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* Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-22 13:10 Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>
0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Stephane Bailliez @ 2007-05-22 13:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: pgsql-performance
Hi,
Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a
machine before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably
won't trash my data today' ?
I'm looking for a way to stress test components especially kernel/disk
to have confidence > 0 that I can use postgres on top of it.
Any secret trick is welcome (beside the memtest one :)
Thanks !
-- stephane
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-22 13:45 Alexander Staubo <alex@purefiction.net>
parent: Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>
1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Alexander Staubo @ 2007-05-22 13:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>; +Cc: pgsql-performance
On 5/22/07, Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com> wrote:
> Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a
> machine before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably
> won't trash my data today' ?
> I'm looking for a way to stress test components especially kernel/disk
> to have confidence > 0 that I can use postgres on top of it.
>
> Any secret trick is welcome (beside the memtest one :)
Compile the Linux kernel -- it's a pretty decent stress test.
You could run pgbench, which comes with PostgreSQL (as part of the
contrib package). Give a database size that's larger than the amount
of physical memory in the box.
Alexander.
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-22 13:55 PFC <lists@peufeu.com>
parent: Alexander Staubo <alex@purefiction.net>
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: PFC @ 2007-05-22 13:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alexander Staubo <alex@purefiction.net>; Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>; +Cc: pgsql-performance
>> Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a
>> machine before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably
>> won't trash my data today' ?
>> I'm looking for a way to stress test components especially kernel/disk
>> to have confidence > 0 that I can use postgres on top of it.
That would be running a filesystem benchmark, pulling the plug, then
counting the dead.
http://sr5tech.com/write_back_cache_experiments.htm
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-23 04:11 Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
parent: Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>
1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Greg Smith @ 2007-05-23 04:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: pgsql-performance
On Tue, 22 May 2007, Stephane Bailliez wrote:
> Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a machine
> before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably won't trash my
> data today' ?
Write a little script that runs pgbench in a loop forever. Set your
shared_buffer cache to use at least 50% of the memory in the machine, and
adjust the database size and concurrent clients so it's generating a
substantial amount of disk I/O and using a fair amount of the CPU.
Install the script so that it executes on system startup, like adding it
to rc.local Put the machine close to your desk. Every time you walk by
it, kill the power and then start it back up. This will give you a mix of
long overnight runs with no interruption to stress the overall system,
with a nice dose of recovery trauma. Skim the Postgres and OS log files
every day. Do that for a week, if it's still running your data should be
safe under real conditions.
--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-23 06:32 Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.org>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Andreas Kostyrka @ 2007-05-23 06:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>; +Cc: pgsql-performance
You forgot pulling some RAID drives at random times to see how the hardware deals with the fact. And how it deals with the rebuild afterwards. (Many RAID solutions leave you with worst of both worlds, taking longer to rebuild than a restore from backup would take, while at the same ime providing a disc IO performance that is SO bad that the server becomes useless during the rebuild)
Andreas
-- Ursprüngl. Mitteil. --
Betreff: Re: [PERFORM] Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
Von: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
Datum: 23.05.2007 05:15
On Tue, 22 May 2007, Stephane Bailliez wrote:
> Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a machine
> before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably won't trash my
> data today' ?
Write a little script that runs pgbench in a loop forever. Set your
shared_buffer cache to use at least 50% of the memory in the machine, and
adjust the database size and concurrent clients so it's generating a
substantial amount of disk I/O and using a fair amount of the CPU.
Install the script so that it executes on system startup, like adding it
to rc.local Put the machine close to your desk. Every time you walk by
it, kill the power and then start it back up. This will give you a mix of
long overnight runs with no interruption to stress the overall system,
with a nice dose of recovery trauma. Skim the Postgres and OS log files
every day. Do that for a week, if it's still running your data should be
safe under real conditions.
--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
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^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os
@ 2007-05-23 15:51 Vivek Khera <vivek@khera.org>
parent: Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.org>
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Vivek Khera @ 2007-05-23 15:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: pgsql-performance
On May 23, 2007, at 2:32 AM, Andreas Kostyrka wrote:
> You forgot pulling some RAID drives at random times to see how the
> hardware deals with the fact. And how it deals with the rebuild
> afterwards. (Many RAID solutions leave you with worst of both
> worlds, taking longer to rebuild than a restore from backup would
> take, while at the same ime providing a disc IO performance that is
> SO bad that the server becomes useless during the rebuild)
*cough* adaptec *cough* :-(
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2007-05-23 15:51 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox mbox.gz follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2007-05-22 13:10 Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez@gmail.com>
2007-05-22 13:45 ` Alexander Staubo <alex@purefiction.net>
2007-05-22 13:55 ` PFC <lists@peufeu.com>
2007-05-23 04:11 ` Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
2007-05-23 06:32 Re: Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os Andreas Kostyrka <andreas@kostyrka.org>
2007-05-23 15:51 ` Vivek Khera <vivek@khera.org>
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