pfsd(1M)

NAME

pfsd, pfsd.rpc — PFS daemon

SYNOPSIS

pfsd [nservers] [ -v ] [ -o options ]

DESCRIPTION

pfsd starts the daemons that handle client filesystem requests. nservers is the number of file system server daemons to start. This number should be based on the load expected on this server. The load is defined by the number of mounted file systems.

Mounts are distributed in a round-robin fashion to the pfsd daemons.

It is recommended that the pfsd daemon be invoked by rc(1M). It must be invoked in the background.

The PFSdaemon is composed of two programs: pfsd and pfsd.rpc. The pfsd.rpc program should not be run directly. It is invoked by the pfsd program.

Options

-v

Verbose. Show version number, etc.

-o options

Specify filesystem options using a comma-separated list from the following:

acsize=n: The number of entries to keep in the attribute cache (1390 bytes per entry).
bcsize=n: The number of entries to keep in the block cache (8244 bytes per entry).
lcsize=n: The number of entries to keep in the lookup cache (56 bytes per entry).

The defaults are: acsize=200,bcsize=25,lcsize=100

Attributes Cache

The server's attribute cache retains file attribute information on requests that have been made. This provides faster access to entries which have previously been decoded.

Lookup Cache

The lookup cache holds information about the sequential nature of the directory entries. This cache stores the location of the next directory entry. When a request comes in for a directory entry, if the preceding directory entry had been accessed earlier, this location is examined first to see if the directory entry being requested matches the directory entry at that location.

Block Cache

This cache holds raw 8k blocks of recently accessed data.

EXAMPLES

To start a pfs daemon with a 400 entry attribute cache:

pfsd -o acsize=400 & 

To start 4 pfs daemons with the default cache sizes:

pfsd 4 & 

WARNINGS

It is not a good idea to have the cache sizes of the pfsd exceed the amount of physical memory (or actually a small portion thereof). If the pfsd spends excessive amounts of time swapping to and from disk, the benefits of the caching are diminished.

Specifying cache which consume more virtual memory than available will cause the daemon to die with a virtual memory error.

Obsolescence Warning

PFS is obsolete and no longer supported on any HP-UX release. Delivery of PFS interfaces will be discontinued in the next HP-UX release.

PFS, from Young Minds, Inc. (now defunct), was originally adopted by HP to provide accessibility to Rock Ridge Interchange file system format on CD-ROM file systems. The equivalent functionality is now provided via the HP-UX CDFS file system type and HP-UX's standard file systems commands.

PFS has known functionality and performance problems. HP customers are urged to stop using the PFS interfaces, including these interfaces, pfsd and pfsd.rpc. Customers should move to accessing all CD-ROM file system formats by using the standard HP-UX commands, specifying the file system type as cdfs. For example, to mount a CD-ROM file system, use:

mount -F cdfs /dev/dsk/c0t0d4 /cdrom

There is no need to treat the cdfs file system type differently from any other file system type, therefore no special daemons or commands are required to access the variety of CD-ROM file system formats.

See mount(1M) and mount_cdfs(1M).

AUTHOR

pfsd was developed by Young Minds, Inc.