Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual

Preface

The Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual provides reference information about Solaris^TM OS kernel and network tunable parameters. This manual does not provide tunable parameter information about the CDE, GNOME, or Java^TM environments.

This manual contains information for both SPARC® based and x86 based systems.

Note –

This Solaris release supports systems that use the SPARC and x86 families of processor architectures: UltraSPARC®, SPARC64, AMD64, Pentium, and Xeon EM64T. The supported systems appear in the Solaris 10 Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl. This document cites any implementation differences between the platform types.

In this document these x86 terms mean the following:

“x86” refers to the larger family of 64-bit and 32-bit x86 compatible products.
“x64” points out specific 64-bit information about AMD64 or EM64T systems.
“32-bit x86” points out specific 32-bit information about x86 based systems.

For supported systems, see Solaris 10 Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl.

Who Should Use This Book

This book is intended for experienced Solaris system administrators who might need to change kernel tunable parameters in certain situations. For guidelines on changing Solaris tunable parameters, refer to Tuning a Solaris System.

How This Book Is Organized

The following table describes the chapters and appendixes in this book.

Chapter	Description
Chapter 1, Overview of Solaris System Tuning	An overview of tuning a Solaris system. Also provides a description of the format used in the book to describe the kernel tunables.
Chapter 2, Solaris Kernel Tunable Parameters	A description of Solaris kernel tunables such as kernel memory, file system, process size, and paging parameters.
Chapter 3, NFS Tunable Parameters	A description of NFS tunables such as caching symbolic links, dynamic retransmission, and RPC security parameters.
Chapter 4, Internet Protocol Suite Tunable Parameters	A description of TCP/IP tunables such as IP forwarding, source routing, and buffer-sizing parameters.
Chapter 5, Network Cache and Accelerator Tunable Parameters	A description of tunable parameters for the Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA).
Chapter 6, System Facility Parameters	A description of parameters used to set default values of certain system facilities. Changes are made by modifying files in the `/etc/default` directory.
Appendix A, Tunable Parameters Change History	A history of parameters that have changed or are now obsolete.
Appendix B, Revision History for This Manual	A history of this manual's revisions including the current Solaris release.

Other Resources for Solaris Tuning Information

This table describes other resources for Solaris tuning information.

Tuning Resource	For More Information
Performance tuning classes	http://www.sun.com/training/index.xml
Online performance tuning information	`http://www.solarisinternals.com/si/index.php`
Ordering performance tuning documentation by Sun Microsystems Press	http://www.sun.com/books/blueprints.series.html

Documentation, Support, and Training

The Sun web site provides information about the following additional resources:

Sun Welcomes Your Comments

Sun is interested in improving its documentation and welcomes your comments and suggestions. To share your comments, go to http://docs.sun.com and click Feedback.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic conventions that are used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions


Typeface	Meaning	Example
`AaBbCc123`	The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output	Edit your `.login` file. Use `ls -a` to list all files. `machine_name% you have mail.`
`AaBbCc123`	What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output	`machine_name%` `su` `Password:`
`aabbcc123`	Placeholder: replace with a real name or value	The command to remove a file is `rm` `filename`.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide. A cache is a copy that is stored locally. Do not save the file. Note: Some emphasized items appear bold online.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default UNIX® system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P–2 Shell Prompts


Shell	Prompt
C shell	`machine_name%`
C shell for superuser	`machine_name#`
Bourne shell and Korn shell	`$`
Bourne shell and Korn shell for superuser	`#`