From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 18 17:35:31 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 16D6316A41F for ; Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:35:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from user@dhp.com) Received: from shell.dhp.com (shell.dhp.com [199.245.105.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97E5943D45 for ; Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:35:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from user@dhp.com) Received: by shell.dhp.com (Postfix, from userid 896) id B08DE3133D; Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:35:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:35:29 -0500 (EST) From: Ensel Sharon To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:56:54 +0000 Subject: tuning to run large (1000+) numbers of null_mounts X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:35:31 -0000 I am running over 2000 null mounts on a FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE system. I am well aware of the status of the null_mount code, as advertised in the mount_nullfs man page: THIS FILE SYSTEM TYPE IS NOT YET FULLY SUPPORTED (READ: IT DOESN'T WORK) AND USING IT MAY, IN FACT, DESTROY DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. BEWARE OF DOG. SLIPPERY WHEN WET. So, based on this, all of my null_mounts are actually mounted read-only. I am noticing both system instability and data corruption issues on disk following crashes. Both of these seem to be related to the null mounts. I have two very quick questions: 1. Is my theory that using only read-only null mounts is a good way to avoid data corruption a sound one ? Or can even a read-only null mount do bad things to underlying data ? 2. What system tunes / alterations would be appropriate for a system running several thousand (although, always less than 5000) null mounted filesystems ? Please relay _any and all_ comments, suggestions, war stories, rumors. They are very appreciated.