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VFS_PREOPEN(8) System Administration tools VFS_PREOPEN(8)
NAME
vfs_preopen - Hide read latencies for applications reading numbered
files
SYNOPSIS
vfs objects = preopen
DESCRIPTION
This VFS module is part of the samba(7) suite.
This module assists applications that want to read numbered files in
sequence with very strict latency requirements. One area where this
happens in video streaming applications that want to read one file per
frame.
When you use this module, a number of helper processes is started that
speculatively open files and read a number of bytes to prime the file
system cache, so that later on when the real application's request
comes along, no disk access is necessary.
This module is stackable.
OPTIONS
preopen:posix-basic-regex = BOOL (default: no)
preopen:posix-basic-regex = yes changes the meaning of the
preopen:names option. Further details are described there.
preopen:names = /pattern1/pattern2/
preopen:names specifies the file name pattern(s) which should
trigger the preopen helpers to do their work. We assume that the
files are numbered incrementally. So if your file names are
numbered FRAME00000.frm FRAME00001.frm and so on you would list
them as preopen:names=/FRAME*.frm/. The default algorithm uses the
first (at least 3) digits it finds in order to calculate the name
of the next frames.
preopen:posix-basic-regex = yes changes the meaning of the
preopen:names option. It means 'POSIX Basic Regular Expression'
strings are used as patterns. The key is each pattern requires
exactly one 'subexpression' starting with '\(' and ending with '\)'
in order to specify the position of the digits representing the
incrementing frame numbers. Given a file names like
Movie7599Frame0v1234.txt, Movie7599Frame1v1234.txt,
Movie7599Frame2v1234.txt up to Movie7599Frame9v1234.txt you can use
preopen:names = /.*Frame\([0-9]\).*\.txt/ in order to match just a
single digits, this might not be a real world example, but it shows
the flexiblity that is possible here.
preopen:num_bytes = BYTES
Specifies the number of bytes the helpers should speculatively
read, defaults to 1.
preopen:helpers = NUM-PROCS
Number of forked helper processes, defaults to 1.
preopen:queuelen = NUM-FILES
Number of files that should be speculatively opened. Defaults to
Defaults to the log level 5. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
preopen:match_log_level = LOGLEVEL
In order to debug or audit the usage of the preopen logic you can
use this option to specify at what log level details about
filenames actually matching a pattern from 'preopen:names' are
logged.
See also 'preopen:founddigits_log_level' and
'preopen:push_log_level'.
Defaults to the log level 5. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
preopen:nodigits_log_level = LOGLEVEL
In order to debug or audit problems with the preopen configuration
you can use this option to specify at what log level details about
filenames actually matching a pattern from 'preopen:names', but at
the same time don't contain the expected digits, are logged. This
is typically something the administrator wants to notice and adjust
the configuration in order to define more precisely where to find
the digits in the filename.
Defaults to the log level 1. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
preopen:founddigits_log_level = LOGLEVEL
In order to debug or audit the usage of the preopen logic you can
use this option to specify at what log level details about
filenames actually matching a pattern from 'preopen:names', and at
the same time having valid expected digits, are logged. This means
enough information is available in order to queue preopens.
Defaults to the log level 3. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
preopen:reset_log_level = LOGLEVEL
If a matching filename belongs to a different pattern from
'preopen:names', a different parent directory or differs in a
significant way from the last filename that was found before, the
module needs to reset it's internal queue state. This means that no
more preopens will be pushed to helper processes belonging to the
former queue state. In order to debug or audit such queue resets
you can use this option to specify at what log level details are
logged.
Defaults to the log level 5. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
preopen:push_log_level = LOGLEVEL
In order to debug or audit the usage of the preopen logic you can
use this option to specify at what log level details about
filenames actually pushed to preopen helper processes are logged.
This means they will actually be preopened soon.
Defaults to the log level 3. See also smb.conf(5) in the 'log
level' section for special handling of the 'preopen' debug class.
VERSION
This man page is part of version 4.16.11 of the Samba suite.
AUTHOR
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by
Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open
Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
The PREOPEN VFS module was created with contributions from Volker
Lendecke and the developers at IBM.
Samba 4.16.11 07/17/2023 VFS_PREOPEN(8)