From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 2 02:02:35 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63DB61065677 for ; Sun, 2 Oct 2011 02:02:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from qmta01.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta02.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.24]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6D038FC19 for ; Sun, 2 Oct 2011 02:02:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta15.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.87]) by qmta01.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id fcPS1h0051swQuc51e2bm6; Sun, 02 Oct 2011 02:02:35 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([67.180.84.87]) by omta15.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id fe2Z1h00k1t3BNj3be2Z7f; Sun, 02 Oct 2011 02:02:34 +0000 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id ECC21102C19; Sat, 1 Oct 2011 19:02:31 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2011 19:02:31 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Xin LI Message-ID: <20111002020231.GA70864@icarus.home.lan> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, Adrian Chadd , delphij@freebsd.org Subject: Re: is TMPFS still highly experimental? X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 02:02:35 -0000 On Sat, Oct 01, 2011 at 06:02:39PM -0700, Xin LI wrote: > On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Chris Rees wrote: > > I've also not heard of anyone using it with zfs successfully- it tends to > > shrink rapidly. > > I'm quite surprised with this assertion. I use tmpfs on my own system > and I never see such problem as long as one have sufficient swap > space. > > Not to say there is no problem --there is no way to say "commit this > amount of memory to ZFS" but really I have never hit this exact > alleged problem... Its been reported multiple times by multiple people, and there has been no official word on -fs, -stable, or zfs-devel that this specific problem has been fixed: * miyamoto moesasji - 2011/01/01 - 8.2-PRERELEASE (thus RELENG_8) - World/kernel build date unknown - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/060850.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/060852.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/060860.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/060861.html - Statement from Ivan Voras that it's a known problem: - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/060867.html * Atilla Nagy - 2011/01/19 - 8.2-PRERELEASE (thus RELENG_8) - World/kernel build date of 2011/01/08 - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010496.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010497.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010498.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010499.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010501.html - http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2011-January/010569.html - Ivan Voras mentions a thread he started on -CURRENT circa 2010/11/21 about this problem: http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-current@freebsd.org/msg126491.html * Michael Loftis - 2009/12/08 - FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE (RELENG_8_0) - World/kernel build date of 2009/11/21 - Might be a different problem altogether, but tmpfs is explicitly mentioned in the fix/commit text from avg@ - http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/141305 Plus Chris Rees' report. So that makes 3, possibly 4 if you consider the PR from Michael Loftis. Possibly it has something to do with the exact FreeBSD version they're using. Not just version (e.g. 8.2-RELEASE vs. 8.2-STABLE), but also kernel/world build date -- because as we've established, ZFS changes are happening all the time and there is very little transparency when it comes to communicating these changes to the community. Maybe the problem has been fixed in RELENG_8 sometime after 2011/01/08, but we do not know. ZFS committers would need to help. Else, folks should be reaching out to the first two people I mentioned above and asking if they can reproduce the problem on present-day RELENG_8. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, US | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP 4BD6C0CB |