Re: [PATCH 0/6][v4][RFC] NFSv3: implement extended attribute protocol (XATTR)

[Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>]

Brad Boyer wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 09:49:27PM -0800, Casey Schaufler wrote:
> > Another is to NFS mount the filesystem back on to the server,
> > in which case James' scheme works just dandy. It's a trick that
> > I've used more than once in the Unix world for this exact purpose.
> > Of course you have to arrange your mount points in advance with
> > malice aforethought, but that's likely something you're used to
> > by now.
> 
> That would definitely work, but it's not ideal. Obviously if it's
> being accessed over NFS in one place it probably good enough
> everywhere, but it's overhead that could be eliminated.

As a real example:

Each user has a PC with their own home directory being local, fast
storage, but /home is filled with NFS auto-mounts to everyone else's
home directories, on their individual PCs.  The auto-mount map has an
exception, so the local user's home directory is a symlink to the
local storage, instead of an NFS mount.

A scheme like that works very well for occasional access to other
peoples files, and for logging to each other's machines transparently,
yet having fast performance for their own files when using their local
machine.

In an environment where I've used that, forcing local access to go
over local NFS would have destroyed performance for things like big
compiles, running find, git, grep etc. that people do on their own
directories.

-- Jamie