[OpenAFS] Server disk operations speed

[jukka.tuominen@finndesign.fi]

Hi,

there must be something seriously wrong about my openafs server.

It is still in a development state, so all server functions are located on
a single virtual machine. While trying to figure out optimal fileserver
parameters, I noticed that even the basic disk operations are extremely
slow on the afs server locally.

How I tested:

I had a directory containing about 2000 files, 300 MB in total.

I duplicated the directory A) inside afs space
                           B) outside afs, but on the same server

While the A) speed was between 500-1000KB/s, for B) the total operation
took only about 2-3 seconds (~150MB/s)!

So, eventhough everything works, there must be some misconfiguration
somewhere, rather than just a parameter optimization. I don't know whether
the traffic leaves the server just to come back immediately, but even then
I would expect faster operations (110/10Mb internet).

The server runs on Ubuntu 10.04, openafs 1.4 or 1.6 made no significant
difference. There is a whole lot of other functionality on the server, so
a total reinstallation is not a pleasent option.

Any ideas what could cause this?


br, jukka