site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com Rand On Feb 5, 2009, at 12:51 PM, Nathan wrote: Terry, I understand the intent you are trying to express (the default settings need to work well for the general case) but I disagree with your assertion that having such extremely low limits (max processes in particular, but I suspect other settings as well) serves that goal. I'm running out of political and motivational steam to pursue this issue, as I've worked around the most pressing problems we were experiencing internally. I've canceled most of our plans regarding the Xserve and OS X server, as I no longer have any confidence in Apple's ability to deliver on their marketed server features or capacity. The problem seems to run deeper than just bugs. I will continue to keep an eye out for shifts in the landscape for OS X server. I hope to be proven wrong in the future, and find that OS X Server delivers on its promises. ~ Nathan _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Darwin-kernel mailing list (Darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/darwin-kernel/randchilds%40mac.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Darwin-kernel mailing list (Darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/darwin-kernel/site_archiver%40lists.a... I have to agree with Nathan and take exception to some of the comments that Terry wrote about OS X's configuration design. Many modern operating systems don't have hard limits compiled into the kernel for many of these kernel resources but instead allocate these resource dynamically. AIX and later versions of Solaris are capable of doing this both in 32 and 64 bit versions. Configurable maximum parameters are usually provided as a tool for the OS administrator to control the kernel resources on the available hardware, not to limit the kernel's potential resources, and therefore limit the control of the system administrator. The administrator should control the kernel, not the other way around. In my opinion, adjusting internal kernel parameters and recompiling a kernel to increase kernel resource should not be necessary in a modern operating system that is expected to provide production services such as those advertised by OS X Server. Personally I ran up against the kernel limit of the maximum number of SYS V message queues while porting and testing a Unix application I was working on. As far as I could tell there was no easy way to increase the number of message queues without serious modification to the Darwin code. Instead I wrote a message queue library replacement, implementing the minimum features that I needed using semaphores and shared memory. AIX, Solaris and other vendors Unix implementations, and Linux can be configured to run the application without recompiling the kernel and without writing a message queue library to replace the one provided with the operating system. OS X was the odd man out. One would hope that Apple's Mac OS X designers and developers will eventually provide the same modern kernel resource allocation and configuration features that are already provided in other Unix/Linux operating systems if Apple hopes to be able to sell Mac OS X Server into any kind of serious production environment. This email sent to randchilds@mac.com This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com