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#! rnews 2534 sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!startide.ctr.columbia.edu!wpaul From: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: long finger times Date: 18 Jul 1995 14:52:19 GMT Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Lines: 41 Message-ID: <3ughr3$ll4@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> References: <3ufr4j$fij@fu-berlin.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: startide.ctr.columbia.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se, Thomas Graichen (graichen@sirius.physik.fu-berlin.de) had the courage to say: : hello : can anybody tell me why finger is so slow under FreeBSD: [examples deleted] : -> why is it so very SLOW under FreeBSD - all three machines are standing : side by side on the same net - i think finger is't that cpu intensiv that : the i486/66 is to slow for it (or am i wrong ?) - thanks in advance - t If you have a lot of users on your machine, and if you use the automounter (or possibly just NFS in general) then the reason it's slow is because finger in FreeBSD up to 2.0.5 (which up until now was used exactly as distributed with 4.4BSD-Lite) was a little bit thick in the head. It has a barely documented and rarely used feature called a .nofinger file: if you create a .nofinger file in your account, you'll become invisible to finger. The problem is that finger was originally coded in such a way that it checked for a .nofinger file in _every_ _single_ _user's_ _account_ whether it needed to or not. This can get very messy if you use the automounter to mount users' home directories from several different servers: a single finger request triggers the mounting of every single NFS filesystem. I remember seeing someone commit a fix for this not to long ago. You might want to try finger from FreeBSD-current to see if it makes things go faster. I don't know if the NetBSD people have encountered and/or fixed this yet. -Bill -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Møøse Illuminati: ignore it and be confused, or join it and be confusing! ~~~~~~ "Welcome to All Things BSDish! If it's not BSDish, it's crap!" ~~~~~~~