[daip] 31DEC01 install minor questions

[Eric Greisen]

Michel Fich writes:
 > Hi, I just installed 31DEC01 AIPS (on Monday and Tuesday) on my
 > SUN 220R (2 processor, 2 GByte memory, 220 GB disk) Solaris 8.
 > 
 > Your new install procedure works very well!  I was quite pleased at how
 > much easier it was then the previous versions.  I might add though that
 > I did the install twice - after the first time I realized that I had 
 > made some mistakes and I wiped the entire thing out and started again.
 > 
 > The second time was much better - the mistakes the first time were that
 > I hadn't read carefully enough, or understood well enough what
 > I was to do.  I will put together a list of a few clarifications you
 > might add to the online documentation to help others in the
future.

      That is always helpful although the author of the install proc
no longer works in the Group.

 > 
 > I do have a problem, and I believe I know the solution, but thought
 > I might check with you before implementing it.
 > 
 > I got the error
 > Shared memory id failure: Invalid Argument
 > 
 > and I see the correction suggested:  add 4 lines to /etc/system
 > (I might add in here if I was you: one needs to reboot to get these
 > set in the kernel).   
 > 
 > so my questions are all to do with these 4 lines
 > 1) set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax=8388608   is this value large enough?
 >    the old 15OCT98 install manual suggests 10485760 

     Either value will do - it requires 4 bytes per pixel on your
screen (for true color) and screens are usually about 1 - 1.25
Mpixels although they are getting bigger.

 > 2) set priority_paging=1    Is there a default value in Solaris 8 that 
 >    is good (see Bruce's comment below)?                                                           

See: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/aips/solaris-tuning.html
which contains our recommendations with a detailed explanation.  I
believe that we have found that the high water marks are still useful.
The text from /etc/system on one of our Solaris 8 is:

 Turn off tagged command queuing to keep the SCSI busses happy; MRM 950629
* Changed 178 to 378 to preserve wide SCSI support
 
set scsi_options=0x378

* Set HSFS parameters so we can read STScI catalogs
*  msp on Wed Aug  9 15:48:52 MDT 1995

set hsfs:ide_prohibited=0xe6
set hsfs:hde_prohibited=0xe6

* Large shared memory segment for 24-bit AIPS TV, from Dave Brown
*   GEM, 20 Mar 98
* harmless on systems that won't actually use it, so generic
 
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax=8388608

* Set up the shared memory stuff for real-time filling as prescribed by W. Young
*   msp on  Tue Jul 18 17:08:58 MDT 1995

set shmsys:shminfo_shmseg=10

* Enable priority boosts for windows with mouse focus  MRM 950907
 
* set TS:ia_boost = 0x30
 
* Set some IO boosts for AIPS on large memory systems.
* Info from Chris Flatters

set ufs:ufs_HW=6291456     
set ufs:ufs_LW=4194304


 > 3) what about the values of ufs_HW/ufs_LW in the last two lines?  Are
 >    they the optimum values for this system?  Are they necessary?
 > 
 > We use the set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax={value} on our ORACLE machines....this
 > is a "shared memmory value and also
 >            set priority_paging=1 on memory intensive machines...I believe
 > it prevents OS from eating up all of memory for I/O cache and such. I also
 > think that this may not pertain to Solaris8 (default).      

        Does not pertain

 > 
 > Never used these
 >         set ufs:ufs_HW=6291456
 >         set ufs:ufs_LW=4194304
 >  
 > Sound like some high/low limits on filesystem. Did the AIPS docs indicate
 > why these are needed?
 >