Home › Forums › OS X Server and Client Discussion › Questions and Answers › 10.4.11: AppleFileServer Hogging CPU on my Server – causing big problems

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  • October 10, 2008 at 10:50 pm #374431
    psfollies
    Participant

    I have a server (G5 1.8gHz duals, max RAM) that hosts a number of Apple/Windows sharepoints as well as the home directories for 35 Open Directory users. The files live on an attached external SATA RAID array. While I installed the .11 update a couple weeks ago – this problem began today…

    My mobile OD users are fine in terms of computer speeds but non-mobile users are experiencing massive slowdowns (typing lags by a few seconds even). On the server, I see that the AppleFileServer is running between 90-120% of the CPU in top, but is only using about 20mb of RAM. It is hogging the processor and hurting our system.

    I have read all the AFP Tuning articles here and have already implemented a few ideas to no avail. While I know that I can switch them all to Mobility mode, that isn’t possible for me here as users need to log-in from many different stations during the day.

    I have restarted the server, repaired permissions, etc. but the AppleFileServer continues to slam the processor. Prior to today, it would run something about 20%-70%.

    Any help would be immensely appreciated!

    November 12, 2008 at 12:09 pm #374728
    gw1500se
    Participant

    I am having the same problem except I have an XRAID array instead of a SATA array. However, I have traced the problem down to a single folder used for archiving files. When copying files into it, the cpus get pegged by AppleFileServer (mostly system). There is no rational explanation as to why that folder causes the problem other then the number of subfolders and files is quite large. Unfortunately, I am not anticipating a solution but will be watching this thread.

    Apple introduced a host of bugs with the last Tiger release and then withdrew support for it. Very bad form. The worst bug was introduced to the OD password management system. Anyway, we are resigned to living with this until it is practical for us to upgrade to Leopard. Unfortunately, Apple made an easy upgrade impossible as Leopard requires a clean install and Apple provided no real tools to migrate the data. It is an agonizing manual process, from all I’ve read, and the main reason it is impractical for us to do the upgrade in the foreseeable future. Do I sound bitter?

    November 12, 2008 at 10:37 pm #374745
    bschappel
    Participant

    I had this problem constantly with 10.4. I personally blame Apple Mail and Spotlight as the culprits. When Tiger Mail came out each message was converted to a single file to make Spotlight searching easier. This greatly increased the number of files that had to be accessed by NHD users. Under Panther a user with 50,000 messages in 50 mailboxes has to open 50 files. Under Tiger they had to open 50,000 files.

    I tested this by having everyone log in and the server was fine. I then had people open Mail.app, one at a time, and watched as the AFP process went wild. I also found that once AFP went over 100% CPU it never recovered and the server had to be restarted.

    I’ve been running Leopard server (with a mix of Tiger and Leopard clients) for about four months and have not had this problem reappear.

    FWIW: the upgrade Leo server was not bad. I think you can do an in-place upgrade. I remember there was no way to upgrade from PPC Tiger server to Universal Tiger server but that Leopard would allow for a PPC Tiger to Leopard upgrade.

    In the worst case (and I tested this) archive your OD info in Server Manager. Install a clean Leopard server, promote it to a master, and import the old archive. As I said it worked for me.

    November 13, 2008 at 3:25 pm #374750
    gw1500se
    Participant

    [QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p]Take a look at our AFP tuning articles as they can help quite a bit. If you have one particular folder that is causing issues, try whacking the .DS_Store from it if it has one. I tend to turn them off on network shares now anyway.[/p][/QUOTE]
    Interesting solution. How did you stop OS X from putting it back?

    November 13, 2008 at 3:30 pm #374751
    gw1500se
    Participant

    [QUOTE][u]Quote by: bschappel[/u][p]
    FWIW: the upgrade Leo server was not bad. I think you can do an in-place upgrade. I remember there was no way to upgrade from PPC Tiger server to Universal Tiger server but that Leopard would allow for a PPC Tiger to Leopard upgrade.

    In the worst case (and I tested this) archive your OD info in Server Manager. Install a clean Leopard server, promote it to a master, and import the old archive. As I said it worked for me.[/p][/QUOTE]
    From what I read, it won’t import properly. Were all your passwords in tact too? If that really does work, it will save a lot of headaches.

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