Re: Filesystem optimization.. - why not optimise squid?

Michael O'Reilly (michael@metal.iinet.net.au)
31 Dec 1997 09:12:14 +0800


"Russell Coker - mailing lists account" <bofh@snoopy.virtual.net.au> writes:
>
> >Laugh. You've never looked at the squid source, have you? belive me,
> >modifying the kernel would be _far_ easier.
>
> I have looked at the Squid source. It's not the best code I've ever
> seen, but I've seen (and worked on) a lot worse. I've also worked on the
> kernel source. Sure the code's generally fairly clean in the kernel, but
> one mistake in kernel code and the machine's locked solid. Also there are
> lots of hidden dependencies as well.

I've worked fairly extensively on both, and the kernel would be much
easier to modify. Squids problem is that the single threaded nature
means you have to do a lot of work to make sure nothing blocks. This
tends to generate non-trivial amounts of work..

> >The other thing of course is there I'd like everything to benifit from a
> >faster filesystem, rather than just squid (admittedly squid is the main
> >push at the moment). Maximal benifit for minimum effort and all that jazz.
>
> Squid and INN are the only 2 applications I know of which do that sort
> of thing (along with other less popular programs which try to emulate those
> two). INN is moving towards a database, so if Squid does the same then
> what do you gain from a new FS?

Squid and inn are two applications where it can make an
order-of-magnitude difference. Many other things would be sped up
anyway.

Michael.