About child helper processes

IBM_Trombone_Custom_Server uses a number of child helper processes to make the TDM connection and disconnection requests, which block other TDM connection and disconnection requests while they are being processed. These helper processes are required only during the actual connection or disconnection phase of a trombone, so you must have enough to cope with the peak demand of trombone connections or disconnections.

A good compromise between process availability and response time is to have one process for every 10 possible trombone operations. This is why the default value for the -pn parameter is 0.1. If you only need the trombone operation rarely, you can reduce this value, slightly reducing the system load.

If you supply a value for n to override the default, the meanings of various values are:

0 < -pn <= 1

The number of child processes to run = n * max_trombones (with a minimum of 2 child processes)

-pn > 1

The number of child processes to run = n (with a maximum of number of channels/2)

-pn < 0

Use the default value of -pn=0.1