preformance degredation of large /etc/passwd

From: Ellen Davis <daviser_at_email.uc.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 16:58:43 -0500

Does the problem described below (text taken from the
duv40bas00006-19971216.README) exist in DU4.0D? We are considering placing
our mail hub which will have about 35,000+ users on a DEC box. Will this
large password file be a problem?


PROBLEM: (Patch ID: OSF410-400331)
********
When the /etc/passwd file is very large, a performance degradation may occur.

When the number of passwd entries reaches up into the 30,000 to 80,000 range
or greater, mkpasswd will sometimes fail to create a hashed (ndbm) database.
Since the purpose of this database is to allow for efficient (fast) searches
for passwd file information, failure to build it causes commands that rely
on it to do a linear search of /etc/passwd. This results in a serious per-
formance degradation for those commands. This patch allows the vedquota,
vquot, vquota and vquotacheck commands to work correctly when the customer
builds a hashed passwd database using a non-default page file block size.


 Ellen Davis
 Ellen.Davis_at_uc.edu
Received on Tue Feb 03 1998 - 22:56:49 NZDT

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