[OpenAFS] multiple afs client, or have two caches

[Horst Birthelmer]

On May 11, 2006, at 12:19 PM, ted leslie wrote:
> i'd like to take advantage of the afs caching for added performance,
> is it possible to have two seperate caches?
> that is, i know there will be a common set of files
> used over and over again, that really should remain in RAM cache
> all the time, but other large files may also be cached and
> wipe out the other ones that i'd like to always have cached.
> One way I can fix this , is if i could have two afs clients on the  
> same workstation,
> one that has access to the afs that have the very popular files,
> and other that has access to the infrequent, but large files that  
> otherwise would
> spoil the cache. Can one have two seperate afs clients running on a  
> workstation?
>
> Another sol'n might be , to be able to control what is and isn't  
> cachable ?
>
> any ideas/thought/sol'n would be appreciated.

Just some stupid questions/comments ... to your 'solutions'.

If you have files which are always in the cache and never change, why  
don't you copy them over to that particular machine? (even on a  
ramdisk, if you need it) You can't get faster than your actual  
hardware anyway.

Who's going to decide what is going to be in what cache?
Whoever is doing that, sooner or later it's gonna be wrong ;-)

I'm sure it helps a lot more to rethink the location of your data.
AFS is a network file system, which means most of the data is on some  
server.
The cache was never thought to hold your complete cell data (that  
idea got more popular with the decreasing costs of storage).
If you don't need it there, don't put it there ... :-)

Of course, I don't know what you're doing with that particular  
client, but a proper configured cell with a good client configuration  
should really be sufficient for the daily usage of a workstation.

Horst