On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 08:00:55 +0000
Alistair Crooks <agc@pkgsrc.org> wrote:

> Just to be boring, how about a sysctl.conf which is populated with
> commented out entries, to make it easier for people to tune their
> machine post install. Machines have been known to change their uses,
> get populated with memory, or install on one disk on one machine for
> another.

I very much like the idea; it would be very useful if I could tweak those
settings to values which have previously been tested and known to work
by someone who has a better clue about them than I do :)

Especially that I tend to use NetBSD for a variety of purposes.  Perhaps
that we even should have a few different settings sets for various
specialized server types (i.e. an file/ftp and/or cvs server might require
more file caching than a database server which might need more anonymous
memory, etc) unless I also prove to be clueless about this :)

In the comments associated to each settings, it would also be nice to
recommend a swap partition size (as we know that determining what's
best for a specific amount of RAM seems to be controversial among admins,
some recommend to double the RAM, while this is usually a waste in
large RAM situations, and small systems need more than the double in
many cases).  Since these settings can affect swapping, recommending a
size would seem nice there (or at least a decent range suggestion).

Of course, this assumes that people will agree on the best settings to
suggest for popular purposes and amounts of RAM available.

Alternatively, or complementarily the NetBSD Guide would also seem a good
place to discuss such a topic in a chapter about tuning...

Matt


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