HP CIFS Server Administrator Guide Version A.03.01.03 (5900-2006, October 2011)

• ninode: unlike nfile, each instance on an open will NOT increase the number of inode
entries. Rather, each unique opened file will only take up one entry, regardless of how
many times it is opened. Therefore this parameter should be set to the anticipated number
of UNIQUE open files used by HP CIFS plus the number opened by other processes in
the system.
• nflocks: each smbd process will utilize at least ten file locks. Therefore, the value of nflocks
should, at least, be equal to the anticipated number of simultaneous clients, multiplied by
ten (10). The use of nflocks by other applications must also be considered.
Swap space requirements
Due to the one-process-per-client model of HP CIFS, perhaps the most stringent requirement imposed
on the system is that of swap space. HP-UX reserves a certain amount of swap space for each
process that is launched, to prevent it from being aborted in case it needs to swap out some pages
during times of memory pressure. Other operating systems, only reserve swap space when it is
needed. This results in the process not finding the swap space that it needs, in which case it has
to be terminated by the OS.
Each smbd process will reserve about 2 MB of swap space and depending on the type of client
activity, process size may grow up to 4 MB of swap space. For a maximum of 2048 clients, 4 *
2048 or about 8 GB of swap space would be required. Therefore, HP recommends configuring
enough swap space to accommodate the maximum number of simultaneous clients connected to
the HP CIFS server.
Memory requirements
Each smbd process will need approximate 4 MB of memory on 11i v2. For 2048 clients, therefore,
the system should have at least 8 GB of physical memory on 11i v2. This is over and above the
requirements of other applications that will be running concurrent with HP CIFS.
Configuring kernel parameters for HP CIFS 157