Configuring locking: sizing the system
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## Configuring locking: sizing the system

The lock system is sized using the following four methods:

1. DB_ENV->set_lk_max_locks()

2. DB_ENV->set_lk_max_lockers()

3. DB_ENV->set_lk_max_objects()

4. DB_ENV->set_lk_partitions()

The DB_ENV->set_lk_max_locks(), DB_ENV->set_lk_max_lockers(), and and DB_ENV->set_lk_max_objects() methods specify the maximum number of locks, lockers, and locked objects supported by the lock subsystem, respectively. The maximum number of locks is the number of locks that can be simultaneously requested in the system. The maximum number of lockers is the number of lockers that can simultaneously request locks in the system. The maximum number of lock objects is the number of objects that can simultaneously be locked in the system. Selecting appropriate values requires an understanding of your application and its databases. If the values are too small, requests for locks in an application will fail. If the values are too large, the locking subsystem will consume more resources than is necessary. It is better to err in the direction of allocating too many locks, lockers, and objects because increasing the number of locks does not require large amounts of additional resources. The default values are 1000 of each type of object.

The DB_ENV->set_lk_partitions() method specifies the number of lock table partitions. Each partition may be accessed independently by a thread and more partitions can lead to higher levels of concurrency. The default is to set the number of partitions to be 10 times the number of cpus that the operating system reports at the time the environment is created. Having more than one partition when there is only one cpu is not beneficial and the locking system is more efficient when there is a single partition. Operating systems (Linux, Solaris) may report thread contexts as cpus and it may be necessary to override the default to force a single partition on a single hyperthreaded cpu system. Objects and locks are divided among the partitions so it best to allocate several locks and objects per partition. The system will force there to be at least one per partition. If a partition runs out of locks or objects it will steal what is needed from the other partitions. This operation could impact performance if it occurs too often.

When configuring a Berkeley DB Concurrent Data Store application, the number of lock objects needed is two per open database (one for the database lock, and one for the cursor lock when the DB_CDB_ALLDB option is not specified). The number of locks needed is one per open database handle plus one per simultaneous cursor or non-cursor operation.

Configuring a Berkeley DB Transactional Data Store application is more complicated. The recommended algorithm for selecting the maximum number of locks, lockers, and lock objects is to run the application under stressful conditions and then review the lock system's statistics to determine the maximum number of locks, lockers, and lock objects that were used. Then, double these values for safety. However, in some large applications, finer granularity of control is necessary in order to minimize the size of the Lock subsystem.

The maximum number of lockers can be estimated as follows:

- If the database environment is using transactions, the maximum number of lockers can be estimated by adding the number of simultaneously active non-transactional cursors open database handles to the number of simultaneously active transactions and child transactions (where a child transaction is active until it commits or aborts, not until its parent commits or aborts).
- If the database environment is not using transactions, the maximum number of lockers can be estimated by adding the number of simultaneously active non-transactional cursors and open database handles to the number of simultaneous non-cursor operations.

The maximum number of lock objects needed for a transaction can be estimated as follows:

- For each access to a non-Queue database, one lock object is needed for each page that is read or updated.

- For the Queue access method you will need one lock object per record that is read or updated. Deleted records skipped by a DB_NEXT or DB_PREV operation do not require a separate lock object.

- For Btree and Recno databases additional lock objects may be needed for each node in the btree that has to be split due to an update.

- For Hash and Queue databases, every access must obtain a lock on the metadata page for the duration of the access. This is not held to the end of the transaction.

- If the transaction performs an update that needs to allocate a page to the database then a lock object for the metadata page will be needed to the end of the transaction.

Note that transactions accumulate locks over the transaction lifetime, and the lock objects required by a single transaction is the total lock objects required by all of the database operations in the transaction. However, a database page (or record, in the case of the Queue access method), that is accessed multiple times within a transaction only requires a single lock object for the entire transaction. So if a transaction in your application typically accesses 10 records, that transaction will require about 10 lock objects (it may be a few more if it splits btree nodes). If you have up to 10 concurrent threads in your application, then you need to configure your system to have about 100 lock objects. It is always better to configure more than you need so that you don't run out of lock objects. The memory overhead of over-allocating lock objects is minimal as they are small structures.

The maximum number of locks required by an application cannot be easily estimated. It is possible to calculate a maximum number of locks by multiplying the maximum number of lockers, times the maximum number of lock objects, times two (two for the two possible lock modes for each object, read and write). However, this is a pessimal value, and real applications are unlikely to actually need that many locks. Reviewing the Lock subsystem statistics is the best way to determine this value.

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