Re: noatime on ufs2

On Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 10:24 AM Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) <
lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:

> > > I do not have a strong opinion w.r.t. atime, but I do believe that
> > > changing the default would be a POLA violation.
>
> I'm not prepared to just accept that at face value.
>
> I can't think of a single instance in at least the last three decades
> where I have actually used or needed atime for *anything*.  And
> over that time period I have been responsible for running hundreds
> of UNIX servers.
>
> I'm really interested in hearing from people who actively use
> atime on a regular basis for non-trivial purposes.  What are
> the modern use cases for atime?
>

The consensus was we'd fix it in the installer.

We can't change ZFS easily, and discovery of the problem, should your
assertion be wrong, for UFS means metadata loss that can't be recovered.

By pushing to the installer, most installations get most of benefits. And
people with special needs see the issue and can make an informed choice.

Though in all honesty, I've never been able to measure a speed difference.
Nor have I worn out a ssd due to the tiny increase in write amp. Old
(<100MB) SD and CF cards included. This includes my armv7 based dns server
that I ran for a decade on a 256MB SD card with no special settings and
full read/write and lots of logging. So the harm is minimal typically. I'm
sure there are cases that it matters more than my experience. And it is
good practice to enable noatime. Just that failure to do so typically has
only a marginal effect.

Warner

--lyndon
>
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