[net.unix-wizards] timeout table overflow

hurf@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Hurf Sheldon) (09/12/86)

	I have several users who have been using ^Z to stop & restart
	emacs jobs - they are not the best housekeepers & this has
	resulted in a system crash "panic: timeout table overflow"
	
	This irritates me for two reasons -
	1: I don't think it should be that easy to crash the system
		(its embarrasing, too - like when our 11/60 rolled
		over dead because somebody put a book down on a keyboard)

	2: Educating an ever growing group of ever less knowledgeable
           users about something like this is a good way to go pre-
	   maturely bald (or postmaturely in my case)
	
	Enough fun - how can I increase the table size and is there a 
	way already devised for flushing the table periodically?

	Please lets refrain from flaming about novices & emacs.

     Hurf Sheldon			Arpa.css: Hurf@ionvax.tn.cornell.edu
     Lab of Plasma Studies	
     369 Upson Hall			phone: 607 255 7267
     Cornell University
     Ithaca, N.Y. 14853

chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (09/14/86)

In article <1010@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> hurf@batcomputer.UUCP
(Hurf Sheldon) writes:
[Vax crashes with "panic: timeout table overflow"]
>how can I increase the table size and is there a 
>way already devised for flushing the table periodically?

You do not want to flush the table.  The things in it are important!

The table size is determined by `ncallout'.  This is a `configurable'
parameter, appearing in /sys/YOUR_MACHINE/param.c.  This file is
normally copied from /sys/conf/param.c, which says

	int ncallout = 16 + NPROC;

where NPROC is `#define'd to something depending on MAXUSERS, where
MAXUSERS comes from your config file in /sys/conf/YOUR_MACHINE.
If you are running out of timeout table entries, you probably have
maxusers set too low too; but you can, if you wish, just raise
ncallout, either by editing the private param.c, or (more quickly)
with adb:

	% adb -w /vmunix
	ncallout?D
	_ncallout:
	_ncallout:	122
	ncallout?W 0t250
	_ncallout:
	_ncallout:	7a		=	fa
	$q
	%

This would raise ncallout from (e.g.) 122 decimal to 250 decimal.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 1516)
UUCP:	seismo!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet:	chris@umcp-cs		ARPA:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu

hurf@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Hurf Sheldon) (09/14/86)

 Sorry for being indolent about details - uvaxII running ULTRIX1.2,
 3  rd53's via rqdx3, two swap partitions.   5meg memory total.


     Hurf Sheldon			Arpa.css: Hurf@ionvax.tn.cornell.edu
     Lab of Plasma Studies	
     369 Upson Hall			phone: 607 255 7267
     Cornell University
     Ithaca, N.Y. 14853