[OpenAFS-devel] Large-Cache Initialization (Proposal)

[Derek Atkins]

"Patrick J. LoPresti" <patl@curl.com> writes:

>   1) What Linux kernel do you recommend for file servers?  I am
>      interested in stability first, performance second.  The options
>      are 2.2.x versus 2.4.x, and SMP versus non-SMP.  (I know, perhaps
>      Solaris would be a better choice.  But I need to work within our
>      existing infrastructure.)

For a _server_ I would recommend Linux 2.2.x SMP, although quite
honestly it probably doesn't matter that much.  The Linux servers are
all user-space.

>   2) If I want to create a 1G or 2G cache on the clients, is there any
>      reasonable way to do it right now (e.g., increasing the chunk
>      size or whatever it's called)?  If not, what is the largest
>      reasonable cache size for Linux systems?

Um, good question.  I don't know.  I tried to build a 3G cache and got
frustrated.  If you're willing to let it sit for a long period of
time, it should eventually complete the task of initializing the
cache.  Future reboots should be much faster than the first-time cache
creation (you're not performing N creat(2) operations in the same
directory).  So, basically, start AFS with as big a cache as you want,
but be willing to have your machine totally dedicated to the task of
cache-initialization for a day or more.

>  - Pat

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
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