable which it is
> running now, there is no noticable load when lookups are done (logins via
> ftp, ~user lookups from apache etc.). We want to migrate this system to
> 6-stable.
> However on 6-STABLE (FreeBSD 6.3-PRERELEASE #0: Wed Dec  5 13:35:05 CET
> 2007) these same lookups cause very high load and things slow down to a
> crawl.
> 
> Does anybody have an idea what causes this behavior?
> 
> Thanx in advance for any insights.

Take a look to your /etc/nsswitch.conf. If you do not use NIS,
try to change lines for 'group' and 'passwd' to look like this:

group: files
passwd: files

Eugene Grosbein