Another option nobody else has mentioned.... rootkit? I have no idea why a rootkit would want a mkfs binary, but, hey, if it's doing all sorts of wonky things under the hood, it might explain the difference in performance....
D On Jun 29, 2010, at 9:11 PM, Aleksey Tsalolikhin wrote: > Summary: Two CentOS 5.4 servers, one deployed Dec 2009, the other > April 2010. mkfs.ext3 performance differs wildly. e2fsprogs package > version is identical but the mkfs.ext3 binaries are different (but > identical in size). > > I've already posted to the CentOS users mailing list... Any > suggestions how else I could track this down? > > Thanks, > Aleksey > > > Situation: two similar servers, both with CentOS 5.4 64-bit. Making > an ext3 filesystem on one takes seconds, on the other minutes. > > Partition Size Server 1 Server 2 > > 1 GB 0.7 sec 0.3 sec > > 4 GB 2.5 sec 1.2 sec > > 40 GB 15 sec 13 min > > WTF > > I took "mkfs" and "mkfs.ext3" from server 1, put them on server 2, and > got an improvement: > > 40 GB 15 sec 3 min > > Version numbers are identical but binaries different: > > e2fsprogs RPM is e2fsprogs-1.39-23.el5 on both systems > mkfs --version reports "util-linux 2.13-pre7" on both systems > mkfs -V reports the same on both systems (mke2fs 1.3 (29-May-2006) > Using EXT2FS Library version 1.39) > file size on mkfs and mkfs.ext3 binaries is identical > > However, checksum on these binaries differs across servers, and "cmp" > reports files are different > > > Just out of curiousity, I ran "rpm -V e2fsprogs" to see if rpm would > pick up the difference and sure enough, it complained mkfs.ext3 > changed. > > Both of these servers have CentOS 5.4; Server 1 was installed in Dec > 2009, Server 2 in April 2010. > > I'd like to: > > (a) account for the difference in the binaries, and > (b) see if something else is different that I can make the same to get > the mkfs.ext3 time down to 15 sec on both systems. > > Solving (a) should shed light on (b). Any ideas? > > Best, > Aleksey > _______________________________________________ > Tech mailing list > [email protected] > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
