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Conference turris::digital_unix

Title:DIGITAL UNIX(FORMERLY KNOWN AS DEC OSF/1)
Notice:Welcome to the Digital UNIX Conference
Moderator:SMURF::DENHAM
Created:Thu Mar 16 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:10068
Total number of notes:35879

9484.0. "/dev/null implementation !?" by MIPSBX::"[email protected]" (Uri Lebovich) Mon Apr 14 1997 11:27

My Customer trying copy a big file ( ~1GB ) from SUN to Alpha 
( AS 4100 5/400, DU 4.0B ) by ftp in the following way :

ftp> get file.dat /dev/null	

It tooks a long time, the same get from Alpha to Sun tooks no time.

The same story with : cat file.dat > /dev/null

Any idea ?!

Thanks, 

Uri

[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
T.RTitleUserPersonal
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9484.1Not the way I'd want it work...SSDEVO::ROLLOWDr. File System's Home for Wayward Inodes.Mon Apr 14 1997 11:324
	Our implementation of /dev/null is such that we still have
	have to read all the data, at least for things doing
	sequential reads.  Perhaps Sun "knows" that the output
	file is a data-sink and doesn't bother reading the data.
9484.2XIRTLU::schottEric R. Schott USG Product ManagementMon Apr 14 1997 12:117
Hi

 There could be something going on on the network...have you
run tcpdump to get a network trace during the operation each
way?


9484.3Is /dev/null really the null device?VESPER::VESPEROpenGL Alpha GeekMon Apr 14 1997 13:1610
>ftp> get file.dat /dev/null	
>
>It tooks a long time, the same get from Alpha to Sun tooks no time.

Sometimes /dev/null gets trashed and replaced with a regular file.

Have your customer do "ls -l /dev/null" and make sure it is still
the null device.

Andy V
9484.4``/dev/null implementation !?NNTPD::"[email protected]"Uri LebovichTue Apr 15 1997 10:2920
.2

> There could be something going on on the network...have you
> run tcpdump to get a network trace during the operation each
> way?

The problem(s)/feature is't with network.

.3

> Have your customer do "ls -l /dev/null" and make sure it is still
> the null device.

Yes. Everithing is O.K.

Who can explain why "ftp> get file /dev/null" ( no I/O work ) tooks the same
time as "ftp> get file local_file" ???

Uri
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
9484.5SSDEVO::ROLLOWDr. File System's Home for Wayward Inodes.Tue Apr 15 1997 11:0512
	So, just how much time is "no time" in your original note?  
	Impossibly fast?  Or "making good use of available network
	bandwidth"?  If you wanted a program to appear faster in
	certain common "benchmarks", a vendor might chose to take
	the time to optimize certain output cases; such as writing
	to /dev/null.  As I said in my original reply, maybe Sun
	doesn't bother to read the data when they know the output
	file is the data-sink.

	If they're just making better use of network bandwidth than
	we are, more information about the test and configuration
	would be useful.
9484.6check for earlier notesTUXEDO::CHUBBThu Apr 17 1997 13:029
    It seems I saw a discussion about /dev/null efficiency between us and
    Sun in the past -- you may want to check with a 'dir/title=null' in
    this conference and the old ALPHA_OSF conference.
    
    It should be easy to get a rough idea with doing something like:
    % cp /vmunix /dev/null
    on both systems.
    
    -- brandon
9484.7NABETH::alanDr. File System's Home for Wayward Inodes.Thu Apr 17 1997 14:236
	If Sun is taking short cuts, you might also try:

		time cp /dev/zero /dev/null

	If theirs finishes, they took a short cut.  Ours won't
	finish.
9484.8They must be doing something special...RHETT::PARKERThu Apr 17 1997 15:1415
    
    Good suggestion, Alan. I tried the copying /dev/zero to /dev/null
    on SunOS 5.4 and it did not finish. But, they must be doing something
    funny because I timed a copy of /kernel/unix to /dev/null and it took
    no time.
    
    time cp /kernel/unix /dev/null
    0.0u 0.0s 0:00 0% 0+0k 0+0io 0pf+0w
    
    If I can spare some cycles, I'll look into this more. 
    
    Hth,
    
    Lee