ps is slow compared to other unixes

[Bill Warner]

I kinda figured it would be something with the /proc file system being a
performance/feature
trade off.  I wonder if there is any way to get a ps that would use a
system call to get the
information and run much faster??

Bill Warner


On 14 Mar 2001 10:44:31 -0700, Gorman, John wrote:
> One idea might be that Linux has to walk the /proc directory tree
> to get the ps data. Most other unixes, even though they may have a 
> /proc/pid/data tree usually obtain the ps data from an ioctl()call 
> (thus reading the data out of the kernel memory).
> 
> There are some areas, this being one, where you can really see that
> linux is a patch work of development.
> 
> For instance:
> * HP/UX uses pstat_*()
> * Sun uses ioctl()
> * AIX uses getprocs()
> * OSF/1 uses ioctl()
> 
> 
> John
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Warner [mailto:wwarner@direct-alliance.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 9:49 AM
> To: PLUG
> Subject: ps is slow compared to other unixes
> 
> 
> Has anyone else noticed that ps seems to be extreamely slow on high
> load servers?
> 
> One of our servers that was runing exact same hardware under sco unix
> runs ps almost instatly showing all procs on system.
> 
> On linux (redhat 6.2) ps is extreamly slow.  To the point where
> sometimes
> it will take in the area of 1-5 minutes just to get the resaults.  While
> the rest
> of the server is running at an average slow (because of high loads and
> many
> users) ps seems to be hundred fold worse.  our hpux, digital unix, and
> sco
> boxes never had this trouble.  Any idea as to why?
> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Bill Warner
> Direct Alliance Corp.
> Unix/Linux Admin.
> 
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-- 
--
Bill Warner
Direct Alliance Corp.
Unix/Linux Admin.