[comp.os.vms] sysgen parameters IOTA and PIXSCAN

WARNOCK@prism.clemson.EDU (Todd Warnock) (09/04/87)

Can anyone supply information on where these are documented and what
they do ?  (Any other undocumented parameter information would also
be appreciated !)

Thanks !

Todd Warnock
VAX Systems
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina 29634-2803

ARPA:	Warnock@Prism.Clemson.EDU
BITnet:	Warnock@Clemson
CSnet:	Warnock@Clemson.CSnet

carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU.UUCP (09/07/87)

 > Can anyone supply information on where these are documented and what
 > they do ?  (Any other undocumented parameter information would also
 > be appreciated !)

They are documented (if nowhere else) in SYS$HELP:SYSGEN.HLB.  The following
is the help info given by sysgen:

$ SYSGEN:==$SYSGEN
$ SYSGEN HELP PAR IOTA
Parameters

  IOTA

    	(Special Parameter)
     I/O time allowance - This parameter sets the number of 10 millisecond
     units to charge the current residence quantum for each voluntary wait.
     The correct value approximates the cost of a disk I/O neglecting wait time.


$ SYSGEN HELP PI
Parameters

  PIXSCAN

    	(Special Parameter)
     PIXSCAN specifies the number of process index slots scanned per
     second for computable or computable-outswapped processes.  Such
     processes will receive an automatic priority boost for 1 QUANTUM,
     assuming that the priority of the currently executing process is not
     in the realtime range (16-31). The priority boost is implemented to
     avoid potential deadlocks, such as when a process executing below
     DEFPRI acquires a volume lock on a critical disk and cannot release
     it, because the process is unable to access the CPU.

klb@philabs.Philips.Com (Ken Bourque) (09/08/87)

Here are the descriptions of the special parameters as documented in the
Sysgen help library (sys$help:sysgen.hlb).  The descriptions are also accessible
from Help while in Sysgen.

--------------------

2 DLCKEXTRASTK  
	(Special Parameter)
 Deadlock extra stack - Amount of extra interrupt stack to leave when 
 doing a deadlock search.
2 LRPMIN        
	(Special Parameter)
 Minimum allocation request for large request packets.
2 SRPMIN        
	(Special Parameter)
 Minimum allocation request for small request packets.
2 MPW_THRESH    
	(Special Parameter)
 Modified page writer threshold - Lower limit threshold stopping the use
 of the modified page writer from being used as the primary mechanism
 to recover memory.
2 MPW_WAITLIMIT 
	(Special Parameter)
 Modified page writer busy wait limit - Threshold of when to put a process
 into resource wait if it is generating a modified page and the size of
 the modified list is greater than this parameter.
2 SWPALLOCINC   
	(Special Parameter)
 Swap file allocation increment value - The size in blocks to use to backup
 swap file space allocation in the swap or page file.  Space in the file
 will be allocated multiples of this unit up to WSQUOTA to guarantee swap
 space.
2 PANUMPOLL     
	(Special Parameter)
 CI port - number of ports to poll each interval. Not currently 
 implemented.
2 VMS           
	(Special Parameters)
 Digital reserved SYSGEN parameters are VMSD1, VMSD2, VMSD3, VMSD4,
 VMS5, VMS6, VMS7, and VMS8.
2 PAGTBLPFC     
	(Special Parameter)
 Default page table page fault cluster size - specifies the maximum number
 of page tables to attempt to read to satisfy a fault for a non-resident
 page table.
2 SYSPFC        
	(Special Parameter)
 Page fault cluster for system paging - The number of pages read from disk
 on each system paging operation. Not currently implemented.
2 EXUSRSTK      
	(Special Parameter)
 Extra user stack automatically provided by the image activator
 so that the operating system can recover from a stack overflow.
2 CHANNELCNT    
	(Special Parameter)
 Permanent I/O channel count - specifies the number of permanent I/O
 channels to provide.
2 IMGIOCNT      
	(Special Parameter)
 Default number of pages of image I/O address space used by
 the image activator if not specified at program link time.
2 MPW_PRIO       
	(Special Parameter)
 Modified page writer I/O priority - This parameter sets the priority of
 I/O transfers initiated by the modified page writer.
2 SWP_PRIO       
	(Special Parameter)
 Swapper I/O priority - This parameter sets the priority of
 I/O transfers initiated by the swapper.
2 TBSKIPWSL     
	(Special Parameter)
 Maximum number of working set list entries that may be skipped while
 scanning for a "good" entry to discard.  Set to 0 to disable skipping.
2 PHYSICALPAGES  
	(Special Parameter)
 Maximum number of physical pages to be used - permits testing of smaller
 memory configurations without actually removing memory boards.
2 PFRATS        
	(Special Parameter)
 Page fault rate system threshold - This parameter sets the target system
 page fault threshold. Not currently implemented.
2 SWPRATE       
	(Special Parameter)
 Swap rate control - This parameter sets the swapping rate and serves to
 limit the consumption of disk bandwidth by swapping.
2 IOTA          
	(Special Parameter)
 I/O time allowance - This parameter sets the number of 10 millisecond
 units to charge the current residence quantum for each voluntary wait.
 The correct value approximates the cost of a disk I/O neglecting wait time.
2 SWPFAIL       
	(Special Parameter)
 Swap fail count - This parameter sets the number of consecutive swap
 schedule failures to occur before the swap schedule algorithm changes
 to ignore the swap quantum protection.
2 LOCKRETRY     
	(Special Parameter)
 Number of retries to perform when trying to lock a multi-processor
 data structure.
2 NOAUTOCONFIG  
	(Special Parameter)
 Auto configuration inhibit - inhibits the automatic configuration
 of all devices.
2 NOCLOCK       
	(Special Parameter)
 No clock - inhibits the starting of the interval timer for debugging
 purposes.
2 NOCLUSTER     
	(Special Parameter)
 Clustering inhibit - inhibits all page read clustering.
2 WRITABLESYS   
	(Special Parameter)
 Leave system writable - for debugging purposes leaves system code
 writable.
2 RESALLOC      
	(Special Parameter)
 Enable resource allocation checking.
2 SSINHIBIT     
	(Special Parameter)
 Set to inhibit system services on a per process basis.
2 CONCEAL_DEVICES
	(Special Parameter)
 Set to enable concealed devices.
2 PIXSCAN       
	(Special Parameter)
 PIXSCAN specifies the number of process index slots scanned per 
 second for computable or computable-outswapped processes.  Such 
 processes will receive an automatic priority boost for 1 QUANTUM, 
 assuming that the priority of the currently executing process is not 
 in the realtime range (16-31). The priority boost is implemented to 
 avoid potential deadlocks, such as when a process executing below 
 DEFPRI acquires a volume lock on a critical disk and cannot release 
 it, because the process is unable to access the CPU.
2 LOADERAPAT
	(Special Parameter)
 Load the file ERAPATLOA.EXE into the EXEC in place of the default $ERAPAT.
2 LOADCHKPRT
	(Special Parameter)
 Load the file CHKPRTLOA.EXE into the EXEC in place of the default $CHKPRT.
2 WRITESYSPARAMS
 Parameters were modified during SYSBOOT and will be written out to
 VAXVMSSYS.PAR by STARTUP.COM.
2 SRPSIZE       
 Small request packet size - Number of bytes to allocate to an SRP.
2 POOLPAGING    
 Pool paging - Enable paging of pageable dynamic pool.
2 SBIERRENABLE  
 SBI error detection flag - Enables SBI error detection and logging.
2 SYSPAGING     
 Page system code - Enables paging of system code in the system working 
 set.

Super-secret parameters, listed in Show/Special but not documented anywhere:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

PIOPAGES                       245       245        10        -1 Pages       
CTLPAGES                        50        50        10        -1 Pages       
CTLIMGLIM                       35        35         0        -1 Pages       
PE1                              0         0         0        -1             D
PE2                              0         0         0        -1             D
PE3                              0         0         0        -1             D
PE4                              0         0         0        -1             D
PE5                              0         0         0        -1             
PE6                              0         0         0        -1             
CJFLOAD                          0         0         0         1 Boolean     
CJFSYSRUJ                        0         0         0         1 Boolean     
LOADMTACCESS                     0         0         0         1 Boolean     
TTY_DEFPORT                      0         0         0        -1 Bit-Encoded