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Date:      Wed, 7 Jun 2000 09:13:42 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
To:        Valentin Nechayev <netch@lucky.net>
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSDDEATH.c.txt (mmap dirty page no check bug)
Message-ID:  <200006071613.JAA01082@apollo.backplane.com>
References:  <200006070424.e574Od303232@cwsys.cwsent.com> <200006070655.XAA97086@apollo.backplane.com> <20000607144421.A82711@lucky.net>

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:Of course, of course.
:It is general problem of any public-accessable resource.
:Do you think you can really fix this world? Or do you try to emit /tmp
:as philosophical category?
:
:>     MFS is a terrible idea for /tmp.  Each page in an MFS filesystem eats
:>     *TWO* pages of physical memory (until swapped).  This means that the
:
:It is problem of one broken realization, isn't it?
:
:--
:NVA

    No, I think its a problem with concept.  Modern systems like ours 
    have a VM page cache which can cache anything -- including normal
    filesystems.  Normal filesystems aren't quite as fast as MFS (even
    with an async mount) because we assume, rightly, that certain pieces
    of data can be flushed more quickly in order to leave more memory
    available to other things.  The concept of 'MFS' in general could be
    rephrased to be 'forcing the system to use more memory to cache 
    a filesytem at the cost of making less memory available to programs
    and other filesystems'.

    If a person wants that tradeoff, then it would be just as easy to
    implement with a normal filesystem simply by turning off the update
    daemon (for that filesystem), turning off write-behind (for that
    filesystem), and either increasing the size of the buffer cache to
    accomodate more dirty pages or disassociating the dirty filesystem
    pages from the buffer cache (making them look like dirty mmap'd pages).
    And then using an async mount.

    A memory filesystem, even the best implemented one you could write,
    is best used in situations where you don't *have* a local disk
    in the first place.  

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>


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