Using Memory File Systems In BSD

by by writes "In O'Reillynet's Big Scary Daemons column, Michael Lucas explains how to effectively use memory file systems. MFSes are especially useful in diskless workstations. You can even create a MFS larger than physical memory and BSD will use swap space when needed."

Re:Hmm.

[AntiBasic]

MFS is basically a RAM disk. It's a filesystem that resides entirely in RAM hence Memory FileSystem. I don't know why you have to bring Linux into it unless you're going for another flame war.

MFS is pretty standard stuff

[Nonesuch]

Memory FileSystems are pretty standard stuff, one very popular application is to mount a MFS as /var/tmp- modern Solaris defaults to using 'tmpfs' if you do not explicitly create a /tmp filesystem.

The point of MFS is fast read/write (especially write) access to data where you don't care that it will not survive a reboot. In the case of /tmp, you don't want the contents to persist between boots.

Re:A ram disk! Wow!

[Arandir]

Hee, hee! It's not quite at dumb as it first sounds. MFS is a useful thing, but setting it up is not the easiest thing in the world. That's why this is not an article announcing the obvious, that BSD can do ramdisks. Instead it's an article pointing to a HOWTO. Big difference.

Oh, and I don't consider /. to be a news site. I get the impression that it's a discussion board instead. Don't know why I feel this way...