Re: flexfax: Problems submitting very large Number of jobs sequential ly

[Hong Kong Observatory <d1swdev@asiaonline.net>]

Hi Chris,,

On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Christoph Stotz wrote:

> Hello !
>
> We are using hylafax to send information to our customers. Normally
> about 500 faxes/day.
>
> >From time to time we have to send more than 5000/day. Before sending we
> generate all the .tif´s and
> then call a batch-programm that submit´s all the faxes sequentially.
> After some time
> submitting becomes slower and slower and CPU-Usage by faxq gets higher:
>
> ps -aux | grep faxq
>
> uucp      5139 24.0  2.1  2552  1348  ?  R    Jul 21 631:16
> /usr/sbin/faxq
>
> We are using 200MHz Pentium Pro with 64MB of RAM and 12GB of Harddisk,
> so this
> should not be the problem. After 1500 jobs in the queue, the time
> between two submitted jobs
> is about 7-10 seconds.
>

I don't think it's the problem of CPU usage or disk space shortage. May be
it is because of too many files created in a directory. In UNIX, when too
many files created in a directory (I forgotten how many), the system will
be required to create indirect pointers for disk blocks. Then the system
performance will be degraded very much.

> Is there a way to change this ?

I think you may control the number of FAX job to submit each time. Say
after submitting 500 jobs then wait some time and then another 500 jobs.

> > > Regards,
>
> Christoph Stotz
> logo: GmbH
>
> PS: I´m suspecting that it could by a "low memory" problem, but I do not
> understand whay hylafax
> should use 50 MB of RAM for 1500 jobs ???
>
> PPS:
>
> Linux 2.0.30
> Hylafax 4.0pl
>
>

K.S.Wat SSA(D)12
Computer Division,
Hong Kong Observatory.