[OpenAFS] Q: Diskless Clients

[Dirk Heinrichs]

David Thompson wrote:
>=20
> Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> >I wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi there,
> >>
> >> is it possible to operate AFS clients totally diskless?
> >Hmm, I think I found the answer myself:
> >The cache manager can be configured to use a memory cache instead of a
> >disc cache, so it should be possible to setup a diskless client which
> >mounts a small root fs from an NFS machine and have the rest on AFS.
>=20
> Yeah, but the memory cache sucks big time.
What do you means with this?

Normally, on a diskless workstation, there is only one user doing his
work (even if it is a Unix machine), like on every usual desktop pc. So
with sufficient amount of RAM in the client machine, a memory cache of
about 10MB should be ok. And normally, should speed things up, compared
to disk-based cache.

> Depending on the architecture, you may be better off mounting a
> RAM-based file system and using the disk-cache mechanism.  It's sick,
> but you will probably do better with that than with the memory cache.
RAM based filesystem is ok (NFS mounted root was just an example), but
with a disk based cache, I don't have a diskless workstation anymore. So
I could also boot from that disk.

Bye...

	Dirk
--=20
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