Aha, very good point.

Now strace'ing the 'wc' I see the same on both servers. Just a bunch of 'read'
sys calls.

So why would 'read' generate such a different user time on the two machines?

Trying some tests with larger files in where the problem becomes far more evident:

'New' box :

# wc -l bigfile

 290314 bigfile

real    0m23.047s
user    0m16.072s
sys     0m0.348s

# mount
/dev/sda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,nolog)

# strace -c wc bigfile
execve("/usr/bin/wc", ["wc", "bigfile"], [/* 23 vars */]) = 0
290314 3127604 40121984 bigfile
% time     seconds  usecs/call     calls    errors syscall
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
 68.33    0.104694          43      2453           read
 31.51    0.048270          76       637           write
  0.07    0.000113           9        13         7 open
  0.02    0.000029          10         3           munmap
  0.02    0.000028           7         4           mmap2
  0.02    0.000025           5         5           old_mmap
  0.01    0.000020           3         6           fstat64
  0.01    0.000013           2         6           close
  0.01    0.000010           3         4           brk
  0.00    0.000005           5         1           mprotect
  0.00    0.000004           4         1           uname
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
100.00    0.153211                  3133         7 total



Old box :

# time wc -l /root/bigfile
 290314 /root/bigfile
0.68user 0.09system 0:00.86elapsed 88%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (114major+19minor)pagefaults 0swaps

And again :

[root@banner23 logs]# strace -c wc /root/bigfile
execve("/usr/bin/wc", ["wc", "/root/bigfile"], [/* 20 vars */]) = 0
 290314 3127604 40121984 /root/bigfile
% time     seconds  usecs/call     calls    errors syscall
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
 99.59    0.100965          41      2453           read
  0.16    0.000161          12        13         2 open
  0.07    0.000075          15         5           brk
  0.06    0.000062           5        13           old_mmap
  0.03    0.000031           3        11           close
  0.02    0.000023           3         9           fstat
  0.02    0.000019           6         3           munmap
  0.01    0.000015          15         1           write
  0.01    0.000015           5         3           mprotect
  0.01    0.000008           4         2           fstat64
  0.00    0.000005           5         1           ioctl
  0.00    0.000002           2         1           getpid
  0.00    0.000002           2         1           personality
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
100.00    0.101383                  2516         2 total


# mount
/dev/sda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime)


That's messed up! Why are they doing exactly the same # of 'read' calls
but my newer system has decided to add 637 'write' calls ??????

What reiserfs / mount options should I try to get this at a more normal level ?


-n.

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Thu, 07 Nov 2002 19:59:55 +0900, Naoki <naoki@valuecommerce.ne.jp>
said:

  
real    0m3.059s
user    0m2.543s <== say what???
sys     0m0.064s
    
0.25user 0.04system 0:00.38elapsed 76%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata
    
0maxresident)k
  
0inputs+0outputs (115major+19minor)pagefaults 0swaps
    

I'd start by investigating why on the new box the 'user' time is 2.5+
seconds.

Notice that the 'system' times on both boxes are comparable (0.06 versus
0.04 - low enough that timer resolution probably matters in any jitter
in
the measurements).

Does 'which wc' show you running something other than /usr/bin/time on
the
new box?