vfs_aio_pthread — implement async I/O in Samba vfs using a pthread pool
vfs objects = aio_pthread
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.
Straight forward use:
[cooldata]
path = /data/ice
aio read size = 1024
aio write size = 1024
vfs objects = aio_pthread