vfs_aio_pthread
8
Samba
System Administration tools
3.6
vfs_aio_pthread
implement async I/O in Samba vfs using a pthread pool
vfs objects = aio_pthread
DESCRIPTION
This VFS module is part of the
samba
7 suite.
The aio_pthread VFS module enables asynchronous
I/O for Samba on platforms which have the pthreads API available,
without using the Posix AIO interface. Posix AIO can suffer from severe
limitations. For example, on some Linux versions the
real-time signals that it uses are broken under heavy load.
Other systems only allow AIO when special kernel modules are
loaded or only allow a certain system-wide amount of async
requests being scheduled. Systems based on glibc (most Linux
systems) only allow a single outstanding request per file
descriptor which essentially makes Posix AIO useless on systems
using the glibc implementation.
To work around all these limitations, the aio_pthread module
was written. It uses a pthread pool instead of the
internal Posix AIO interface to allow read and write calls
to be process asynchronously. A pthread pool is created
which expands dynamically by creating new threads as work is
given to it to a maximum of 100 threads per smbd process.
To change this limit see the "aio num threads" parameter
below. New threads are not created if idle threads are
available when a new read or write request is received,
the new work is given to an existing idle thread. Threads
terminate themselves if idle for one second.
Note that the smb.conf parameters aio read size
and aio write size must also be set appropriately
for this module to be active.
This module MUST be listed last in any module stack as
the Samba VFS pread/pwrite interface is not thread-safe. This
module makes direct pread and pwrite system calls and does
NOT call the Samba VFS pread and pwrite interfaces.
EXAMPLES
Straight forward use:
/data/ice
1024
1024
aio_pthread
OPTIONS
aio_pthread:aio num threads = INTEGER
Limit the maximum number of threads per smbd that
will be created in the thread pool to service IO requests.
By default this is set to 100.
VERSION
This man page is correct for version 3.6.3 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.