[clug] [Request for testing] Announce: mcachefs

[Michael Still]

mcachefs is a simple caching filesystem for Linux using FUSE. It works 
by copying the file that you asked for when the file is opened, and then 
using that copy for all subsequent requests for the file. This is really 
a fairly naive approach to caching, and will be improved in the future. 
It's good enough for now though.

mcachefs needs two filesystems to operate. The target filesystem is the 
slow filesystem you want to cache accesses to, and the backing 
filesystem is where mcachefs can stash stuff which it has copied. The 
backing filesystem should therefore be on local disc, or the whole point 
of the exercise is gone.

It is also assumed that the target filesystem is read only for now.

INSTALLING:
----------

You'll need FUSE, so your best bet is to go up a directory level, and 
then type:
   ./configure
   make
   make install

(That last step needs to be done as root of course).

USING:
-----

mcachefs looks for a config file to determine where the target and 
backing filesystems are located, as well as a debugging verbosity level. 
mcachefs looks in the following locations for it's config file (in this 
order):
	- /etc/mcachefs
	- ~/.mcachefs
	- `pwd`/mcachefs.cfg

The format of the config file is something along the lines of:

/cache/backing  /backing
/cache/target   /
/cache/verbose  99

Note that the two columns _must_be_separated_by_tabs_ for the config 
file to parse properly. This config section above says that we have a 
cached filesystem to mount at /cache. The backing store is /backing, the 
target store is /, and we want to be _very_ verbose. Lower numbers are 
less verbose. Please note that being very verbose might help with 
debugging mcachefs, but _will_ slow down the filesystem.

You can now mount the cached filesystem but doing a:

	mcachefs /cache

This program wont terminate... If you kill it, the filesystem will 
unmount. Don't do that. Use umount instead. I have making mcachefs 
daemonise on the todo list, so don't bother reporting it as a bug please.

KNOWN BUGS:
----------

The only known bug at the moment is that if the program which is opening 
a large file terminateds before the cached copy has been generated, then 
a bus error occurs in mcachefs. I'm looking into that now.

SO, I CAME UP WITH THIS GREAT PATCH:
-----------------------------------

Email me at mikal at stillhq.com

NEW CODE?
--------

You can find the latest version of the code at 
http://www.stillhq.com/extracted/fuse, and 
http://www.stillhq.com/extracted/fuse.tgz

-- 

Michael Still (mikal at stillhq.com) | "All my life I've had one dream,
http://www.stillhq.com            |  to achieve my many goals"
UTC + 11                          |    -- Homer Simpson