Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-23,: Re: cachefs module for linux?

# Re: cachefs module for linux?

Jeff Garzik (jgarzik@pobox.com)
Tue, 8 Jun 1999 11:39:27 -0400 (EDT)

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On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, Christoph Lameter wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, Juan Antonio Martinez wrote:
> > > 1- Are there any fs module to implement a local disk cache over
> > > NFS readonly mounted filesystems? Something about Solaris's cachefs
> >
> > cachefs gets mentioned now and again, and is very useful. We used it on
> > the cnn.com Web farm, where we had one big machine (NFS server) and
> > several Web servers all mounting the big server's drives with
> > nfs+cachefs. cachefs really improved throughput, but cnn.com uses
> > almost exclusively static files.
>
> squid does the same in a far more elegant way as we implemented for
> the Sony Motion Pictures site. NFS is the wrong solution and the wrong
> protocol for web caching.

True, but Squid didn't exist, or wasn't well known in 1996.

> I thought NFS already did some caching?

Not enough for the CNN Web site, which is probably at least half a
terabyte of stories by now. The large selection set of
frequently-viewed pages demands something more than simple buffer
cache.

cachefs comes in really handy, too, setting up "diskless" machines with
nothing but NFS cache and swap space.

Jeff

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