[net.unix-wizards] ps on SUNs has 51K of text!

jbn@wdl1.UUCP (09/21/85)

      Feeping creatureism strikes again:  SUN's version of "ps" has 51K of
text in it!  I wondered why "ps" took so long to start.  What on earth is 
in there?  The Bourne shell is less than half that size.

		text    data    bss     dec     hex
4.1BSD /bin/ps: 16384	3072	26044	45500	b1bc
SUN 2.0 /bin/ps	51200   10240   51536   112976  1b950

Compare "sh"; no huge growth there.

4.1BSD /bin/sh: 17184	2176	2600	21960	55c8
SUN 2.0 /bin/sh 22528   6144    0       28672   7000


					John Nagle

jeff@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Stearns) (09/24/85)

In article <710@wdl1.UUCP> jbn@wdl1.UUCP writes:
>      Feeping creatureism strikes again:  SUN's version of "ps" has 51K of
>text in it!  I wondered why "ps" took so long to start.  What on earth is 
>in there?  The Bourne shell is less than half that size.
>
>                  text    data     bss     dec     hex
>4.1BSD /bin/ps   16384    3072    26044   45500    b1bc
>SUN 2.0 /bin/ps  51200   10240    51536   112976  1b950
>                   John Nagle

For a hint, look at /bin/ps on Sun release 1.4, before the Yellow Pages
were employed for uid <-> username translation.  This will also give you some   hints as to why it's slower.

On a Sun release 1.4 system: 
% size /bin/ps
text    data    bss     dec     hex
28672   6144    36044   70860   114cc

On a related note, I have some simple speedups for /bin/ls on a Sun; it can
double the speed of an ls -lg when you have large /etc/passwd and /etc/group
files.  (The distributed version of /bin/ls uses the Yellow Pages very
suboptimally.)  Contact me if you're interested.
-- 
	Jeff Stearns       (206) 356-5064
	John Fluke Mfg. Co.
	P.O. Box C9090  Everett WA  98043  
	{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!jeff

gww@aphasia.UUCP (George Williams) (10/07/85)

> For a hint, look at /bin/ps on Sun release 1.4, before the Yellow Pages
> were employed for uid <-> username translation.  This will also give you some   hints as to why it's slower.

Excuse my ignorance, but what are the yellow pages? Does the sun have some
key-indexed version of the password file? If so can login be persuaded to use
it?

One of the most annoying things I find is to sit down at my terminal, type
my username, type my password and see it echoed; either because it takes
getty so long to fork a login or because login takes so long to look me up
in the password file (I think it's the latter since su has the same problem).
This has always struck me as a rather blatent security hole (of course if
I didn't type so fast:-)

			    George Williams
			    decvax!frog!aphasia!gww


I am not bewildered, I assure you I'm not
Bewildered. As a matter of fact a plan
Is almost certainly forming itself in my head
At this very moment.  It may even be adequate.