On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 11:33:29PM -0700, mindfuq(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net wrote:
When I ran procmail on my original single cpu machine, I always saw
multiple processes, which didn't do a lot of good w/ one processor.
Now after switching to a 2 processor machine, I was expecting double
the procmail speed. Why does it only run one process at a time?
Contrary to popular belief, X processors does not mean any given process will
run X times faster than the same process on a single processor machine.
Usually it means your kernel will assign the process to the least loaded
processor. If you are only processing a single email message at a given
moment, there will only be one procmail process running. That one process
isn't going to run X times faster. It just means the other processor(s) won't
be doing anything related to procmail. If another mail message comes in and a
second procmail instance is invoked, the process may be assigned to another
CPU. Or not. Thus a server that receives many messages per second may see an
increase in procmail performance with multiple CPUs. However multiple CPUs
will not make any given process run any faster.
For Procmail (or any other application) to take advantage of multiple CPUs,
that support has to be compiled in.
--
Andrew Edelstein - http://andrew.pure-chaos.com/resume.txt
Please do not reply directly to me, or Cc: me on a reply to a list message.
I'll get my copy from the list.
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