Scott O’Keefe recently released new rules for the Domino Configuration Tuner. One of this rules watches the “Max Active Threads” setting in the server document.
The HTTP_MaxActiveThreads setting, found on the Internet Protocols/HTTP tab of the server document should be set to keep the CPU sufficiently busy and by default, it has a value of 40. DCT recommends to set this value between 40 and 80.
I ran a scan against my test server and DCT reported that HTTP_MaxActiveThreads has a value of 100 which is not a recommended setting. So I edited the server document and changed the value to the default value.
After saving the document, I restarted the server for the changes to take effect.
This is the point, where Lotus Notes Traveler enters the scene. I looked at the console and saw the following:
Aha, Lotus Traveler is restarting the HTTP task. Well, nothing strange about this. In the end both, Traveler and HTTP worked as usual.
I ran the DCT scan again and was very surprised that once again the HTTP_MaxActiveThreads rule reports a not recommended value of 100.
I opened the server doc to verify the value and indeed, the value had changed from 40 to 100 again.
I once again changed the setting and restarted the server. Same result.
I reconfigured the server to not start traveler at server startup. This time, the setting did not change automatically.
Does anybody know something about this behaviour? Is this a bug or a feature? Maybe it is documented somewhere. Any hint is appreciated.
Edit: Forgot to mention that the server and Lotus Traveler are 8.5.1
Not totally sure about this but Travler needs more HTTP threads in some situations and I guess they update the settings automatically for that reason. I have not checked details how this happens but Travler does a lot of good things automatically. 100 HTTP threads are not bad and should not cause performance issues.
The reason for those HTTP threads is that for iPhones push is implemented via a long running HTTP request. And this blocks a HTTP thread.
If you only have 40 threads you might run out of HTTP resources soon.
I will check if I can find more information about it and how this can be set in a different way on via Travler.
— Daniel
update: I found it in the Travler documentation.
here is the link
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/domhelp/v8r0/index.jsp
100 threads is the default value.
— Daniel
hit the submit button before checking the link to the help.
the right link is
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/domhelp/v8r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.help.lnt851.doc/Tuning_performance_of_the_server.html
too bad that we don’t have a NSF file and cannot pint everything into a single PDF.
this makes it quite difficult to search and to take offline.
I will ask about this again.
The product is great and very stable. Also the documentation is great. Only the way they provide it could be better.
— Daniel
You can override the default value by setting
NTS_MAX_HTTP_THREADS=40
in your notes.ini – just in case you still want to change it. I had a similar issue with the default-website, Traveler will always override the value in the server-doc with it’s value NTS_WEBSITE_HOME from notes.ini.
Jan