[Asterisk-Users] Optimizing Linux to run Asterisk

[Tamas]

Tamas wrote:
> 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
>   
I googled a bit and found some interesting things:
1. A nice article about CPU Affinity:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6799
2. asterisk has a '-p' option for 'Run as pseudo-realtime thread' which
can help to make better system.

Anybody else anything? :)

T.