Strange performance problem < Help needed

[einbert]

Hi,

I have a rather strange problem certainly due to some misconfiguration somewhere... When I use a sort command on a file I have a result 15 seconds later when running as root; but when the same command is used with another user I have still no result 30 minutes later. What I have checked so far:

• Nice value and priority (checked via top) are the same
• The file is readable by the test user and he has write access in the folder (as the result of the sort is written in another file)
• No limitation on the user (checked with ulimit)

The sort is done on a 300MB text file.

Has anybody an idea where the problem could be?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Chris