Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual

Chapter 2 Solaris Kernel Tunable Parameters

This chapter describes most of the Solaris kernel tunable parameters.

Where to Find Tunable Parameter Information

Tunable Parameter	For Information
NFS tunable parameters	Chapter 3, NFS Tunable Parameters
Internet Protocol Suite tunable parameters	Chapter 4, Internet Protocol Suite Tunable Parameters
Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA) tunable parameters	Chapter 5, Network Cache and Accelerator Tunable Parameters

General Kernel and Memory Parameters

This section describes general kernel parameters that are related to physical memory and stack configuration.

`physmem`

Description: Modifies the system's configuration of the number of physical pages of memory after the Solaris OS and firmware are accounted for.
Data Type: Unsigned long
Default: Number of usable pages of physical memory available on the system, not counting the memory where the core kernel and data are stored
Range: 1 to amount of physical memory on system
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: Whenever you want to test the effect of running the system with less physical memory. Because this parameter does not take into account the memory used by the core kernel and data, as well as various other data structures allocated early in the startup process, the value of physmem should be less than the actual number of pages that represent the smaller amount of memory.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`default_stksize`

Description

Specifies the default stack size of all threads. No thread can be created with a stack size smaller than default_stksize. If default_stksize is set, it overrides lwp_default_stksize. See also lwp_default_stksize.

Data Type

Integer

Default

3 x PAGESIZE on SPARC systems
2 x PAGESIZE on x86 systems
5 x PAGESIZE on AMD64 systems

Range

Minimum is the default values:

3 x PAGESIZE on SPARC systems
2 x PAGESIZE on x86 systems
5 x PAGESIZE on AMD64 systems

Maximum is 32 times the default value.

Units

Bytes in multiples of the value returned by the getpagesize parameter. For more information, see getpagesize(3C).

Dynamic?

Yes. Affects threads created after the variable is changed.

Validation

Must be greater than or equal to 8192 and less than or equal to 262,144 (256 x 1024). Also must be a multiple of the system page size. If these conditions are not met, the following message is displayed:

Illegal stack size, Using N

The value of N is the default value of default_stksize.

When to Change

When the system panics because it has run out of stack space. The best solution for this problem is to determine why the system is running out of space and then make a correction.

Increasing the default stack size means that almost every kernel thread will have a larger stack, resulting in increased kernel memory consumption for no good reason. Generally, that space will be unused. The increased consumption means other resources that are competing for the same pool of memory will have the amount of space available to them reduced, possibly decreasing the system's ability to perform work. Among the side effects is a reduction in the number of threads that the kernel can create. This solution should be treated as no more than an interim workaround until the root cause is remedied.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`lwp_default_stksize`

Description

Specifies the default value of the stack size to be used when a kernel thread is created, and when the calling routine does not provide an explicit size to be used.

Data Type

Integer

Default

8192 for x86 platforms
24,576 for SPARC platforms
20,480 for AMD64 platforms

Range

Minimum is the default values:

3 x PAGESIZE on SPARC systems
2 x PAGESIZE on x86 systems
5 x PAGESIZE on AMD64 systems

Maximum is 32 times the default value.

Units

Bytes in multiples of the value returned by the getpagesize parameter. For more information, see getpagesize(3C).

Dynamic?

Yes. Affects threads created after the variable is changed.

Validation

Illegal stack size, Using N

The value of N is the default value of lwp_default_stksize.

When to Change

When the system panics because it has run out of stack space. The best solution for this problem is to determine why the system is running out of space and then make a correction.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see lwp_default_stksize (Solaris 9 Releases).

`logevent_max_q_sz`

Description

Maximum number of system events allowed to be queued and waiting for delivery to the syseventd daemon. Once the size of the system event queue reaches this limit, no other system events are allowed on the queue.

Data Type

Integer

Default

5000

Range

0 to MAXINT

Units

System events

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

The system event framework checks this value every time a system event is generated by ddi_log_sysevent and sysevent_post_event.

For more information, see ddi_log_sysevent(9F) and sysevent_post_event(3SYSEVENT).

When to Change

When error log messages indicate that a system event failed to be logged, generated, or posted.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`segkpsize`

Description

Specifies the amount of kernel pageable memory available. This memory is used primarily for kernel thread stacks. Increasing this number allows either larger stacks for the same number of threads or more threads. This parameter can only be set on a system running a 64-bit kernel. A system running a 64-bit kernel uses a default stack size of 24 Kbytes.

Data Type

Unsigned long

Default

64-bit kernels, 2 Gbytes

32-bit kernels, 512 Mbytes

Range

64-bit kernels, 512 Mbytes to 24 Gbytes

Units

8-Kbyte pages

Dynamic?

Validation

Value is compared to minimum and maximum sizes (512 Mbytes and 24 Gbytes for 64-bit systems). If smaller than the minimum or larger than the maximum, it is reset to 2 Gbytes. A message to that effect is displayed.

The actual size used in creation of the cache is the lesser of the value specified in segkpsize after the validation checking or 50 percent of physical memory.

When to Change

Required to support large numbers of processes on a system. The default size of 2 Gbytes, assuming at least 1 Gbyte of physical memory is present. This default size allows creation of 24-Kbyte stacks for more than 87,000 kernel threads. The size of a stack in a 64-bit kernel is the same, whether the process is a 32-bit process or a 64-bit process. If more than this number is needed, segkpsize can be increased, assuming sufficient physical memory exists.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see segkpsize (Solaris 9 12/02 Release).

`noexec_user_stack`

Description

Enables the stack to be marked as nonexecutable, which helps make buffer-overflow attacks more difficult.

A Solaris system running a 64-bit kernel makes the stacks of all 64-bit applications nonexecutable by default. Setting this parameter is necessary to make 32-bit applications nonexecutable on systems running 64-bit or 32-bit kernels.

Note –

This parameter exists on all systems running the Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 releases, but it is only effective on 64–bit SPARC and AMD64 architectures.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

0 (disabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)

Units

Toggle (on/off)

Dynamic?

Yes. Does not affect currently running processes, only processes created after the value is set.

Validation

None

When to Change

Should be enabled at all times unless applications are deliberately placing executable code on the stack without using mprotect to make the stack executable. For more information, see mprotect(2).

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see noexec_user_stack (Solaris 9 Releases).

`fsflush` and Related Parameters

This section describes fsflush and related tunables.

`fsflush`

The system daemon, fsflush, runs periodically to do three main tasks:

On every invocation, fsflush flushes dirty file system pages over a certain age to disk.
On every invocation, fsflush examines a portion of memory and causes modified pages to be written to their backing store. Pages are written if they are modified and if they do not meet one of the following conditions:
- Pages are kernel page
- Pages are free
- Pages are locked
- Pages are associated with a swap device
- Pages are currently involved in an I/O operation
The net effect is to flush pages from files that are mapped with mmap with write permission and that have actually been changed.

Pages are flushed to backing store but left attached to the process using them. This will simplify page reclamation when the system runs low on memory by avoiding delay for writing the page to backing store before claiming it, if the page has not been modified since the flush.
fsflush writes file system metadata to disk. This write is done every nth invocation, where n is computed from various configuration variables. See tune_t_fsflushr and autoup for details.

The following features are configurable:

Frequency of invocation (tune_t_fsflushr)
Whether memory scanning is executed (dopageflush)
Whether file system data flushing occurs (doiflush)
The frequency with which file system data flushing occurs (autoup)

For most systems, memory scanning and file system metadata synchronizing are the dominant activities for fsflush. Depending on system usage, memory scanning can be of little use or consume too much CPU time.

`tune_t_fsflushr`

Description: Specifies the number of seconds between fsflush invocations
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 1
Range: 1 to MAXINT
Units: Seconds
Dynamic?: No
Validation: If the value is less than or equal to zero, the value is reset to 1 and a warning message is displayed. This check is done only at boot time.
When to Change: See the autoup parameter.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`autoup`

Description

Along with tune_t_flushr, autoup controls the amount of memory examined for dirty pages in each invocation and frequency of file system synchronizing operations.

The value of autoup is also used to control whether a buffer is written out from the free list. Buffers marked with the B_DELWRI flag (which identifies file content pages that have changed) are written out whenever the buffer has been on the list for longer than autoup seconds. Increasing the value of autoup keeps the buffers in memory for a longer time.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

Range

1 to MAXINT

Units

Seconds

Dynamic?

Validation

If autoup is less than or equal to zero, it is reset to 30 and a warning message is displayed. This check is done only at boot time.

Implicit

autoup should be an integer multiple of tune_t_fsflushr. At a minimum, autoup should be at least 6 times the value of tune_t_fsflushr. If not, excessive amounts of memory are scanned each time fsflush is invoked.

The total system pages multiplied by tune_t_fsflushr should be greater than or equal to autoup to cause memory to be checked if dopageflush is non-zero.

When to Change

Here are several potential situations for changing autoup, tune_t_fsflushr, or both:

Systems with large amounts of memory – In this case, increasing autoup reduces the amount of memory scanned in each invocation of fsflush.
Systems with minimal memory demand – Increasing both autoup and tune_t_fsflushr reduces the number of scans made. autoup should be increased also to maintain the current ratio of autoup / tune_t_fsflushr.
Systems with large numbers of transient files (for example, mail servers or software build machines) – If large numbers of files are created and then deleted, fsflush might unnecessarily write data pages for those files to disk.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`dopageflush`

Description: Controls whether memory is examined for modified pages during fsflush invocations. In each invocation of fsflush, the number of physical memory pages in the system is determined. This number might have changed because of a dynamic reconfiguration operation. Each invocation scans by using this algorithm: total number of pages x tune_t_fsflushr / autoup pages
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 1 (enabled)
Range: 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)
Units: Toggle (on/off)
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: If the system page scanner rarely runs, which is indicated by a value of 0 in the sr column of vmstat output.
Commitment Level: Unstable
Change History: For information, see dopageflush (Solaris 10 Releases).

`doiflush`

Description

Controls whether file system metadata syncs will be executed during fsflush invocations. This synchronization is done every Nth invocation of fsflush where N= (autoup / tune_t_fsflushr). Because this algorithm is integer division, if tune_t_fsflushr is greater than autoup, a synchronization is done on every invocation of fsflush because the code checks to see if its iteration counter is greater than or equal to N. Note that N is computed once on invocation of fsflush. Later changes to tune_t_fsflushr or autoup have no effect on the frequency of synchronization operations.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

1 (enabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)

Units

Toggle (on/off)

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

When files are frequently modified over a period of time and the load caused by the flushing perturbs system behavior.

Files whose existence, and therefore consistency of state, does not matter if the system reboots are better kept in a TMPFS file system (for example, /tmp). Inode traffic can be reduced on systems, starting in the Solaris 7 release, by using the mount -noatime option. This option eliminates inode updates when the file is accessed.

For a system engaged in realtime processing, you might want to disable this option and use explicit application file synchronizing to achieve consistency.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Process-Sizing Parameters

Several parameters (or variables) are used to control the number of processes that are available on the system and the number of processes that an individual user can create. The foundation parameter is maxusers. This parameter drives the values assigned to max_nprocs and maxuprc.

`maxusers`

Description

Originally, maxusers defined the number of logged in users the system could support. When a kernel was generated, various tables were sized based on this setting. Current Solaris releases do much of its sizing based on the amount of memory on the system. Thus, much of the past use of maxusers has changed. A number of subsystems that are still derived from maxusers:

The maximum number of processes on the system
The number of quota structures held in the system
The size of the directory name look-up cache (DNLC)

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

Lesser of the amount of memory in Mbytes or 2048

Range

1 to 2048, based on physical memory if not set in the /etc/system file

1 to 4096, if set in the /etc/system file

Units

Users

Dynamic?

No. After computation of dependent parameters is done, maxusers is never referenced again.

Validation

None

When to Change

When the default number of user processes derived by the system is too low. This situation is evident when the following message displays on the system console:

out of processes

You might also change this parameter when the default number of processes is too high, as in these situations:

Database servers that have a lot of memory and relatively few running processes can save system memory when the default value of maxusers is reduced.
If file servers have a lot of memory and few running processes, you might reduce this value. However, you should explicitly set the size of the DNLC. See ncsize.
If compute servers have a lot of memory and few running processes, you might reduce this value.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`reserved_procs`

Description: Specifies the number of system process slots to be reserved in the process table for processes with a UID of root (0). For example, fsflush has a UID of root (0).
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 5
Range: 5 to MAXINT
Units: Processes
Dynamic?: No. Not used after the initial parameter computation.
Validation: Starting in the Solaris 8 release, any /etc/system setting is honored.
Commitment Level: Unstable
When to Change: Consider increasing to 10 + the normal number of UID 0 (root) processes on system. This setting provides some cushion should it be necessary to obtain a root shell when the system is otherwise unable to create user-level processes.

`pidmax`

Description

Specifies the value of the largest possible process ID. Valid for Solaris 8 and later releases.

pidmax sets the value for the maxpid variable. Once maxpid is set, pidmax is ignored. maxpid is used elsewhere in the kernel to determine the maximum process ID and for validation checking.

Any attempts to set maxpid by adding an entry to the /etc/system file have no effect.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

30,000

Range

266 to 999,999

Units

Processes

Dynamic?

No. Used only at boot time to set the value of pidmax.

Validation

Yes. Value is compared to the value of reserved_procs and 999,999. If less than reserved_procs or greater than 999,999, the value is set to 999,999.

Implicit

max_nprocs range checking ensures that max_nprocs is always less than or equal to this value.

When to Change

Required to enable support for more than 30,000 processes on a system.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`max_nprocs`

Description

Specifies the maximum number of processes that can be created on a system. Includes system processes and user processes. Any value specified in /etc/system is used in the computation of maxuprc.

This value is also used in determining the size of several other system data structures. Other data structures where this parameter plays a role are as follows:

Determining the size of the directory name lookup cache (if ncsize is not specified)
Allocating disk quota structures for UFS (if ndquot is not specified)
Verifying that the amount of memory used by configured system V semaphores does not exceed system limits
Configuring Hardware Address Translation resources for x86 platforms.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

10 + (16 x maxusers)

Range

266 to value of maxpid

Dynamic?

Validation

Yes. The value is compared to maxpid and set to maxpid if it is larger. On x86 platforms, an additional check is made against a platform-specific value. max_nprocs is set to the smallest value in the triplet (max_nprocs, maxpid, platform value). Both SPARC and x86 platforms use 65,534 as the platform value.

When to Change

Changing this parameter is one of the steps necessary to enable support for more than 30,000 processes on a system.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see max_nprocs (Solaris 9 Releases).

`maxuprc`

Description

Specifies the maximum number of processes that can be created on a system by any one user.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

max_nprocs - reserved_procs

Range

1 to max_nprocs - reserved_procs

Units

Processes

Dynamic?

Validation

Yes. This value is compared to max_nprocs - reserved_procs and set to the smaller of the two values.

When to Change

When you want to specify a hard limit for the number of processes a user can create that is less than the default value of however many processes the system can create. Attempting to exceed this limit generates the following warning messages on the console or in the messages file:

out of per-user processes for uid N

Commitment Level

Unstable

Paging-Related Parameters

The Solaris OS uses a demand paged virtual memory system. As the system runs, pages are brought into memory as needed. When memory becomes occupied above a certain threshold and demand for memory continues, paging begins. Paging goes through several levels that are controlled by certain parameters.

The general paging algorithm is as follows:

A memory deficit is noticed. The page scanner thread runs and begins to walk through memory. A two-step algorithm is employed:
1. A page is marked as unused.
2. If still unused after a time interval, the page is viewed as a subject for reclaim.
If the page has been modified, a request is made to the pageout thread to schedule the page for I/O. Also, the page scanner continues looking at memory. Pageout causes the page to be written to the page's backing store and placed on the free list. When the page scanner scans memory, no distinction is made as to the origin of the page. The page might have come from a data file, or it might represent a page from an executable's text, data, or stack.
As memory pressure on the system increases, the algorithm becomes more aggressive in the pages it will consider as candidates for reclamation and in how frequently the paging algorithm runs. (For more information, see fastscan and slowscan.) As available memory falls between the range lotsfree and minfree, the system linearly increases the amount of memory scanned in each invocation of the pageout thread from the value specified by slowscan to the value specified by fastscan. The system uses the desfree parameter to control a number of decisions about resource usage and behavior.

The system initially constrains itself to use no more than 4 percent of one CPU for pageout operations. As memory pressure increases, the amount of CPU time consumed in support of pageout operations linearly increases until a maximum of 80 percent of one CPU is consumed. The algorithm looks through some amount of memory between slowscan and fastscan, then stops when one of the following occurs:

Enough pages have been found to satisfy the memory shortfall.
The planned number of pages have been looked at.
Too much time has elapsed.

If a memory shortfall is still present when pageout finishes its scan, another scan is scheduled for 1/4 second in the future.

The configuration mechanism of the paging subsystem was changed, starting in the Solaris 9 release. Instead of depending on a set of predefined values for fastscan, slowscan, and handspreadpages, the system determines the appropriate settings for these parameters at boot time. Setting any of these parameters in the /etc/system file can cause the system to use less than optimal values.

Caution –

Remove all tuning of the VM system from the /etc/system file. Run with the default settings and determine if it is necessary to adjust any of these parameters. Do not set either cachefree or priority_paging. They have been removed, starting in the Solaris 9 release.

Beginning in the Solaris 7 5/99 release, dynamic reconfiguration (DR) for CPU and memory is supported. A system in a DR operation that involves the addition or deletion of memory recalculates values for the relevant parameters, unless the parameter has been explicitly set in /etc/system. In that case, the value specified in /etc/system is used, unless a constraint on the value of the variable has been violated. In this case, the value is reset.

`lotsfree`

Description

Serves as the initial trigger for system paging to begin. When this threshold is crossed, the page scanner wakes up to begin looking for memory pages to reclaim.

Data Type

Unsigned long

Default

The greater of 1/64th of physical memory or 512 Kbytes

Range

The minimum value is 512 Kbytes or 1/64th of physical memory, whichever is greater, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize. For more information, seegetpagesize(3C).

The maximum value is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 30 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range, other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Yes, but dynamic changes are lost if a memory-based DR operation occurs.

Validation

If lotsfree is greater than the amount of physical memory, the value is reset to the default.

Implicit

The relationship of lotsfree being greater than desfree, which is greater than minfree, should be maintained at all times.

When to Change

When demand for pages is subject to sudden sharp spikes, the memory algorithm might be unable to keep up with demand. One workaround is to start reclaiming memory at an earlier time. This solution gives the paging system some additional margin.

A rule of thumb is to set this parameter to 2 times what the system needs to allocate in a few seconds. This parameter is workload dependent. A DBMS server can probably work fine with the default settings. However, you might need to adjust this parameter for a system doing heavy file system I/O.

For systems with relatively static workloads and large amounts of memory, lower this value. The minimum acceptable value is 512 Kbytes, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`desfree`

Description

Specifies the preferred amount of memory to be free at all times on the system.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

lotsfree / 2

Range

The minimum value is 256 Kbytes or 1/128th of physical memory, whichever is greater, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

The maximum value is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 15 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Yes, unless dynamic reconfiguration operations that add or delete memory occur. At that point, the value is reset to the value provided in the /etc/system file or calculated from the new physical memory value.

Validation

If desfree is greater than lotsfree, desfree is set to lotsfree / 2. No message is displayed.

Implicit

The relationship of lotsfree being greater than desfree, which is greater than minfree, should be maintained at all times.

Side Effects

Several side effects can arise from increasing the value of this parameter. When the new value nears or exceeds the amount of available memory on the system, the following can occur:

Asynchronous I/O requests are not processed, unless available memory exceeds desfree. Increasing the value of desfree can result in rejection of requests that otherwise would succeed.
NFS asynchronous writes are executed as synchronous writes.
The swapper is awakened earlier, and the behavior of the swapper is biased towards more aggressive actions.
The system might not prefault as many executable pages into the system. This side effect results in applications potentially running slower than they otherwise would.

When to Change

For systems with relatively static workloads and large amounts of memory, lower this value. The minimum acceptable value is 256 Kbytes, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`minfree`

Description

Specifies the minimum acceptable memory level. When memory drops below this number, the system biases allocations toward allocations necessary to successfully complete pageout operations or to swap processes completely out of memory. Either allocation denies or blocks other allocation requests.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

desfree / 2

Range

The minimum value is 128 Kbytes or 1/256th of physical memory, whichever is greater, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

The maximum value is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 7.5 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Validation

If minfree is greater than desfree, minfree is set to desfree / 2. No message is displayed.

Implicit

The relationship of lotsfree being greater than desfree, which is greater than minfree, should be maintained at all times.

When to Change

The default value is generally adequate. For systems with relatively static workloads and large amounts of memory, lower this value. The minimum acceptable value is 128 Kbytes, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`throttlefree`

Description

Specifies the memory level at which blocking memory allocation requests are put to sleep, even if the memory is sufficient to satisfy the request.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

minfree

Range

The minimum value is 128 Kbytes or 1/256th of physical memory, whichever is greater, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

The maximum value is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 4 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Validation

If throttlefree is greater than desfree, throttlefree is set to minfree. No message is displayed.

Implicit

The relationship of lotsfree is greater than desfree, which is greater than minfree, should be maintained at all times.

When to Change

Commitment Level

Unstable

`pageout_reserve`

Description

Specifies the number of pages reserved for the exclusive use of the pageout or scheduler threads. When available memory is less than this value, nonblocking allocations are denied for any processes other than pageout or the scheduler. Pageout needs to have a small pool of memory for its use so it can allocate the data structures necessary to do the I/O for writing a page to its backing store. This variable was introduced in the Solaris 2.6 release to ensure that the system would be able to perform a pageout operation in the face of the most severe memory shortage.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

throttlefree / 2

Range

The minimum value is 64 Kbytes or 1/512th of physical memory, whichever is greater, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize(3C).

The maximum is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 2 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range, other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Validation

If pageout_reserve is greater than throttlefree / 2, pageout_reserve is set to throttlefree / 2. No message is displayed.

Implicit

The relationship of lotsfree being greater than desfree, which is greater than minfree, should be maintained at all times.

When to Change

The default value is generally adequate. For systems with relatively static workloads and large amounts of memory, lower this value. The minimum acceptable value is 64 Kbytes, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`pages_pp_maximum`

Description

Defines the number of pages that must be unlocked. If a request to lock pages would force available memory below this value, that request is refused.

Data Type

Unsigned long

Default

The greater of (tune_t_minarmem + 100 and [4% of memory available at boot time + 4 Mbytes])

Range

Minimum value enforced by the system is tune_t_minarmem + 100. The system does not enforce a maximum value.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Yes, unless dynamic reconfiguration operations that add or delete memory occur. At that point, the value is reset to the value provided in the /etc/system file or was calculated from the new physical memory value.

Validation

If the value specified in the /etc/system file or the calculated default is less than tune_t_minarmem + 100, the value is reset to tune_t_minarmem + 100.

No message is displayed if the value from the /etc/system file is increased. Validation is done only at boot time and during dynamic reconfiguration operations that involve adding or deleting memory.

When to Change

When memory-locking requests fail or when attaching to a shared memory segment with the SHARE_MMU flag fails, yet the amount of memory available seems to be sufficient.

Excessively large values can cause memory locking requests (mlock, mlockall, and memcntl) to fail unnecessarily. For more information, see mlock(3C), mlockall(3C), and memcntl(2).

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see pages_pp_maximum (Solaris Releases Prior to Solaris 9 Releases).

`tune_t_minarmem`

Description: Defines the minimum available resident (not swappable) memory to maintain necessary to avoid deadlock. Used to reserve a portion of memory for use by the core of the OS. Pages restricted in this way are not seen when the OS determines the maximum amount of memory available.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 25
Range: 1 to physical memory
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None. Large values result in wasted physical memory.
When to Change: The default value is generally adequate. Consider increasing the default value if the system locks up and debugging information indicates that no memory was available.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`fastscan`

Description: Defines the maximum number of pages per second that the system looks at when memory pressure is highest.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: The lesser of 64 Mbytes and 1/2 of physical memory.
Range: 1 to one-half of physical memory
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: Yes, unless dynamic reconfiguration operations that add or delete memory occur. At that point, the value is reset to the value provided by /etc/system or calculated from the new physical memory value.
Validation: The maximum value is the lesser of 64 Mbytes and 1/2 of physical memory.
When to Change: When more aggressive scanning of memory is preferred during periods of memory shortfall, especially when the system is subject to periods of intense memory demand or when performing heavy file I/O.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`slowscan`

Description: Defines the minimum number of pages per second that the system looks at when attempting to reclaim memory.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: The smaller of 1/20th of physical memory in pages and 100.
Range: 1 to fastscan / 2
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: Yes, unless dynamic reconfiguration operations that add or delete memory occur. At that point, the value is reset to the value provided in the /etc/system file or calculated from the new physical memory value.
Validation: If slowscan is larger than fastscan / 2, slowscan is reset to fastscan / 2. No message is displayed.
When to Change: When more aggressive scanning of memory is preferred during periods of memory shortfall, especially when the system is subject to periods of intense memory demand.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`min_percent_cpu`

Description: Defines the minimum percentage of CPU that pageout can consume. This parameter is used as the starting point for determining the maximum amount of time that can be consumed by the page scanner.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 4
Range: 1 to 80
Units: Percentage
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: Increasing this value on systems with multiple CPUs and lots of memory, which are subject to intense periods of memory demand, enables the pager to spend more time attempting to find memory.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`handspreadpages`

Description: The Solaris OS uses a two-handed clock algorithm to look for pages that are candidates for reclaiming when memory is low. The first hand of the clock walks through memory marking pages as unused. The second hand walks through memory some distance after the first hand, checking to see if the page is still marked as unused. If so, the page is subject to being reclaimed. The distance between the first hand and the second hand is handspreadpages.
Data Type: Unsigned long
Default: fastscan
Range: 1 to maximum number of physical memory pages on the system
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: Yes. This parameter requires that the kernel reset_hands parameter also be set to a non-zero value. Once the new value of handspreadpages has been recognized, reset_hands is set to zero.
Validation: The value is set to the lesser of either the amount of physical memory and the handspreadpages value.
When to Change: When you want to increase the amount of time that pages are potentially resident before being reclaimed. Increasing this value increases the separation between the hands, and therefore, the amount of time before a page can be reclaimed.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`pages_before_pager`

Description

Defines part of a system threshold that immediately frees pages after an I/O completes instead of storing the pages for possible reuse. The threshold is lotsfree + pages_before_pager. The NFS environment also uses this threshold to curtail its asynchronous activities as memory pressure mounts.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

200

Range

1 to amount of physical memory

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

You might change this parameter when the majority of I/O is done for pages that are truly read or written once and never referenced again. Setting this variable to a larger amount of memory keeps adding pages to the free list.

You might also change this parameter when the system is subject to bursts of severe memory pressure. A larger value here helps maintain a larger cushion against the pressure.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`maxpgio`

Description: Defines the maximum number of page I/O requests that can be queued by the paging system. This number is divided by 4 to get the actual maximum number used by the paging system. This parameter is used to throttle the number of requests as well as to control process swapping.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 40
Range: 1 to a variable maximum that depends on the system architecture, but mainly by the I/O subsystem, such as the number of controllers, disks, and disk swap size
Units: I/0s
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
Implicit: The maximum number of I/O requests from the pager is limited by the size of a list of request buffers, which is currently sized at 256.
When to Change: Increase this parameter to page out memory faster. A larger value might help to recover faster from memory pressure if more than one swap device is configured or if the swap device is a striped device. Note that the existing I/O subsystem should be able to handle the additional I/O load. Also, increased swap I/O could degrade application I/O performance if the swap partition and application files are on the same disk.
Commitment Level: Unstable
Change History: For information, see maxpgio (Solaris 10 Releases).

Swapping-Related Parameters

Swapping in the Solaris OS is accomplished by the swapfs pseudo file system. The combination of space on swap devices and physical memory is treated as the pool of space available to support the system for maintaining backing store for anonymous memory. The system attempts to allocate space from disk devices first, and then uses physical memory as backing store. When swapfs is forced to use system memory for backing store, limits are enforced to ensure that the system does not deadlock because of excessive consumption by swapfs.

`swapfs_reserve`

Description

Defines the amount of system memory that is reserved for use by system (UID = 0) processes.

Data Type

Unsigned long

Default

The smaller of 4 Mbytes and 1/16th of physical memory

Range

The minimum value is 4 Mbytes or 1/16th of physical memory, whichever is smaller, expressed as pages using the page size returned by getpagesize.

The maximum value is the number of physical memory pages. The maximum value should be no more than 10 percent of physical memory. The system does not enforce this range, other than that described in the Validation section.

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

Generally not necessary. Only change when recommended by a software provider, or when system processes are terminating because of an inability to obtain swap space. A much better solution is to add physical memory or additional swap devices to the system.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`swapfs_minfree`

Description: Defines the desired amount of physical memory to be kept free for the rest of the system. Attempts to reserve memory for use as swap space by any process that causes the system's perception of available memory to fall below this value are rejected. Pages reserved in this manner can only be used for locked-down allocations by the kernel or by user-level processes.
Data Type: Unsigned long
Default: The larger of 2 Mbytes and 1/8th of physical memory
Range: 1 to amount of physical memory
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: When processes are failing because of an inability to obtain swap space, yet the system has memory available.
Commitment Level: Unstable

Kernel Memory Allocator

The Solaris kernel memory allocator distributes chunks of memory for use by clients inside the kernel. The allocator creates a number of caches of varying size for use by its clients. Clients can also request the allocator to create a cache for use by that client (for example, to allocate structures of a particular size). Statistics about each cache that the allocator manages can be seen by using the kstat -c kmem_cache command.

Occasionally, systems might panic because of memory corruption. The kernel memory allocator supports a debugging interface (a set of flags), that performs various integrity checks on the buffers. The kernel memory allocator also collects information on the allocators. The integrity checks provide the opportunity to detect errors closer to where they actually occurred. The collected information provides additional data for support people when they try to ascertain the reason for the panic.

Use of the flags incurs additional overhead and memory usage during system operations. The flags should only be used when a memory corruption problem is suspected.

`kmem_flags`

Description

The Solaris kernel memory allocator has various debugging and test options that were extensively used during the internal development cycle of the Solaris OS. Starting in the Solaris 2.5 release, a subset of these options became available. They are controlled by the kmem_flags variable, which was set with a kernel debugger, and then rebooting the system. Because of issues with the timing of the instantiation of the kernel memory allocator and the parsing of the /etc/system file, it was not possible to set these flags in the /etc/system file until the Solaris 8 release.

Five supported flag settings are described here.

Flag	Setting	Description
`AUDIT`	`0x1`	The allocator maintains a log that contains recent history of its activity. The number of items logged depends on whether `CONTENTS` is also set. The log is a fixed size. When space is exhausted, earlier records are reclaimed.
`TEST`	`0x2`	The allocator writes a pattern into freed memory and checks that the pattern is unchanged when the buffer is next allocated. If some portion of the buffer is changed, then the memory was probably used by a client that had previously allocated and freed the buffer. If an overwrite is identified, the system panics.
`REDZONE`	`0x4`	The allocator provides extra memory at the end of the requested buffer and inserts a special pattern into that memory. When the buffer is freed, the pattern is checked to see if data was written past the end of the buffer. If an overwrite is identified, the kernel panics.
`CONTENTS`	`0x8`	The allocator logs up to 256 bytes of buffer contents when the buffer is freed. This flag requires that `AUDIT` also be set. The numeric value of these flags can be logically added together and set by the `/etc/system` file, starting in the Solaris 8 release, or for previous releases, by booting `kadb` and setting the flags before starting the kernel.
`LITE`	`0x100`	Does minimal integrity checking when a buffer is allocated and freed. When enabled, the allocator checks that the redzone has not been written into, that a freed buffer is not being freed again, and that the buffer being freed is the size that was allocated. This flag is available as of the Solaris 7 3/99 release. Do not combine this flag with any other flags.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

0 (disabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 - 15 or 256 (0x100)

Dynamic?

Yes. Changes made during runtime only affect new kernel memory caches. After system initialization, the creation of new caches is rare.

Validation

None

When to Change

When memory corruption is suspected

Commitment Level

Unstable

`kmem_stackinfo`

Description

If the kmem_stackinfo variable is enabled in the /etc/system file at kernel thread creation time, the kernel thread stack is filled with a specific pattern instead of filled with zeros. During kernel thread execution, this kernel thread stack pattern is progressively overwritten. A simple count from the stack top until the pattern is not found gives a high watermark value, which is the maximum kernel stack space used by a kernel thread. This mechanism allows the following features:

Compute the percentage of kernel thread stack really used (a high watermark) for current kernel threads in the system
When a kernel thread ends, the system logs the last kernel threads that have used the most of their kernel thread stacks before dying to a small circular memory buffer

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

0 (disabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

When you want to monitor kernel thread stack usage. Keep in mind that when kmem_stackinfo is enabled, the performance of creating and deleting kthreads is decreased. For more information, see the Chapter 5, Built-In Commands, in Solaris Modular Debugger Guide.

Zone Configuration

This parameter must be set in the global zone.

Commitment Level

Unstable

General Driver Parameters

`moddebug`

Description

When this parameter is enabled, messages about various steps in the module loading process aredisplayed.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

0 (messages off)

Range

Here are the most useful values:

0x80000000 – Prints [un] loading... message. For every module loaded, messages such as the following appear on the console and in the /var/adm/messages file:

Nov 5 16:12:28 sys genunix: [ID 943528 kern.notice] 
load 'sched/TS_DPTBL' id 9 loaded @ 0x10126438/
0x10438dd8 size 132/2064 
Nov 5 16:12:28 sys genunix: [ID 131579 kern.notice] 
installing TS_DPTBL, module id 9.

0x40000000 – Prints detailed error messages. For every module loaded, messages such as the following appear on the console and in the /var/adm/messages file:

Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 284770 kern.notice] 
kobj_open: can't open /platform/SUNW,Ultra-80/kernel/
sched/TS_DPTBL
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 284770 kern.notice] 
kobj_open: can't open /platform/sun4u/kernel/sched/
TS_DPTBL
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 797908 kern.notice] 
kobj_open: '/kernel/sch...
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 605504 kern.notice] 
descr = 0x2a
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 642728 kern.notice] 
kobj_read_file: size=34,
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 217760 kern.notice] 
offset=0
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 136382 kern.notice] 
kobj_read: req 8192 bytes,
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 295989 kern.notice] 
got 4224
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 426732 kern.notice] 
read 1080 bytes
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 720464 kern.notice] 
copying 34 bytes
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys krtld: [ID 234587 kern.notice] 
count = 34
[33 lines elided]
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys genunix: [ID 943528 kern.notice] 
load 'sched/TS_DPTBL' id 9 loaded @ 0x10126438/
0x10438dd8 size 132/2064
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys genunix: [ID 131579 kern.notice] 
installing TS_DPTBL, module id 9.
Nov 5 16:16:50 sys genunix: [ID 324367 kern.notice] 
init 'sched/TS_DPTBL' id 9 loaded @ 0x10126438/
0x10438dd8 size 132/2064

0x20000000 - Prints even more detailed messages. This value doesn't print any additional information beyond what the 0x40000000 flag does during system boot. However, this value does print additional information about releasing the module when the module is unloaded.

These values can be added together to set the final value.

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

When a module is either not loading as expected, or the system seems to hang while loading modules. Note that when 0x40000000 is set, system boot is slowed down considerably by the number of messages written to the console.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`ddi_msix_alloc_limit`

Description: This parameter, available on x86 systems only, controls the number of Extended Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI-X) that a device instance can allocate. Due to an existing system limitation, the default value is 2. You can increase the number of MSI-X interrupts that a device instance can allocate by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set either by editing the /etc/system file or by setting it with mdb before the device driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 2
Range: 1 to 16
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: To increase the number of MSI-X interrupts that a device instance can allocate. However, if you increase the number of MSI-X interrupts that a network device instance can allocate, adequate interrupts might not be available to satisfy all allocation requests. If this happens, some devices might stop functioning or the system might fail to boot. Reduce the value or remove the parameter in this case.
Commitment Level: Unstable

Network Driver Parameters

`igb` Parameters

`mr_enable`

Description: This parameter enables or disables multiple receive and transmit queues that are used by the igb network driver. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/igb.conf file before the igb driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Boolean
Default: 1 (disable multiple queues)
Range: 0 (enable multiple queues) or 1 (disable multiple queues)
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To enable or disable multiple receive and transmit queues that are used by the igb network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`intr_force`

Description

This parameter is used to force an interrupt type, such as MSI, MSI-X, or legacy, that is used by the igb network driver. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/igb.conf file before the igb driver attach occurs.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

0 (do not force an interrupt type)

Range

0 (do not force an interrupt type)

1 (force MSI-X interrupt type)

2 (force MSI interrupt type)

3 (force legacy interrupt type)

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

To force an interrupt type that is used by the igb network driver.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`ixgbe` Parameters

`tx_queue_number`

Description: This parameter controls the number of transmit queues that are used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the number of transmit queues by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 8
Range: 1 to 32
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the number of transmit queues that are used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`rx_queue_number`

Description: This parameter controls the number of receive queues that are used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the number of receive queues by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 8
Range: 1 to 64
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the number of receive queues that are used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`intr_throttling`

Description: This parameter controls the interrupt throttling rate of the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the rate of interrupt by decreasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 200
Range: 0 to 65535
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the interrupt throttling rate that is used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`rx_limit_per_intr`

Description: This parameter controls the maximum number of receive queue buffer descriptors per interrupt that are used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the number of receive queue buffer descriptors by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 256
Range: 16 to 4096
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the number of receive queue buffer descriptors that are handled per interrupt by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`tx_ring_size`

Description: This parameter controls the transmit queue size that is used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the transmit queue size by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 1024
Range: 64 to 4096
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the transmit queue size that is used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`rx_ring_size`

Description: This parameter controls the receive queue size that is used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the receive queue size by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 1024
Range: 64 to 4096
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the receive queue size that is used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`tx_copy_threshold`

Description: This parameter controls the transmit buffer copy threshold that is used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the transmit buffer copy threshold by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 512
Range: 0 to 9126
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the transmit buffer copy threshold that is used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`rx_copy_threshold`

Description: This parameter controls the receive buffer copy threshold that is used by the ixgbe network driver. You can increase the receive buffer copy threshold by increasing the value of this parameter. This parameter can be set by editing the /kernel/drv/ixgbe.conf file before the ixgbe driver attach occurs.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 128
Range: 0 to 9126
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: To change the receive buffer copy threshold that is used by the ixgbe network driver.
Commitment Level: Unstable

General I/O Parameters

`maxphys`

Description

Defines the maximum size of physical I/O requests. If a driver encounters a request larger than this size, the driver breaks the request into maxphys sized chunks. File systems can and do impose their own limit.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

131,072 (sun4u or sun4v) or 57,344 (x86). The sd driver uses the value of 1,048,576 if the drive supports wide transfers. The ssd driver uses 1,048,576 by default.

Range

Machine-specific page size to MAXINT

Units

Bytes

Dynamic?

Yes, but many file systems load this value into a per-mount point data structure when the file system is mounted. A number of drivers load the value at the time a device is attached to a driver-specific data structure.

Validation

None

When to Change

When doing I/O to and from raw devices in large chunks. Note that a DBMS doing OLTP operations issues large numbers of small I/Os. Changing maxphys does not result in any performance improvement in that case.

You might also consider changing this parameter when doing I/O to and from a UFS file system where large amounts of data (greater than 64 Kbytes) are being read or written at any one time. The file system should be optimized to increase contiguity. For example, increase the size of the cylinder groups and decrease the number of inodes per cylinder group. UFS imposes an internal limit of 1 Mbyte on the maximum I/O size it transfers.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see maxphys (Solaris 10 Releases).

`rlim_fd_max`

Description

Specifies the “hard” limit on file descriptors that a single process might have open. Overriding this limit requires superuser privilege.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

65,536

Range

1 to MAXINT

Units

File descriptors

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

When the maximum number of open files for a process is not enough. Other limitations in system facilities can mean that a larger number of file descriptors is not as useful as it might be. For example:

A 32-bit program using standard I/O is limited to 256 file descriptors. A 64-bit program using standard I/O can use up to 2 billion descriptors. Specifically, standard I/O refers to the stdio(3C) functions in libc(3LIB).
select is by default limited to 1024 descriptors per fd_set. For more information, see select(3C). Starting with the Solaris 7 release, 32-bit application code can be recompiled with a larger fd_set size (less than or equal to 65,536). A 64-bit application uses an fd_set size of 65,536, which cannot be changed.

An alternative to changing this on a system wide basis is to use the plimit(1) command. If a parent process has its limits changed by plimit, all children inherit the increased limit. This alternative is useful for daemons such as inetd.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see rlim_fd_max (Solaris 8 Release).

`rlim_fd_cur`

Description: Defines the “soft” limit on file descriptors that a single process can have open. A process might adjust its file descriptor limit to any value up to the “hard” limit defined by rlim_fd_max by using the setrlimit() call or by issuing the limit command in whatever shell it is running. You do not require superuser privilege to adjust the limit to any value less than or equal to the hard limit.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 256
Range: 1 to MAXINT
Units: File descriptors
Dynamic?: No
Validation: Compared to rlim_fd_max. If rlim_fd_cur is greater than rlim_fd_max, rlim_fd_cur is reset to rlim_fd_max.
When to Change: When the default number of open files for a process is not enough. Increasing this value means only that it might not be necessary for a program to use setrlimit to increase the maximum number of file descriptors available to it.
Commitment Level: Unstable

General File System Parameters

`ncsize`

Description

Defines the number of entries in the directory name look-up cache (DNLC). This parameter is used by UFS and NFS to cache elements of path names that have been resolved.

Starting with the Solaris 8 6/00 release, the DNLC also caches negative look-up information, which means it caches a name not found in the cache.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

(4 x (v.v_proc + maxusers) + 320) + (4 x (v.v_proc + maxusers) + 320 / 100

Range

0 to MAXINT

Units

DNLC entries

Dynamic?

Validation

None. Larger values cause the time it takes to unmount a file system to increase as the cache must be flushed of entries for that file system during the unmount process.

When to Change

Prior to the Solaris 8 6/00 release, it was difficult to determine whether the cache was too small. You could make this inference by noting the number of entries returned by kstat -n ncstats. If the number seems high, given the system workload and file access pattern, this might be due to the size of the DNLC.

Starting with the Solaris 8 6/00 release, you can use the kstat -n dnlcstats command to determine when entries have been removed from the DNLC because it was too small. The sum of the pick_heuristic and the pick_last parameters represents otherwise valid entries that were reclaimed because the cache was too small.

Excessive values of ncsize have an immediate impact on the system because the system allocates a set of data structures for the DNLC based on the value of ncsize. A system running a 32-bit kernel allocates 36-byte structures for ncsize, while a system running a 64-bit kernel allocates 64-byte structures for ncsize. The value has a further effect on UFS and NFS, unless ufs_ninode and nfs:nrnode are explicitly set.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see ncsize (Solaris 10 Release).

`rstchown`

Description

Indicates whether the POSIX semantics for the chown system call are in effect. POSIX semantics are as follows:

A process cannot change the owner of a file, unless it is running with UID 0.
A process cannot change the group ownership of a file to a group in which it is not currently a member, unless it is running as UID 0.

For more information, see chown(2).

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

1, indicating that POSIX semantics are used

Range

0 = POSIX semantics not in force or 1 = POSIX semantics used

Units

Toggle (on/off)

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

When POSIX semantics are not wanted. Note that turning off POSIX semantics opens the potential for various security holes. Doing so also opens the possibility of a user changing ownership of a file to another user and being unable to retrieve the file without intervention from the user or the system administrator.

Commitment Level

Obsolete

`dnlc_dir_enable`

Description

Enables large directory caching

Note –

This parameter has no effect on NFS file systems.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

1 (enabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)

Dynamic?

Yes, but do not change this tunable dynamically. You can enable this parameter if it was originally disabled. Or, you can disable this parameter if it was originally enabled. However, enabling, disabling, and then enabling this parameter might lead to stale directory caches.

Validation

When to Change

Directory caching has no known problems. However, if problems occur, then set dnlc_dir_enable to 0 to disable caching.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`dnlc_dir_min_size`

Description

Specifies the minimum number of entries cached for one directory.

Note –

This parameter has no effect on NFS file systems.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

Range

0 to MAXUINT (no maximum)

Units

Entries

Dynamic?

Yes, this parameter can be changed at any time.

Validation

None

When to Change

If performance problems occur with caching small directories, then increase dnlc_dir_min_size. Note that individual file systems might have their own range limits for caching directories. For instance, UFS limits directories to a minimum of ufs_min_dir_cache bytes (approximately 1024 entries), assuming 16 bytes per entry.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`dnlc_dir_max_size`

Description

Specifies the maximum number of entries cached for one directory.

Note –

This parameter has no effect on NFS file systems.

Data Type

Unsigned integer

Default

MAXUINT (no maximum)

Range

0 to MAXUINT

Dynamic?

Yes, this parameter can be changed at any time.

Validation

None

When to Change

If performance problems occur with large directories, then decrease dnlc_dir_max_size.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`segmap_percent`

Description: Defines the maximum amount of memory that is used for the fast-access file system cache. This pool of memory is subtracted from the free memory list.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 12 percent of free memory at system startup time
Range: 2 Mbytes to 100 percent of physmem
Units: % of physical memory
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: If heavy file system activity is expected, and sufficient free memory is available, you should increase the value of this parameter.
Commitment Level: Unstable

UFS Parameters

`bufhwm` and `bufhwm_pct`

Description

Defines the maximum amount of memory for caching I/O buffers. The buffers are used for writing file system metadata (superblocks, inodes, indirect blocks, and directories). Buffers are allocated as needed until the amount of memory (in Kbytes) to be allocated exceed bufhwm. At this point, metadata is purged from the buffer cache until enough buffers are reclaimed to satisfy the request.

For historical reasons, bufhwm does not require the ufs: prefix.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

2 percent of physical memory

Range

80 Kbytes to 20 percent of physical memory, or 2 TB, whichever is less. Consequently, bufhwm_pct can be between 1 and 20.

Units

bufhwm: Kbytes

bufhwm_pct: percent of physical memory

Dynamic?

No. bufhwm and bufhwm_pct are only evaluated at system initialization to compute hash bucket sizes. The limit in bytes calculated from these parameters is then stored in a data structure that adjusts this value as buffers are allocated and deallocated.

Attempting to adjust this value without following the locking protocol on a running system can lead to incorrect operation.

Modifying bufhwm or bufhwm_pct at runtime has no effect.

Validation

If bufhwm is less than its lower limit of 80 Kbytes or greater than its upper limit (the lesser of 20 percent of physical memory, 2 TB, or one quarter (1/4) of the maximum amount of kernel heap), it is reset to the upper limit. The following message appears on the system console and in the /var/adm/messages file if an invalid value is attempted:

"binit: bufhwm (value attempted) out of range 
(range start..range end). Using N as default."

“Value attempted” refers to the value specified in the/etc/system file or by using a kernel debugger. N is the value computed by the system based on available system memory.

Likewise, if bufhwm_pct is set to a value that is outside the allowed range of 1 percent to 20 percent, it is reset to the default of 2 percent. And, the following message appears on the system console and in the /var/adm/messages file:

"binit: bufhwm_pct(value attempted) out of range(0..20).
       Using 2 as default."

If both bufhwm or bufhwm_pct are set to non-zero values, bufhwm takes precedence.

When to Change

Because buffers are only allocated as they are needed, the overhead from the default setting is the required allocation of control structures for the buffer hash headers. These structures consume 52 bytes per potential buffer on a 32-bit kernel and 96 bytes per potential buffer on a 64-bit kernel.

On a 512-Mbyte 64-bit kernel, the number of hash chains calculates to 10316 / 32 == 322, which scales up to next power of 2, 512. Therefore, the hash headers consume 512 x 96 bytes, or 48 Kbytes. The hash header allocations assume that buffers are 32 Kbytes.

The amount of memory, which has not been allocated in the buffer pool, can be found by looking at the bfreelist structure in the kernel with a kernel debugger. The field of interest in the structure is b_bufsize, which is the possible remaining memory in bytes. Looking at it with the buf macro by using the mdb command:

# mdb -k
Loading modules: [ unix krtld genunix ip nfs ipc ]
> bfreelist::print "struct buf" b_bufsize
b_bufsize = 0x225800

The default value for bufhwm on this system, with 6 Gbytes of memory, is 122277. You cannot determine the number of header structures used because the actual buffer size requested is usually larger than 1 Kbyte. However, some space might be profitably reclaimed from control structure allocation for this system.

The same structure on a 512-Mbyte system shows that only 4 Kbytes of 10144 Kbytes has not been allocated. When the biostats kstat is examined with kstat -n biostats, it is determined that the system had a reasonable ratio of buffer_cache_hits to buffer_cache_lookups as well. As such, the default setting is reasonable for that system.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see bufhwm (Solaris 9 Releases).

`ndquot`

Description

Defines the number of quota structures for the UFS file system that should be allocated. Relevant only if quotas are enabled on one or more UFS file systems. Because of historical reasons, the ufs: prefix is not needed.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

((maxusers x 40) / 4) + max_nprocs

Range

0 to MAXINT

Units

Quota structures

Dynamic?

Validation

None. Excessively large values hang the system.

When to Change

When the default number of quota structures is not enough. This situation is indicated by the following message displayed on the console or written in the message log:

dquot table full

Commitment Level

Unstable

`ufs_ninode`

Description

Specifies the number of inodes to be held in memory. Inodes are cached globally for UFS, not on a per-file system basis.

A key parameter in this situation is ufs_ninode. This parameter is used to compute two key limits that affect the handling of inode caching. A high watermark of ufs_ninode / 2 and a low watermark of ufs_ninode / 4 are computed.

When the system is done with an inode, one of two things can happen:

The file referred to by the inode is no longer on the system so the inode is deleted. After it is deleted, the space goes back into the inode cache for use by another inode (which is read from disk or created for a new file).
The file still exists but is no longer referenced by a running process. The inode is then placed on the idle queue. Any referenced pages are still in memory.

When inodes are idled, the kernel defers the idling process to a later time. If a file system is a logging file system, the kernel also defers deletion of inodes. Two kernel threads handle this deferred processing. Each thread is responsible for one of the queues.

When the deferred processing is done, the system drops the inode onto either a delete queue or an idle queue, each of which has a thread that can run to process it. When the inode is placed on the queue, the queue occupancy is checked against the low watermark. If the queue occupancy exceeds the low watermark, the thread associated with the queue is awakened. After the queue is awakened, the thread runs through the queue and forces any pages associated with the inode out to disk and frees the inode. The thread stops when it has removed 50 percent of the inodes on the queue at the time it was awakened.

A second mechanism is in place if the idle thread is unable to keep up with the load. When the system needs to find a vnode, it goes through the ufs_vget routine. The first thing vget does is check the length of the idle queue. If the length is above the high watermark, then it takes two inodes off the idle queue and “idles” them (flushes pages and frees inodes). vget does this before it gets an inode for its own use.

The system does attempt to optimize by placing inodes with no in-core pages at the head of the idle list and inodes with pages at the end of the idle list. However, the system does no other ordering of the list. Inodes are always removed from the front of the idle queue.

The only time that inodes are removed from the queues as a whole is when a synchronization, unmount, or remount occur.

For historical reasons, this parameter does not require the ufs: prefix.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

ncsize

Range

0 to MAXINT

Units

Inodes

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

If ufs_ninode is less than or equal to zero, the value is set to ncsize.

When to Change

When the default number of inodes is not enough. If the maxsize reached field as reported by kstat -n inode_cache is larger than the maxsize field in the kstat, the value of ufs_ninode might be too small. Excessive inode idling can also be a problem.

You can identify excessive inode idling by using kstat -n inode_cache to look at the inode_cache kstat. Thread idles are inodes idled by the background threads while vget idles are idles by the requesting process before using an inode.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`ufs_WRITES`

Description: If ufs_WRITES is non-zero, the number of bytes outstanding for writes on a file is checked. See ufs_HW to determine whether the write should be issued or deferred until only ufs_LW bytes are outstanding. The total number of bytes outstanding is tracked on a per-file basis so that if the limit is passed for one file, it won't affect writes to other files.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 1 (enabled)
Range: 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)
Units: Toggle (on/off)
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: When you want UFS write throttling turned off entirely. If sufficient I/O capacity does not exist, disabling this parameter can result in long service queues for disks.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`ufs_LW` and `ufs_HW`

Description

ufs_HW specifies the number of bytes outstanding on a single file barrier value. If the number of bytes outstanding is greater than this value and ufs_WRITES is set, then the write is deferred. The write is deferred by putting the thread issuing the write to sleep on a condition variable.

ufs_LW is the barrier for the number of bytes outstanding on a single file below which the condition variable on which other sleeping processes are toggled. When a write completes and the number of bytes is less than ufs_LW, then the condition variable is toggled, which causes all threads waiting on the variable to awaken and try to issue their writes.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

8 x 1024 x 1024 for ufs_LW and 16 x 1024 x 1024 for ufs_HW

Range

0 to MAXINT

Units

Bytes

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

Implicit

ufs_LW and ufs_HW have meaning only if ufs_WRITES is not equal to zero. ufs_HW and ufs_LW should be changed together to avoid needless churning when processes awaken and find that either they cannot issue a write (when ufs_LW and ufs_HW are too close) or they might have waited longer than necessary (when ufs_LW and ufs_HW are too far apart).

When to Change

Consider changing these values when file systems consist of striped volumes. The aggregate bandwidth available can easily exceed the current value of ufs_HW. Unfortunately, this parameter is not a per-file system setting.

You might also consider changing this parameter when ufs_throttles is a non-trivial number. Currently, ufs_throttles can only be accessed with a kernel debugger.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`freebehind`

Description: Enables the freebehind algorithm. When this algorithm is enabled, the system bypasses the file system cache on newly read blocks when sequential I/O is detected during times of heavy memory use.
Data Type: Boolean
Default: 1 (enabled)
Range: 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: The freebehind algorithm can occur too easily. If no significant sequential file system activity is expected, disabling freebehind makes sure that all files, no matter how large, will be candidates for retention in the file system page cache. For more fine-grained tuning, see smallfile.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`smallfile`

Description

Determines the size threshold of files larger than this value are candidates for no cache retention under the freebehind algorithm.

Large memory systems contain enough memory to cache thousands of 10-Mbyte files without making severe memory demands. However, this situation is highly application dependent.

The goal of the smallfile and freebehind parameters is to reuse cached information, without causing memory shortfalls by caching too much.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

32,768

Range

0 to 2,147,483,647

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

Increase smallfile if an application does sequential reads on medium-sized files and can most likely benefit from buffering, and the system is not otherwise under pressure for free memory. Medium-sized files are 32 Kbytes to 2 Gbytes in size.

Commitment Level

Unstable

TMPFS Parameters

`tmpfs:tmpfs_maxkmem`

Description

Defines the maximum amount of kernel memory that TMPFS can use for its data structures (tmpnodes and directory entries).

Data Type

Unsigned long

Default

One page or 4 percent of physical memory, whichever is greater.

Range

Number of bytes in one page (8192 for sun4u or sun4v systems, 4096 for all other systems) to 25 percent of the available kernel memory at the time TMPFS was first used.

Units

Bytes

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

Increase if the following message is displayed on the console or written in the messages file:

tmp_memalloc: tmpfs over memory limit

The current amount of memory used by TMPFS for its data structures is held in the tmp_kmemspace field. This field can be examined with a kernel debugger.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see tmpfs:tmpfs_maxkmem (Solaris 10 Releases).

`tmpfs:tmpfs_minfree`

Description

Defines the minimum amount of swap space that TMPFS leaves for the rest of the system.

Data Type

Signed long

Default

256

Range

0 to maximum swap space size

Units

Pages

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

To maintain a reasonable amount of swap space on systems with large amounts of TMPFS usage, you can increase this number. The limit has been reached when the console or messages file displays the following message:

fs-name: File system full, swap space limit exceeded

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see tmpfs:tmpfs_minfree (Solaris 8 Releases).

Pseudo Terminals

Pseudo terminals, ptys, are used for two purposes in Solaris software:

Supporting remote logins by using the telnet, rlogin, or rsh commands
Providing the interface through which the X Window system creates command interpreter windows

The default number of pseudo-terminals is sufficient for a desktop workstation. So, tuning focuses on the number of ptys available for remote logins.

Previous versions of Solaris required that steps be taken to explicitly configure the system for the preferred number of ptys. Starting with the Solaris 8 release, a new mechanism removes the necessity for tuning in most cases. The default number of ptys is now based on the amount of memory on the system. This default should be changed only to restrict or increase the number of users who can log in to the system.

Three related variables are used in the configuration process:

pt_cnt – Default maximum number of ptys.
pt_pctofmem – Percentage of kernel memory that can be dedicated to pty support structures. A value of zero means that no remote users can log in to the system.
pt_max_pty – Hard maximum for number of ptys.

pt_cnt has a default value of zero, which tells the system to limit logins based on the amount of memory specified in pct_pctofmem, unless pt_max_pty is set. If pt_cnt is non-zero, ptys are allocated until this limit is reached. When that threshold is crossed, the system looks at pt_max_pty. If pt_max_pty has a non-zero value, it is compared to pt_cnt. The pty allocation is allowed if pt_cnt is less than pt_max_pty. If pt_max_pty is zero, pt_cnt is compared to the number of ptys supported based on pt_pctofmem. If pt_cnt is less than this value, the pty allocation is allowed. Note that the limit based on pt_pctofmem only comes into play if both pt_cnt and ptms_ptymax have default values of zero.

To put a hard limit on ptys that is different than the maximum derived from pt_pctofmem, set pt_cnt and ptms_ptymax in /etc/system to the preferred number of ptys. The setting of ptms_pctofmem is not relevant in this case.

To dedicate a different percentage of system memory to pty support and let the operating system manage the explicit limits, do the following:

Do not set pt_cnt or ptms_ptymax in /etc/system.
Set pt_pctofmem in /etc/system to the preferred percentage. For example, set pt_pctofmem=10 for a 10 percent setting.

Note that the memory is not actually allocated until it is used in support of a pty. Once memory is allocated, it remains allocated.

`pt_cnt`

Description: The number of available /dev/pts entries is dynamic up to a limit determined by the amount of physical memory available on the system. pt_cnt is one of three variables that determines the minimum number of logins that the system can accommodate. The default maximum number of /dev/pts devices the system can support is determined at boot time by computing the number of pty structures that can fit in a percentage of system memory (see pt_pctofmem). If pt_cnt is zero, the system allocates up to that maximum. If pt_cnt is non-zero, the system allocates to the greater of pt_cnt and the default maximum.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 0
Range: 0 to maxpid
Units: Logins/windows
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: When you want to explicitly control the number of users who can remotely log in to the system.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`pt_pctofmem`

Description: Specifies the maximum percentage of physical memory that can be consumed by data structures to support /dev/pts entries. A system running a 64-bit kernel consumes 176 bytes per /dev/pts entry. A system running a 32-bit kernel consumes 112 bytes per /dev/pts entry.
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 5
Range: 0 to 100
Units: Percentage
Dynamic?: No
Validation: None
When to Change: When you want to either restrict or increase the number of users who can log in to the system. A value of zero means that no remote users can log in to the system.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`pt_max_pty`

Description: Defines the maximum number of ptys the system offers
Data Type: Unsigned integer
Default: 0 (Uses system-defined maximum)
Range: 0 to MAXUINT
Units: Logins/windows
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
Implicit: Should be greater than or equal to pt_cnt. Value is not checked until the number of ptys allocated exceeds the value of pt_cnt.
When to Change: When you want to place an absolute ceiling on the number of logins supported, even if the system could handle more based on its current configuration values.
Commitment Level: Unstable

STREAMS Parameters

`nstrpush`

Description: Specifies the number of modules that can be inserted into (pushed onto) a STREAM.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 9
Range: 9 to 16
Units: Modules
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: At the direction of your software vendor. No messages are displayed when a STREAM exceeds its permitted push count. A value of EINVAL is returned to the program that attempted the push.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`strmsgsz`

Description: Specifies the maximum number of bytes that a single system call can pass to a STREAM to be placed in the data part of a message. Any write exceeding this size is broken into multiple messages. For more information, see write(2).
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 65,536
Range: 0 to 262,144
Units: Bytes
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: When putmsg calls return ERANGE. For more information, see putmsg(2).
Commitment Level: Unstable

`strctlsz`

Description: Specifies the maximum number of bytes that a single system call can pass to a STREAM to be placed in the control part of a message
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 1024
Range: 0 to MAXINT
Units: Bytes
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None
When to Change: At the direction of your software vendor. putmsg(2) calls return ERANGE if they attempt to exceed this limit.
Commitment Level: Unstable

System V Message Queues

System V message queues provide a message-passing interface that enables the exchange of messages by queues created in the kernel. Interfaces are provided in the Solaris environment to enqueue and dequeue messages. Messages can have a type associated with them. Enqueueing places messages at the end of a queue. Dequeuing removes the first message of a specific type from the queue or the first message if no type is specified.

For information about System V message queues in the Solaris 10 release, see System V IPC Configuration.

For detailed information on tuning these system resources, see Chapter 6, Resource Controls (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System.

For legacy information about the obsolete System V message queues, see Parameters That Are Obsolete or Have Been Removed.

System V Semaphores

System V semaphores provide counting semaphores in the Solaris OS. A semaphore is a counter used to provide access to a shared data object for multiple processes. In addition to the standard set and release operations for semaphores, System V semaphores can have values that are incremented and decremented as needed (for example, to represent the number of resources available). System V semaphores also provide the ability to do operations on a group of semaphores simultaneously as well as to have the system undo the last operation by a process if the process dies.

For information about the changes to semaphore resources in the Solaris 10 release, see System V IPC Configuration.

For detailed information about using the new resource controls in the Solaris 10 release, see Chapter 6, Resource Controls (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System.

For legacy information about the obsolete System V semaphore parameters, see Parameters That Are Obsolete or Have Been Removed.

System V Shared Memory

System V shared memory allows the creation of a segment by a process. Cooperating processes can attach to the memory segment (subject to access permissions on the segment) and gain access to the data contained in the segment. This capability is implemented as a loadable module. Entries in the /etc/system file must contain the shmsys: prefix. Starting with the Solaris 7 release, the keyserv daemon uses System V shared memory.

A special kind of shared memory known as intimate shared memory (ISM) is used by DBMS vendors to maximize performance. When a shared memory segment is made into an ISM segment, the memory for the segment is locked. This feature enables a faster I/O path to be followed and improves memory usage. A number of kernel resources describing the segment are then shared between all processes that attach to the segment in ISM mode.

For information about the changes to shared memory resources in the Solaris 10 release, see System V IPC Configuration.

For legacy information about the obsolete System V shared memory parameters, see Parameters That Are Obsolete or Have Been Removed.

`segspt_minfree`

Description: Identifies pages of system memory that cannot be allocated for ISM shared memory.
Data Type: Unsigned long
Default: 5 percent of available system memory when the first ISM segment is created
Range: 0 to 50 percent of physical memory
Units: Pages
Dynamic?: Yes
Validation: None. Values that are too small can cause the system to hang or performance to severely degrade when memory is consumed with ISM segments.
When to Change: On database servers with large amounts of physical memory using ISM, the value of this parameter can be decreased. If ISM segments are not used, this parameter has no effect. A maximum value of 128 Mbytes (0x4000) is almost certainly sufficient on large memory machines.
Commitment Level: Unstable

Scheduling

`rechoose_interval`

Description

Specifies the number of clock ticks before a process is deemed to have lost all affinity for the last CPU it ran on. After this interval expires, any CPU is considered a candidate for scheduling a thread. This parameter is relevant only for threads in the timesharing class. Real-time threads are scheduled on the first available CPU.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

Range

0 to MAXINT

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

When caches are large, or when the system is running a critical process or a set of processes that seem to suffer from excessive cache misses not caused by data access patterns.

Consider using the processor set capabilities available as of the Solaris 2.6 release or processor binding before changing this parameter. For more information, see psrset(1M) or pbind(1M).

Commitment Level

Unstable

Timers

`hires_tick`

Description: When set, this parameter causes the Solaris OS to use a system clock rate of 1000 instead of the default value of 100.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 0
Range: 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)
Dynamic?: No. Causes new system timing variable to be set at boot time. Not referenced after boot.
Validation: None
When to Change: When you want timeouts with a resolution of less than 10 milliseconds, and greater than or equal to 1 millisecond.
Commitment Level: Unstable

`timer_max`

Description: Specifies the number of POSIX^TM timers available.
Data Type: Signed integer
Default: 32
Range: 0 to MAXINT
Dynamic?: No. Increasing the value can cause a system crash.
Validation: None
When to Change: When the default number of timers offered by the system is inadequate. Applications receive an EAGAIN error when executing timer_create system calls.
Commitment Level: Unstable

sun4u or sun4v Specific Parameters

`consistent_coloring`

Description

Starting with the Solaris 2.6 release, the ability to use different page placement policies on the UltraSPARC® (sun4u) platform was introduced. A page placement policy attempts to allocate physical page addresses to maximize the use of the L2 cache. Whatever algorithm is chosen as the default algorithm, that algorithm can potentially provide less optimal results than another algorithm for a particular application set. This parameter changes the placement algorithm selected for all processes on the system.

Based on the size of the L2 cache, memory is divided into bins. The page placement code allocates a page from a bin when a page fault first occurs on an unmapped page. The page chosen depends on which of the three possible algorithms are used:

Page coloring – Various bits of the virtual address are used to determine the bin from which the page is selected. This is the default algorithm in the Solaris 8 release. consistent_coloring is set to zero to use this algorithm. No per-process history exists for this algorithm.
Virtual addr=physical address – Consecutive pages in the program selects pages from consecutive bins. consistent_coloring is set to 1 to use this algorithm. No per-process history exists for this algorithm.
Bin-hopping – Consecutive pages in the program generally allocate pages from every other bin, but the algorithm occasionally skips more bins. consistent_coloring is set to 2 to use this algorithm. Each process starts at a randomly selected bin, and a per-process memory of the last bin allocated is kept.

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None. Values larger than 2 cause a number of WARNING: AS_2_BIN: bad consistent coloring value messages to appear on the console. The system hangs immediately thereafter. A power-cycle is required to recover.

When to Change

When the primary workload of the system is a set of long-running high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Changing this value might provide better performance. File servers, database servers, and systems with a number of active processes (for example, compile or time sharing servers) do not benefit from changes.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`tsb_alloc_hiwater_factor`

Description

Initializes tsb_alloc_hiwater to impose an upper limit on the amount of physical memory that can be allocated for translation storage buffers (TSBs) as follows:

tsb_alloc_hiwater = physical memory (bytes) / tsb_alloc_hiwater_factor

When the memory that is allocated to TSBs is equal to the value of tsb_alloc_hiwater, the TSB memory allocation algorithm attempts to reclaim TSB memory as pages are unmapped.

Exercise caution when using this factor to increase the value of tsb_alloc_hiwater. To prevent system hangs, the resulting high water value must be considerably lower than the value of swapfs_minfree and segspt_minfree.

Data Type

Integer

Default

Range

1 to MAXINIT

Note that a factor of 1 makes all physical memory available for allocation to TSBs, which could cause the system to hang. A factor that is too high will not leave memory available for allocation to TSBs, decreasing system performance.

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

Change the value of this parameter if the system has many processes that attach to very large shared memory segments. Under most circumstances, tuning of this variable is not necessary.

Commitment Level

Unstable

`default_tsb_size`

Description

Selects size of the initial translation storage buffers (TSBs) allocated to all processes.

Data Type

Integer

Default

Default is 0 (8 Kbytes), which corresponds to 512 entries

Range

Possible values are:

Value	Description
0	8 Kbytes
1	16 Kbytes
3	32 Kbytes
4	128 Kbytes
5	256 Kbytes
6	512 Kbytes
7	1 Mbyte

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

Generally, you do not need to change this value. However, doing so might provide some advantages if the majority of processes on the system have a larger than average working set, or if resident set size (RSS) sizing is disabled.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see default_tsb_size (Solaris 10 Releases).

`enable_tsb_rss_sizing`

Description

Enables a resident set size (RSS) based TSB sizing heuristic.

Data Type

Boolean

Default

1 (TSBs can be resized)

Range

0 (TSBs remain at tsb_default_size) or 1 (TSBs can be resized)

If set to 0, then tsb_rss_factor is ignored.

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

Yes

When to Change

Can be set to 0 to prevent growth of the TSBs. Under most circumstances, this parameter should be left at the default setting.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see enable_tsb_rss_sizing (Solaris 10 Releases).

`tsb_rss_factor`

Description

Controls the RSS to TSB span ratio of the RSS sizing heuristic. This factor divided by 512 yields the percentage of the TSB span which must be resident in memory before the TSB is considered as a candidate for resizing.

Data Type

Integer

Default

384, resulting in a value of 75%. Thus, when the TSB is 3/4 full, its size will be increased. Note that some virtual addresses typically map to the same slot in the TSB. Therefore, conflicts can occur before the TSB is at 100% full.

Range

0 to 512

Dynamic?

Yes

Validation

None

When to Change

If the system is experiencing an excessive number of traps due to TSB misses, for example, due to virtual address conflicts in the TSB, you might consider decreasing this value toward 0.

For example, changing tsb_rss_factor to 256 (effectively, 50%) instead of 384 (effectively, 75%) might help eliminate virtual address conflicts in the TSB in some cases, but will use more kernel memory, particularly on a heavily loaded system.

TSB activity can be monitored with the trapstat -T command.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see tsb_rss_factor (Solaris 10 Releases).

Locality Group Parameters

This section provides generic memory tunables, which apply to any SPARC or x86 system that uses a Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA).

`lpg_alloc_prefer`

Description

Controls a heuristic for allocation of large memory pages when the requested page size is not immediately available in the local memory group, but could be satisfied from a remote memory group.

By default, the Solaris OS allocates a remote large page if local free memory is fragmented, but remote free memory is not. Setting this parameter to 1 indicates that additional effort should be spent attempting to allocate larger memory pages locally, potentially moving smaller pages around to coalesce larger pages in the local memory group.

Data Type

Boolean

Default

0 (Prefer remote allocation if local free memory is fragmented and remote free memory is not)

Range

0 (Prefer remote allocation if local free memory is fragmented and remote free memory is not)

1 (Prefer local allocation whenever possible, even if local free memory is fragmented and remote free memory is not)

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

This parameter might be set to 1 if long-running programs on the system tend to allocate memory that is accessed by a single program, or if memory that is accessed by a group of programs is known to be running in the same locality group (lgroup). In these circumstances, the extra cost of page coalesce operations can be amortized over the long run of the programs.

This parameter might be left at the default value (0) if multiple programs tend to share memory across different locality groups, or if pages tend to be used for short periods of time. In these circumstances, quick allocation of the requested size tends to be more important than allocation in a particular location.

Page locations and sizes might be observed by using the NUMA observability tools, available at http://opensolaris.org. TLB miss activity might be observed by using the trapstat -T command.

Commitment Level

Uncommitted

`lgrp_mem_default_policy`

Description

This variable reflects the default memory allocation policy used by the Solaris OS. This variable is an integer, and its value should correspond to one of the policies listed in the sys/lgrp.h file.

Data Type

Integer

Default

1, LGRP_MEM_POLICY_NEXT indicating that memory allocation defaults to the home lgroup of the thread performing the memory allocation.

Range

Possible values are:

Value	Description	Comment
0	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_DEFAULT`	use system default policy
1	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_NEXT`	next to allocating thread's home lgroup
2	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_RANDOM_PROC`	randomly across process
3	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_RANDOM_PSET`	randomly across processor set
4	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_RANDOM`	randomly across all lgroups
5	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_ROUNDROBIN`	round robin across all lgroups
6	`LGRP_MEM_POLICY_NEXT_CPU`	near next CPU to touch memory

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

For applications that are sensitive to memory latencies due to allocations that occur from remote versus local memory on systems that use NUMA.

Commitment Level

Uncommitted

`lgrp_mem_pset_aware`

Description

If a process is running within a user processor set, this variable determines whether randomly placed memory for the process is selected from among all the lgroups in the system or only from those lgroups that are spanned by the processors in the processor set.

For more information about creating processor sets, see psrset(1M).

Data Type

Boolean

Default

0, the Solaris OS selects memory from all the lgroups in the system

Range

0, the Solaris OS selects memory from all the lgroups in the system (default)
1, try selecting memory only from those lgroups that are spanned by the processors in the processor set. If the first attempt fails, memory can be allocated in any lgroup.

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

Setting this value to a value of one (1) might lead to more reproducible performance when processor sets are used to isolate applications from one another.

Commitment Level

Uncommitted

Solaris Volume Manager Parameters

`md_mirror:md_resync_bufsz`

Description

Sets the size of the buffer used for resynchronizing RAID 1 volumes (mirrors) as the number of 512-byte blocks in the buffer. Setting larger values can increase resynchronization speed.

Data Type

Integer

Default

The default value is 1024. Larger systems could use higher values to increase mirror resynchronization speed.

Range

128 to 2048

Units

Blocks (512 bytes)

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

If you use Solaris Volume Manager RAID 1 volumes (mirrors), and you want to increase the speed of mirror resynchronizations. Assuming that you have adequate memory for overall system performance, you can increase this value without causing other performance problems.

If you need to increase the speed of mirror resynchronizations, increase the value of this parameter incrementally (using 128-block increments) until performance is satisfactory. On fairly large or new systems, a value of 2048 seems to be optimal. High values on older systems might hang the system.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Change History

For information, see md_mirror:md_resync_bufsz.

`md:mirrored_root_flag`

Description

Overrides Solaris Volume Manager requirements for replica quorum and forces Solaris Volume Manager to start if any valid state database replicas are available.

The default value is disabled, which requires that a majority of all replicas are available and synchronized before Solaris Volume Manager will start.

Data Type

Boolean values

Default

0 (disabled)

Range

0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled)

Dynamic?

Validation

None

When to Change

Use of this parameter is not supported.

Some people using Solaris Volume Manager accept the risk of enabling this parameter if all three of the following conditions apply:

When root (/) or other system-critical file systems are mirrored
Only two disks or controllers are available
An unattended reboot of the system is required

If this parameter is enabled, the system might boot with a stale replica that inaccurately represents the system state (including which mirror sides are good or in Maintenance state). This situation could result in data corruption or system corruption.

Change this parameter only if system availability is more important than data consistency and integrity. Closely monitor the system for any failures. You can mitigate the risk by keeping the number of failed, Maintenance, or hot-swapped volumes as low as possible.

For more information about state database replicas, see Chapter 6, State Database (Overview), in Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.

Commitment Level

Unstable

Chapter 2 Solaris Kernel Tunable Parameters

Where to Find Tunable Parameter Information

General Kernel and Memory Parameters

physmem

default_stksize

lwp_default_stksize

logevent_max_q_sz

segkpsize

noexec_user_stack

fsflush and Related Parameters

fsflush

tune_t_fsflushr

autoup

dopageflush

doiflush

Process-Sizing Parameters

maxusers

reserved_procs

pidmax

max_nprocs

maxuprc

Paging-Related Parameters

lotsfree

desfree

minfree

throttlefree

pageout_reserve

pages_pp_maximum

tune_t_minarmem

fastscan

slowscan

min_percent_cpu

handspreadpages

pages_before_pager

maxpgio

Swapping-Related Parameters

swapfs_reserve

swapfs_minfree

Kernel Memory Allocator

kmem_flags

kmem_stackinfo

General Driver Parameters

moddebug

ddi_msix_alloc_limit

Network Driver Parameters

igb Parameters

mr_enable

intr_force

ixgbe Parameters

tx_queue_number

rx_queue_number

intr_throttling

rx_limit_per_intr

tx_ring_size

rx_ring_size

tx_copy_threshold

rx_copy_threshold

General I/O Parameters

maxphys

rlim_fd_max

rlim_fd_cur

General File System Parameters

ncsize

rstchown

dnlc_dir_enable

dnlc_dir_min_size

dnlc_dir_max_size

segmap_percent

UFS Parameters

bufhwm and bufhwm_pct

ndquot

ufs_ninode

ufs_WRITES

ufs_LW and ufs_HW

freebehind

smallfile

TMPFS Parameters

tmpfs:tmpfs_maxkmem

tmpfs:tmpfs_minfree

Pseudo Terminals

`physmem`

`default_stksize`

`lwp_default_stksize`

`logevent_max_q_sz`

`segkpsize`

`noexec_user_stack`

`fsflush` and Related Parameters

`fsflush`

`tune_t_fsflushr`

`autoup`

`dopageflush`

`doiflush`

`maxusers`

`reserved_procs`

`pidmax`

`max_nprocs`

`maxuprc`

`lotsfree`

`desfree`

`minfree`

`throttlefree`

`pageout_reserve`

`pages_pp_maximum`

`tune_t_minarmem`

`fastscan`

`slowscan`

`min_percent_cpu`

`handspreadpages`

`pages_before_pager`

`maxpgio`

`swapfs_reserve`

`swapfs_minfree`

`kmem_flags`

`kmem_stackinfo`

`moddebug`

`ddi_msix_alloc_limit`

`igb` Parameters

`mr_enable`

`intr_force`

`ixgbe` Parameters

`tx_queue_number`

`rx_queue_number`

`intr_throttling`

`rx_limit_per_intr`

`tx_ring_size`

`rx_ring_size`

`tx_copy_threshold`

`rx_copy_threshold`

`maxphys`

`rlim_fd_max`

`rlim_fd_cur`

`ncsize`

`rstchown`

`dnlc_dir_enable`

`dnlc_dir_min_size`

`dnlc_dir_max_size`

`segmap_percent`

`bufhwm` and `bufhwm_pct`

`ndquot`

`ufs_ninode`

`ufs_WRITES`

`ufs_LW` and `ufs_HW`

`freebehind`

`smallfile`

`tmpfs:tmpfs_maxkmem`

`tmpfs:tmpfs_minfree`

`pt_cnt`

`pt_pctofmem`

`pt_max_pty`

`nstrpush`

`strmsgsz`

`strctlsz`

`segspt_minfree`

`rechoose_interval`

`hires_tick`

`timer_max`

`consistent_coloring`

`tsb_alloc_hiwater_factor`

`default_tsb_size`

`enable_tsb_rss_sizing`