Enhancing performance on Server

James Marcinek jmarc1 at jemconsult.biz
Wed Jan 26 05:59:09 UTC 2005


I am trying to enhance the performance of a linux server, running FC3, for a
small office of about 14 users. The system is provding several of the following
services:

 Samba running as a Domain Controller
 Samba File server
 HylaFAX server
 vsftp server (to support HylaFAX)
 Postfix (to support email notices)
 Amanda Server (running after hours backups)

The server is running a pentium IV (not sure on the speed at the moment, and has
1.5 Gigs of RAM, hardware based SCSI raid (PCI SCSI card) and external modem.

>From the system monitoring that I've been periodically checking, the CPU is in
good shape as well as the RAM. However, the loggin in and off of user's is felt
on the network. The Samba environment was just converted from a Workgroup to a
domain. The local user profiles were copied and converted to roaming, in
addition to changing the local home directory from the default C: location to
their $HOME drives on the Samba Domain controller. Each domain user id was
logged in to their respective PC, which will download a copy to the local PC to
expedite the logon/logoff process. However it still takes time to logoff and
save settings, etc. Some of the problems may be due to the fact the user's were
previously saving large files (like music, etc) in their home folder. I'm sure
this will alleviate some items.

When I use the tops command during the logon/logoff periods, I do see samba
spiking the CPU to higher limits, though still acceptable. A lot of physical RAM
is also used, which is one area I think could be addressed; however the paging
space doesn't look to active...

I'm wondering if the bottleneck is in the network card. The whole network is
100BaseT. I haven't used a lot of network tools (mainly netstat) so I'd be
interested to hear of some good ones. Also if there are any suggestions based
off of past experiences.

I do have one thing that I am considering but don't know if it's practical (or
feasible) and that is putting another network card onto the network. Now I've
never done this but heard that the cards could be bound, or one card accepting
packets and one would be for sending. I'd be extremely interested in hearing if
it's possible and how it can be done. I'd also like to hear of any pros and cons
to this or any other suggestions.

Thanks,

James




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