Extreme load with local password db lookups

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 06:22:07PM +0700, Eugene Grosbein wrote:
> 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

The default value is "compat" on both RELENG_6 and RELENG_7.  I don't
think switching to "files" will fix his problem (I'll be very surprised
if it does).

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                           http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |