too much cpu system time with kernel 2.6.9-22.0.2.EL

[wtriest at chemistry.ohio-state.edu (William (Bill) Triest)]

David Mansfield wrote:

>I'm running a server recently installed with centos 4.2.
>
>It's running the kernel in the subject line, on an PIII 866Mhz with
>512mb ram.
>
>The system is running basically two processes:
>
>1) ssh to remote system, receiving a stream of bytes
>
>piped into
>
>2) gzip the stream, write to disk file
>
>The system is slow, relatively (866Mhz cpu) and the network is fast
>(gigabit) so the limiting factor should be CPU.
>
>  
>
David,

I am not a kernel hacker, so I'm hoping you will end up with a more 
informed opinion, but it seems to me the real limiting factor would be 
IO.  Disks are slow, and you claim you're writing to the disk.  IMHO, an 
800 MHz system should be able to handle ssh and gzip far easier then the IO.

--Bill