[9285] in Athena Bugs
Re: fs flushvol: The WRONG thing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Calvin Clark)
Wed May 6 18:42:21 1992
Date: Wed, 6 May 92 18:41:15 -0400
From: Calvin Clark <ckclark@MIT.EDU>
To: Jeffrey I. Schiller <jis@MIT.EDU>
Cc: akajerry@Athena.MIT.EDU, bugs@MIT.EDU, bug-afs@MIT.EDU, trb@MIT.EDU,
Reply-To: ckclark@MIT.EDU
> How about we recommend that people use the "fs flush" command to flush
> out files that they feel are particularly sensitive?
> -Jeff
This is one of the best suggestions I've heard yet, because:
1. Richard has indicated that `fs flush' currently works. So
if it turns out that a different solution can't be had in
time, this method can still be used.
2. I think that cache flushing should be something that a
user does voluntarily. I don't think that automatically
flushing the user's volume on logout is always the right
thing to do. Some users with private workstations may
get better performance when accessing their homedirs
when they don't flush their user volumes.
3. If the argument in (2) is valid, then user education is
going to be mandatory, anyway.
I'm not claiming that user education works. Sometimes it does,
sometimes it doesn't. But it's a necessary part of support. Sure, it's
a bit inconvenient to have to tell people that to do
foreach i (`ls ~/Private/my-plans-to-conquer-the-world/*`)
fs flush $i
end
in their .logout files, but it's not abhorrent compared to a lot of
other things that have to be explained in a UN*X environment.
-Calvin
