Re: Swapping for diskless nodes

Dirk W. Steinberg
2001-08-09T14:18:32Z

Alan,

what you say sound a lot like a hacker solution ("check that it uses the
right GFP_ levels"). I think it's about time that this deficit of linux
as compared to SunOS or *BSD should be removed. Network paging should be
supported as a standard feature of a stock kernel compile.

/ Dirk

Alan Cox wrote:
> > what is the best/recommended way to do remote swapping via the network
> > for diskless workstations or compute nodes in clusters in Linux 2.4?=20
> > Last time i checked was linux 2.2, and there were some races related=20
> > to network swapping back then. Has this been fixed for 2.4?
>
> The best answer probably is "don't". Networks are high latency things for
> paging and paging is latency sensitive. If performance is not an issue then
> the nbd driver ought to work. You may need to check it uses the right
> GFP_ levels to avoid deadlocks and you might need to up the amount of atomic
> pool memory. Hopefully other hacks arent needed
>
> [The general case of network swap is basically insoluble but its possible to
> make it perfectly usable as Sun proved]