freebsd-dev

History

Poul-Henning Kamp 8df6bac4c7 Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC(). I'm not sure why a credential was added to these in the first place, it is not used anywhere and it doesn't make much sense: The credentials for syncing a file (ability to write to the file) should be checked at the system call level. Credentials for syncing one or more filesystems ("none") should be checked at the system call level as well. If the filesystem implementation needs a particular credential to carry out the syncing it would logically have to the cached mount credential, or a credential cached along with any delayed write data. Discussed with: rwatson		2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
..
ffs_alloc.c	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
ffs_balloc.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_extern.h	Back when VOP_* was introduced, we did not have new-style struct	2004-12-01 23:16:38 +00:00
ffs_inode.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_rawread.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_snapshot.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_softdep_stub.c	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
ffs_softdep.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_subr.c	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
ffs_tables.c	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
ffs_vfsops.c	Remove the unused credential argument from VOP_FSYNC() and VFS_SYNC().	2005-01-11 07:36:22 +00:00
ffs_vnops.c	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
fs.h	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00
README.snapshot	Remove the comment about dump(8) not working properly with snapshots.	2002-12-12 00:31:45 +00:00
README.softupdates
softdep.h	/* -> /*- for license, minor formatting changes	2005-01-07 02:29:27 +00:00

README.softupdates

$FreeBSD$

Using Soft Updates

To enable the soft updates feature in your kernel, add option
SOFTUPDATES to your kernel configuration.

Once you are running a kernel with soft update support, you need to enable
it for whichever filesystems you wish to run with the soft update policy.
This is done with the -n option to tunefs(8) on the UNMOUNTED filesystems,
e.g. from single-user mode you'd do something like:

	tunefs -n enable /usr

To permanently enable soft updates on the /usr filesystem (or at least
until a corresponding ``tunefs -n disable'' is done).


Soft Updates Copyright Restrictions

As of June 2000 the restrictive copyright has been removed and 
replaced with a `Berkeley-style' copyright. The files implementing
soft updates now reside in the sys/ufs/ffs directory and are
compiled into the generic kernel by default.


Soft Updates Status

The soft updates code has been running in production on many
systems for the past two years generally quite successfully.
The two current sets of shortcomings are:

1) On filesystems that are chronically full, the two minute lag
   from the time a file is deleted until its free space shows up
   will result in premature filesystem full failures. This
   failure mode is most evident in small filesystems such as
   the root. For this reason, use of soft updates is not
   recommended on the root filesystem.

2) If your system routines runs parallel processes each of which
   remove many files, the kernel memory rate limiting code may
   not be able to slow removal operations to a level sustainable
   by the disk subsystem. The result is that the kernel runs out
   of memory and hangs.

Both of these problems are being addressed, but have not yet
been resolved. There are no other known problems at this time.


How Soft Updates Work

For more general information on soft updates, please see:
	http://www.mckusick.com/softdep/
	http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/papers/CSE-TR-254-95/

--
Marshall Kirk McKusick <mckusick@mckusick.com>
July 2000