[ic] Verisign PFPRO Transactions Getting Dropped - SOLVED!

[Ron Phipps]

> From: interchange-users-admin@interchange.redhat.com
[mailto:interchange-
> users-admin@interchange.redhat.com] On Behalf Of John Beima
> 
> Boy am I tired of seeing this one. (-:

You can't be that tired of it... it doesn't show up as often as "What is
the admin password" :)

> 
> This problem is cause because the IO on your box is to slow... It is
the
> same
> thing with the PGP errors.
> 
> Interchange uses temp files back and forth for pgp encrypting. PF Pro
> seems to
> use temp files as well... When your IO channel gets a little bogged
down,
> it
> can't create the files fast enough for the programs, so it appears to
> Interchange like the transaction or the encryption has failed.

The new Signio.pm does use temp files.  But the old one does not and we
tested with that module as well and saw the same problem.

> Simple solution, repace your IO controllers and hard drives with
faster
> PROPER
> drives... Anyone that thinks ATA100 or ATA133 is anything near the
speed
> of SCSI
> is dreaming... A standard ATA100 drive can deal with about 500 IOs per
> second
> and ATA RAID makes NO difference... A regual UltraWide SCSI can deal
with
> 3000,
> SCSI RAID gets to even around 5000... Not to mention on the SCSI chain
> EVERY
> device can run at once, where as on the IDE chain only one can.

Unfortunately the server in question is running U2W SCSI drives and it
won't be as easy as throwing some new hardware at it.

> You may also wish to check your CPU load factor, but most likely you
wont
> see it
> here. You can try a "vmstat 5" command and watch your "bi" & "bo".
This
> will
> give you a closer look at how back logged your box really is.

Thanks for the debugging command... I'll look more into this and
hopefully it will give us an insight into what is happening.

> Simply put, if you have a busy site, you need a REAL server, not some
> Pentium
> III desktop with Unix on it. Tis the cost of doing business.

Agreed, this server should be more then plenty for a single catalog that
is not heavily hit.

The mystery continues ;)
-Ron