[Asterisk-Users] Optimizing Linux to run Asterisk

[Tamas]

Matt Schulte wrote:
> Could anyone either recommend a website or howto on optimizing Linux to
> run asterisk. Such examples of what I mean are..
>
> Renice of asterisk pid's
> Forcing irq smp_affinity  (For interupt hogging T1 cards)
>
> .. That kind of stuff, I looked on the wiki and nothing directly
> mentions server optimization. Or, is this something that *should* be
> totally irrelevent when dealing with Asterisk.
>
> P.S. I don't mean obvious things such as limiting I/O (ie: turn off
> debug logging), killing daemons, etc.. ;-)
>
> Thanks in advance
> 	Matt
>   
Hi,

we have exactly the same questions and weak points in our system.
What I found is that it's not every time good to give highest nice value
[-20] to asterisk because the system can be unaccessible if asterisk
process starts eating CPU (due to a bug or high load). Now I set nice
-10 to all asterisk processes and it seems to be a bit better [than
leaving as is, nice 0]. I don't have real experience with yet.

I would like to know the CPU affinity thing as well, while we have
problems on a Dual Xeon box. Unfortunately we are forced to make mp3
with lame semi online (currently from cron every 10 minutes we process
unhandled slin files from monitor application). It seems, this lame
makes problems and sometimes the voice quality gets very bad - customer
complaining. [you can ask why we don't make it on another box or in work
off hours, right we cannot change that - technical and political
reasons]. What could be nice to use CPU affinity, however we don't have
any experience and to be honest, don't know what to give to CPU0 and to
CPU1. My guess is that CPU0 should run asterisk and everything else CPU1
[soxmix, lame, database]. Which CPU should take care about zaptel
devices [2xTE110P]?
Will such 'hack' help? If I force asterisk to CPU0, would it be able to
handle 60 speex channels and monitor application?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
    Tamas

ps: specs:
Supermicro X6DH8-XB, 2x Xeon 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 3Ware 9500S-4LP in RAID5,
4xSATA 200GB disk, onboard NIC [Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5721], 2x Digium
TE110P
Linux-2.6.13.2 [32bit, SMP, PREEMPT], Ubuntu 5.04
Asterisk-1.2.4