Re: Massive slowdown when re-querying large nfs dir

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

> On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 14:28:11 +0300 Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com> wrote:
> Al Boldi wrote:
> > There is a massive (3-18x) slowdown when re-querying a large nfs dir (2k+
> > entries) using a simple ls -l.
> >
> > On 2.6.23 client and server running userland rpc.nfs.V2:
> > first  try: time -p ls -l <2k+ entry dir>  in ~2.5sec
> > more tries: time -p ls -l <2k+ entry dir>  in ~8sec
> >
> > first  try: time -p ls -l <5k+ entry dir>  in ~9sec
> > more tries: time -p ls -l <5k+ entry dir>  in ~180sec
> >
> > On 2.6.23 client and 2.4.31 server running userland rpc.nfs.V2:
> > first  try: time -p ls -l <2k+ entry dir>  in ~2.5sec
> > more tries: time -p ls -l <2k+ entry dir>  in ~7sec
> >
> > first  try: time -p ls -l <5k+ entry dir>  in ~8sec
> > more tries: time -p ls -l <5k+ entry dir>  in ~43sec
> >
> > Remounting the nfs-dir on the client resets the problem.
> >
> > Any ideas?
> 
> Ok, I played some more with this, and it turns out that nfsV3 is a lot 
> faster.  But, this does not explain why the 2.4.31 kernel is still over 
> 4-times faster than 2.6.23.
> 
> Can anybody explain what's going on?
> 

Sure, Neil can! ;)