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Date:      Mon, 07 Oct 2002 15:03:19 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Peter Wemm <peter@wemm.org>
Cc:        Mikhail Teterin <mi+mx@aldan.algebra.com>, arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: swapon some regular file
Message-ID:  <3DA204A7.50530BE5@mindspring.com>
References:  <20021007212545.C363B2A88D@canning.wemm.org>

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Peter Wemm wrote:
> > Users wishing to swap onto a local regular file have to go through the
> > vnconfig/mdconfig gimnastics. Is that intentional?
> 
> Yes, it is quite intentional.  swap_pager doesn't have the code to do
> logical to physical translation that file IO would require.  And the
> VOP_BMAP calls that do that add new complications, including an additional
> place it can sleep or run out of memory.
> 
> We can get away with it for swapping to a file over NFS because the remote
> server does the translation, not us.
> 
> In reality, what is required is some careful cut/paste of code from
> vnode_pager to swap_pager to add the missing bits, and some care to deal
> with the complications.
> 
> vnconfig/mdconfig work because that basically adds the logical -> physical
> translation step.  I'd just as soon not have to mess with this though.

It would be useful to be able to ask a file for its list of
physical blocks on the underlying device, so that you could
sort them into contiguous extents, and then use *those*,
instead of eating the translation overhead, each time...

-- Terry

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