Adding Physical Memory vs. Compiling New Kernel

["Mark Beihoffer" <mbeihoffer_(_at_)_uswest_(_dot_)_net>]

Hi,

I've got a decision to make and am looking for input.

I've pinpointed my current problems with ppp+nat to the network memory
buffers. (2.9 on i386, nat'ed ppp with 56k modem).

When the problem occurs, the network interfaces become unresponsive and
the users are forced to restart the system.

$ netstat -m
68 mbufs in use:
        66 mbufs allocated to data
        1 mbuf allocated to packet headers
        1 mbuf allocated to socket names and addresses
65/70 mapped pages in use
148 Kbytes allocated to network (93% in use)
0 requests for memory denied
0 requests for memory delayed
0 calls to protocol drain routines

$ping openbsd.org
ping: sendto: no buffer space available

The machines in question have 64 MB SDRAM.

My question is this: should I add more RAM to the systems, or should I
recompile my kernel with options

		NMBCLUSTERS=8192
		MAXUSERS=512

Or both? (Or am I completely off base?)

I asked a question in regards to this right before the weekend (bad
timing, I know.)

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Mark Beihoffer
Network Architect
612-825-1261