[Gllug] SWAP over NFS

[James Bromberger]

Adrian McMenamin (Adrian at mcmen.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> Anybody know of a good guide to making this work under 2.4 (2.4.20
> actually) kernels?

Err... that would be NFS, the so-so stable network file system, and
Swap, the virtual memory paged out to disk. Humph. Thinking for a
second... well, network goes down, not only does the NFS mount become
unavailable, but suddenly half of the system 'memory' has suddenly
disappeared, and *bang* over you fall and down you go. Having the system
memory disappear is more like chopping off half your head than shooting
yourself in the foot.

The only guide I can think of for Swap over NFS is: DON'T! :)

http://news.gw.com/netbsd.tech.userlevel/7507
http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/1999-March/003658.html


I would think of a simple way to do it: mount a partition, make a file,
and then mount that via loopback (perhaps)? Sure, slow, but then again,
this is (a) NFS, and (b) Swap, so having a loopback in there probably
isnt going to be that big a percentage hinderance.

But I could be completely wrong. Maybe its just the beer and wine from
dinner tonight talking....

(On a somewhat related note, what about network block device raid?
*shrug* Kind of like replication (if you do raid1))

  James


 PS: We've released the ISO from Linux.Conf.Au. 3 days of Ogg/Speex
 recordings. Mirrors around the world. See http://conf.linux.org.au/.
-- 
 James Bromberger <james_AT_rcpt.to> www.james.rcpt.to
 Remainder moved to http://www.james.rcpt.to/james/sig.html

I am in London on UK mobile +44 7952 042920.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/gllug/attachments/20030409/bb3bdbca/attachment.pgp>