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Bug #21120

open

Help output for `arv-mount --file-cache` is oversimplified

Added by Brett Smith about 1 year ago. Updated about 1 year ago.

Status:
New
Priority:
Normal
Assigned To:
-
Category:
Documentation
Target version:
Story points:
-

Description

arv-mount --help says:

--file-cache FILE_CACHE                                                                                                                
    File data cache size, in bytes (default 8 GiB for disk-based cache or 256 MiB with RAM-only cache)

But what the code actually does for disk-based cache (in sdk/python/arvados/keep.py) is:

# Each block uses two file descriptors, one used to
# open it initially and hold the flock(), and a second
# hidden one used by mmap().
#
# Set max slots to 1/8 of maximum file handles.  This
# means we'll use at most 1/4 of total file handles.
#
# NOFILE typically defaults to 1024 on Linux so this
# is 128 slots (256 file handles), which means we can
# cache up to 8 GiB of 64 MiB blocks.  This leaves
# 768 file handles for sockets and other stuff.
#
# When we want the ability to have more cache (e.g. in
# arv-mount) we'll increase rlimit before calling
# this.
self._max_slots = int(resource.getrlimit(resource.RLIMIT_NOFILE)[0] / 8)
[...]
fs = os.statvfs(self._disk_cache_dir)
# Calculation of available space incorporates existing cache usage
existing_usage = arvados.diskcache.DiskCacheSlot.cache_usage(self._disk_cache_dir)
avail = (fs.f_bavail * fs.f_bsize + existing_usage) / 4
maxdisk = int((fs.f_blocks * fs.f_bsize) * 0.10)
# pick smallest of:
# 10% of total disk size
# 25% of available space
# max_slots * 64 MiB
self.cache_max = min(min(maxdisk, avail), (self._max_slots * 64 * 1024 * 1024))

This means there are a lot of situations where the default size is not "8 GiB." If there's not much space on the filesystem, it'll be smaller. If the administrator has bumped up the NOFILE limit (which I suspect is common-ish in HPC-type environments), it'll be larger.

Expand the help documentation to reflect this.

Actions #1

Updated by Brett Smith about 1 year ago

  • Description updated (diff)
Actions #2

Updated by Peter Amstutz about 1 year ago

Ah, I think it was 8 GiB originally and then I ended up making it more clever instead, and forgot to update the help text.

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