keep IIS in RAM

Is there a way to keep IIS running solely in RAM?

panic

Re: keep IIS in RAM

There is a registry key that you can set to prevent the Windows kernel from
being paged.

Why do you think IIS is not "running in RAM"? And which parts of IIS are you
talking about?

Cheers
Ken

"titanic panic" <"jcy1971"@\"g\"mail> wrote in message
news:emQr9vBPGHA.812@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
: Is there a way to keep IIS running solely in RAM?
:
: panic

Re: keep IIS in RAM

At the moment, our site can basically probably occupy a gig of physical
memory (on a 2GB RAM server), so I was hoping on making sure performance
would be top notch by keeping IIS and all the objects and processes
solely in RAM.

The last time I had to deal with a web server it was with solaris and
apache and it was possible to do that there.

panic



Ken Schaefer wrote:
> There is a registry key that you can set to prevent the Windows kernel from
> being paged.
>
> Why do you think IIS is not "running in RAM"? And which parts of IIS are you
> talking about?
>
> Cheers
> Ken
>
> "titanic panic" <"jcy1971"@\"g\"mail> wrote in message
> news:emQr9vBPGHA.812@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> : Is there a way to keep IIS running solely in RAM?
> :
> : panic
>
>

Re: keep IIS in RAM

How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough RAM for
your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.

--
//David
IIS
http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
//

"titanic panic" <"jcy1971"@\"g\"mail> wrote in message
news:uj$mL$BPGHA.740@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> At the moment, our site can basically probably occupy a gig of physical
> memory (on a 2GB RAM server), so I was hoping on making sure performance
> would be top notch by keeping IIS and all the objects and processes solely
> in RAM.
>
> The last time I had to deal with a web server it was with solaris and
> apache and it was possible to do that there.
>
> panic
>
>
>
> Ken Schaefer wrote:
>> There is a registry key that you can set to prevent the Windows kernel
>> from being paged.
>>
>> Why do you think IIS is not "running in RAM"? And which parts of IIS are
>> you talking about?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Ken
>>
>> "titanic panic" <"jcy1971"@\"g\"mail> wrote in message
>> news:emQr9vBPGHA.812@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> : Is there a way to keep IIS running solely in RAM?
>> :
>> : panic

Re: keep IIS in RAM

David Wang [Msft] wrote:

> How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough RAM for
> your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.

Have you EVER tried that? I have tried to disable the paging file on both
Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro. Both systems had 1 GB of RAM, and both showed about
150 MB of memory usage when freshly booted up.

Neither system would boot up with the paging file disabled. They both complained
about a lack of memory! And I could not even make it to the desktop.

Of course, maybe 2000 Server or 2003 Server handles memory more intelligently....

--
Phil Frisbie, Jr.
Hawk Software
http://www.hawksoft.com

Re: keep IIS in RAM

"Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
news:ObeMv8IPGHA.2704@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
: David Wang [Msft] wrote:
:
: > How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough RAM for
: > your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.
:
: Have you EVER tried that? I have tried to disable the paging file on both
: Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro. Both systems had 1 GB of RAM, and both showed
about
: 150 MB of memory usage when freshly booted up.
:
: Neither system would boot up with the paging file disabled. They both
complained
: about a lack of memory! And I could not even make it to the desktop.

Neither Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP by itself requires more than 1GB of
RAM just to boot. You must have other applications configured to run during
startup or logon that are reserving or committing memory.

: Of course, maybe 2000 Server or 2003 Server handles memory more
intelligently....

Um, has nothing to do with handling memory more intelligently. If you run a
program that reserves 500MB of RAM, and that isn't available, the program
either needs to handle that, or it crashes and gets terminated by Windows.

Cheers
Ken

Re: keep IIS in RAM

Ken Schaefer wrote:

> "Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
> news:ObeMv8IPGHA.2704@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> : David Wang [Msft] wrote:
> :
> : > How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough RAM for
> : > your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.
> :
> : Have you EVER tried that? I have tried to disable the paging file on both
> : Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro. Both systems had 1 GB of RAM, and both showed
> about
> : 150 MB of memory usage when freshly booted up.
> :
> : Neither system would boot up with the paging file disabled. They both
> complained
> : about a lack of memory! And I could not even make it to the desktop.
>
> Neither Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP by itself requires more than 1GB of
> RAM just to boot. You must have other applications configured to run during
> startup or logon that are reserving or committing memory.

Ok, but you did not answer my question: Have you ever tried to disable the pagefile?

It was just 6 weeks ago that I accidentally disabled the page file on a W2K Pro
system while upgrading to a larger hard drive. Like I said, when that machine
booted the total commit charge was about 150 MB. This was a fairly new install,
and did not have anything I would call unusual running at start up. This
computer has 1 GB of RAM, and the error message box that repeatedly came up
warned that virtual memory was low, and that I needed to close some applications
to continue. Just 'for fun', I sat there for about 10 minutes with my finger on
the return key, constantly clearing out that message box, and I never could get
to the desktop.


> : Of course, maybe 2000 Server or 2003 Server handles memory more
> intelligently....
>
> Um, has nothing to do with handling memory more intelligently. If you run a
> program that reserves 500MB of RAM, and that isn't available, the program
> either needs to handle that, or it crashes and gets terminated by Windows.

Don't get me started on Windows memory management...

--
Phil Frisbie, Jr.
Hawk Software
http://www.hawksoft.com

Re: keep IIS in RAM

"Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
news:uKIddUVPGHA.812@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
: Ken Schaefer wrote:
:
: > "Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
: > news:ObeMv8IPGHA.2704@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
: > : David Wang [Msft] wrote:
: > :
: > : > How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough RAM
for
: > : > your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.
: > :
: > : Have you EVER tried that? I have tried to disable the paging file on
both
: > : Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro. Both systems had 1 GB of RAM, and both
showed
: > about
: > : 150 MB of memory usage when freshly booted up.
: > :
: > : Neither system would boot up with the paging file disabled. They both
: > complained
: > : about a lack of memory! And I could not even make it to the desktop.
: >
: > Neither Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP by itself requires more than 1GB
of
: > RAM just to boot. You must have other applications configured to run
during
: > startup or logon that are reserving or committing memory.
:
: Ok, but you did not answer my question: Have you ever tried to disable the
pagefile?

Yes, I have as an experiment. Yes, I've been able to boot a generic Windows
XP Pro box (with nothing else installed) with 1GB of installed RAM. I've had
this discussion with many people (the merits of running without a pagefile).
Personally I do not think that you should disable it, but you certainly can.

Consider also that the minimum specs for running Windows XP are 128MB of
RAM, and that by default Windows XP creates a pagefile 1.5 times the
installed RAM size, with max pagefile 3 times the installed RAM. That would
give the machine a total of 640MB of RAM (physical *and* virtual). So the
machine must be bootable with just 640MB of memory.

: : It was just 6 weeks ago that I accidentally disabled the page file on a
W2K Pro
: system while upgrading to a larger hard drive. Like I said, when that
machine
: booted the total commit charge was about 150 MB. This was a fairly new
install,
: and did not have anything I would call unusual running at start up. This
: computer has 1 GB of RAM, and the error message box that repeatedly came
up
: warned that virtual memory was low, and that I needed to close some
applications
: to continue. Just 'for fun', I sat there for about 10 minutes with my
finger on
: the return key, constantly clearing out that message box, and I never
could get
: to the desktop.

Then you have something else running that is reserving RAM (presumably it's
not committed as the commit charge is quite low)

:
: > : Of course, maybe 2000 Server or 2003 Server handles memory more
: > intelligently....
: >
: > Um, has nothing to do with handling memory more intelligently. If you
run a
: > program that reserves 500MB of RAM, and that isn't available, the
program
: > either needs to handle that, or it crashes and gets terminated by
Windows.
:
: Don't get me started on Windows memory management...

Memory is memory, regardless of whether it is physical or virtual. If a
program asks for 500MB of memory (whether reserving or committing), then
that has *nothing* to do with Windows memory management. Either the RAM
exists (either physical or virtual) or it doesn't exist. There is nothing
that Windows memory management can do about this.

Cheers
Ken

Re: keep IIS in RAM

FWIW I have Windows XP SP2 running inside a VPC right now with 640MB of
physical RAM, and no page file configured. Current commit charge is ~100MB

Cheers
Ken


"Ken Schaefer" wrote in message
news:eC%23GNCZPGHA.3888@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
:
: "Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
: news:uKIddUVPGHA.812@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
:: Ken Schaefer wrote:
::
:: > "Phil Frisbie, Jr." wrote in message
:: > news:ObeMv8IPGHA.2704@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
:: > : David Wang [Msft] wrote:
:: > :
:: > : > How about turning off the PageFile and make sure you have enough
RAM
: for
:: > : > your website. Then, everything has to run in RAM.
:: > :
:: > : Have you EVER tried that? I have tried to disable the paging file on
: both
:: > : Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro. Both systems had 1 GB of RAM, and both
: showed
:: > about
:: > : 150 MB of memory usage when freshly booted up.
:: > :
:: > : Neither system would boot up with the paging file disabled. They both
:: > complained
:: > : about a lack of memory! And I could not even make it to the desktop.
:: >
:: > Neither Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP by itself requires more than 1GB
: of
:: > RAM just to boot. You must have other applications configured to run
: during
:: > startup or logon that are reserving or committing memory.
::
:: Ok, but you did not answer my question: Have you ever tried to disable
the
: pagefile?
:
: Yes, I have as an experiment. Yes, I've been able to boot a generic
Windows
: XP Pro box (with nothing else installed) with 1GB of installed RAM. I've
had
: this discussion with many people (the merits of running without a
pagefile).
: Personally I do not think that you should disable it, but you certainly
can.
:
: Consider also that the minimum specs for running Windows XP are 128MB of
: RAM, and that by default Windows XP creates a pagefile 1.5 times the
: installed RAM size, with max pagefile 3 times the installed RAM. That
would
: give the machine a total of 640MB of RAM (physical *and* virtual). So the
: machine must be bootable with just 640MB of memory.
:
:: : It was just 6 weeks ago that I accidentally disabled the page file on a
: W2K Pro
:: system while upgrading to a larger hard drive. Like I said, when that
: machine
:: booted the total commit charge was about 150 MB. This was a fairly new
: install,
:: and did not have anything I would call unusual running at start up. This
:: computer has 1 GB of RAM, and the error message box that repeatedly came
: up
:: warned that virtual memory was low, and that I needed to close some
: applications
:: to continue. Just 'for fun', I sat there for about 10 minutes with my
: finger on
:: the return key, constantly clearing out that message box, and I never
: could get
:: to the desktop.
:
: Then you have something else running that is reserving RAM (presumably
it's
: not committed as the commit charge is quite low)
:
::
:: > : Of course, maybe 2000 Server or 2003 Server handles memory more
:: > intelligently....
:: >
:: > Um, has nothing to do with handling memory more intelligently. If you
: run a
:: > program that reserves 500MB of RAM, and that isn't available, the
: program
:: > either needs to handle that, or it crashes and gets terminated by
: Windows.
::
:: Don't get me started on Windows memory management...
:
: Memory is memory, regardless of whether it is physical or virtual. If a
: program asks for 500MB of memory (whether reserving or committing), then
: that has *nothing* to do with Windows memory management. Either the RAM
: exists (either physical or virtual) or it doesn't exist. There is nothing
: that Windows memory management can do about this.
:
: Cheers
: Ken
:
: