Archive for April, 2011

32-bit or 64-bit JVM? How about a Hybrid?

Before x86-64 came along, the decision on whether to use 32-bit or 64-bit mode for architectures that supported both was relatively simple: use 64-bit mode if the application requires the larger address space, 32-bit mode otherwise. After all, no point in reducing the amount of data that fits into the processor cache while increasing memory usage and bandwidth if the application doesn’t need the extra addressing space.

When it comes to x86-64, however, there’s also the fact that the number of named general-purpose registers has doubled from 8 to 16 in 64-bit mode. For CPU intensive apps, this may mean performance at the cost of extra memory usage. On the other hand, for memory intensive apps 32-bit mode might be better in if you manage to fit your application within the address space provided. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a single JVM that would cover the common cases?

It turns out that the HotSpot engineers have been working on doing just that through a feature called Compressed oops. The benefits:

  • Heaps up to 32GB (instead of the theoretical 4GB in 32-bit that in practice is closer to 3GB)
  • 64-bit mode so we get to use the extra registers
  • Managed pointers (including Java references) are 32-bit so we don’t waste memory or cache space

The main disadvantage is that encoding and decoding is required to translate from/to native addresses. HotSpot tries to avoid these operations as much as possible and they are relatively cheap. The hope is that the extra registers give enough of a boost to offset the extra cost introduced by the encoding/decoding.

Compressed Oops have been included (but disabled by default) in the performance release JDK6u6p (requires you to fill a survey), so I decided to try it in an internal application and compare it with 64-bit mode and 32-bit mode.

The tested application has two phases, a single threaded one followed by a multi-threaded one. Both phases do a large amount of allocation so memory bandwidth is very important. All tests were done on a dual quad-core Xeon 5400 series with 10GB of RAM. I should note that a different JDK version had to be used for 32-bit mode (JDK6u10rc2) because there is no Linux x86 build of JDK6u6p. I chose the largest heap size that would allow the 32-bit JVM to run the benchmark to completion without crashing.

I started by running the application with a smaller dataset:

JDK6u10rc2 32-bit
Single-threaded phase: 6298ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 17043ms
Used Heap after full GC: 430MB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms3328m -Xmx3328m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC

JDK6u6p 64-bit with Compressed Oops
Single-threaded phase: 6345ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 16348ms
Used Heap after full GC: 500MB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms3328m -Xmx3328m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseCompressedOops

The performance numbers are similar and the memory usage of the 64-bit JVM with Compressed Oops is 16% larger.

JDK6u6p 64-bit
Single-threaded phase: 6463ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 18778ms
Used Heap after full GC: 700MB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms3328m -Xmx3328m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC

The performance is again similar, but the memory usage of the 64-bit JVM is much higher, over 60% higher than the 32-bit JVM one.

Let’s try the larger dataset now:

JDK6u10rc2 32-bit
Single-threaded phase: 14188ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 73451ms
Used Heap after full GC: 1.25GB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms3328m -Xmx3328m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC

JDK6u6p 64-bit with CompressedOops
Single-threaded phase: 13742ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 76664ms
Used Heap after full GC: 1.45GB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms3328m -Xmx3328m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseCompressedOops

The performance difference and memory overhead are the same as with the smaller dataset. The benefit of Compressed Oops here is that we still have plenty of headroom while the 32-bit JVM is getting closer to its limits. This may not be apparent from the heap size after a full GC, but during the multi-threaded phase the peak memory usage is quite a bit larger and the fact that the allocation rate is high does not help. This becomes more obvious when we look at the results for the 64-bit JVM.

JDK6u6p 64-bit
Single-threaded phase: 14610ms
Multi-threaded phase (8 threads on 8 cores): 104992ms
Used Heap after full GC: 2GB
JVM Args: -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xms4224m -Xmx4224m -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC

I had to increase the Xms/Xmx to 4224m for the application to run to completion. Even so, the performance of the multi-threaded phase took a substantial performance hit when compared to the other two JVM configurations. All in all, the 64-bit JVM without compressed oops does not do well here.

In conclusion, it seems that compressed oops is a feature with a lot of promise and it allows the 64-bit JVM to be competitive even in cases that favour the 32-bit JVM. It might be interesting to test applications with different characteristics to compare the results. It’s also worth mentioning that since this is a new feature, it’s possible that performance will improve further before it’s integrated into the normal JDK releases. As it is though, it already hits a sweet spot and if it weren’t for the potential for instability, I would be ready to ditch my 32-bit JVM.

Update: The early access release of JDK 6 Update 14 also contains this feature.
Update 2: This feature is enabled by default since JDK 6 Update 23.

via 32-bit or 64-bit JVM? How about a Hybrid? « Ismael Juma.

2011
04/22
CATEGORY
Java
Performance
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Bash For Loop Examples

Bash For Loop Examples

by Vivek Gite on October 31, 2008 · 153 comments

How do I use bash for loop to repeat certain task under Linux / UNIX operating system? How do I set infinite loops using for statement? How do I use three-parameter for loop control expression?

A ‘for loop’ is a bash programming language statement which allows code to be repeatedly executed. A for loop is classified as an iteration statement i.e. it is the repetition of a process within a bash script.

For example, you can run UNIX command or task 5 times or read and process list of files using a for loop. A for loop can be used at a shell prompt or within a shell script itself.

for loop syntax

Numeric ranges for syntax is as follows:

for VARIABLE in 1 2 3 4 5 .. N
do
	command1
	command2
	commandN
done

This type of for loop is characterized by counting. The range is specified by a beginning (#1) and ending number (#5). The for loop executes a sequence of commands for each member in a list of items. A representative example in BASH is as follows to display welcome message 5 times with for loop:

#!/bin/bash
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
do
   echo "Welcome $i times"
done

Sometimes you may need to set a step value (allowing one to count by two’s or to count backwards for instance). Latest bash version 3.0+ has inbuilt support for setting up ranges:

#!/bin/bash
for i in {1..5}
do
   echo "Welcome $i times"
done

Bash v4.0+ has inbuilt support for setting up a step value using {START..END..INCREMENT} syntax:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Bash version ${BASH_VERSION}..."
for i in {0..10..2}
  do
     echo "Welcome $i times"
 done

Sample outputs:

Bash version 4.0.33(0)-release...
Welcome 0 times
Welcome 2 times
Welcome 4 times
Welcome 6 times
Welcome 8 times
Welcome 10 times

The seq command (outdated)

WARNING! The seq command print a sequence of numbers and it is here due to historical reasons. The following examples is only recommend for older bash version. All users (bash v3.x+) are recommended to use the above syntax.

The seq command can be used as follows. A representative example in seq is as follows:

#!/bin/bash
for i in $(seq 1 2 20)
do
   echo "Welcome $i times"
done

There is no good reason to use an external command such as seq to count and increment numbers in the for loop, hence it is recommend that you avoid using seq. The builtin command are fast.

Three-expression bash for loops syntax

This type of for loop share a common heritage with the C programming language. It is characterized by a three-parameter loop control expression; consisting of an initializer (EXP1), a loop-test or condition (EXP2), and a counting expression (EXP3).

for (( EXP1; EXP2; EXP3 ))
do
	command1
	command2
	command3
done

A representative three-expression example in bash as follows:

#!/bin/bash
for (( c=1; c<=5; c++ ))
do
	echo "Welcome $c times..."
done

Sample output:

Welcome 1 times
Welcome 2 times
Welcome 3 times
Welcome 4 times
Welcome 5 times

How do I use for as infinite loops?

Infinite for loop can be created with empty expressions, such as:

#!/bin/bash
for (( ; ; ))
do
   echo "infinite loops [ hit CTRL+C to stop]"
done

Conditional exit with break

You can do early exit with break statement inside the for loop. You can exit from within a FOR, WHILE or UNTIL loop using break. General break statement inside the for loop:

for I in 1 2 3 4 5
do
  statements1      #Executed for all values of ''I'', up to a disaster-condition if any.
  statements2
  if (disaster-condition)
  then
	break       	   #Abandon the loop.
  fi
  statements3          #While good and, no disaster-condition.
done

Following shell script will go though all files stored in /etc directory. The for loop will be abandon when /etc/resolv.conf file found.

#!/bin/bash
for file in /etc/*
do
	if [ "${file}" == "/etc/resolv.conf" ]
	then
		countNameservers=$(grep -c nameserver /etc/resolv.conf)
		echo "Total  ${countNameservers} nameservers defined in ${file}"
		break
	fi
done

Early continuation with continue statement

To resume the next iteration of the enclosing FOR, WHILE or UNTIL loop use continue statement.

for I in 1 2 3 4 5
do
  statements1      #Executed for all values of ''I'', up to a disaster-condition if any.
  statements2
  if (condition)
  then
	continue   #Go to next iteration of I in the loop and skip statements3
  fi
  statements3
done

This script make backup of all file names specified on command line. If .bak file exists, it will skip the cp command.

#!/bin/bash
FILES="$@"
for f in $FILES
do
        # if .bak backup file exists, read next file
	if [ -f ${f}.bak ]
	then
		echo "Skiping $f file..."
		continue  # read next file and skip cp command
	fi
        # we are hear means no backup file exists, just use cp command to copy file
	/bin/cp $f $f.bak
done

via Bash For Loop Examples.

2011
04/21
CATEGORY
Bash
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apache – How can I change from prefork to worker MPM on CentOS

I’m running CentOS 64 bit, and jsut found out I am running prefork MPM on my dual quad xeon. I was told worker will give me lower memory usage, and higher performance, since I run a very high traffic website.

If this is true, how do I do it?

Edit: /etc/sysconfig/httpd

Uncomment:

HTTPD=/usr/sbin/httpd.worker

Restart, voila!

After restarting httpd, I ran “ps -ef | grep -i http” and got this:

[root@localhost httpd]# ps -ef | grep -i http
root     16334 17289  0 10:44 pts/1    00:00:00 grep -i http
root     30536     1  0 10:00 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd.worker
apache   30539 30536  0 10:00 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd.worker
apache   30541 30536  0 10:00 ?        00:00:02 /usr/sbin/httpd.worker
[root@localhost httpd]#

 

If I switch the /etc/sysconfig/httpd back to the default, the ps output is like this:

[root@localhost httpd]# ps -ef | grep -i http
root     16447     1  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16448 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16449 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16450 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16451 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16453 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16454 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16455 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache   16456 16447  0 10:47 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
root     16458 17289  0 10:47 pts/1    00:00:00 grep -i http
[root@localhost httpd]#

via apache – How can I change from prefork to worker MPM on CentOS 64bit? – Server Fault.

2011
04/11
CATEGORY
Administration
Apache
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