cwfs(4) tips
No-dump configuration
A cheap VPS or an SD card lack the storage capacity for running a usable
default cwfs(4)
setup with a big WORM partition and daily dumps.
The go-to solution is the hjfs(4)
file system, which doesn’t
use a dedicated WORM partition and doesn’t do daily dumps by default.
However, it has several performance problems and is not as well tested.
The cwfs
file system can be configured in lots of ways beyond the
default cache-worm + other configuration supported by the 9front
installer.
The desired configuration we’re going to cover is a single main
file server tree backed by a simple disk file system - the same type
used by the other
tree in the default setup.
To do this we’re going to partition the disk appropriately and override
the mountcwfs
stage of the 9front installer with a replacement
script that will configure cwfs
appropriately. The rest of the installation and most of the
subsequent system operation remain unaffected.
Start by booting from the installation media. Configure networking
with ip/ipconfig(8)
and fetch the replacement mountcwfs
script,
or put the script on a flash drive:
webfs
ramfs
hget http://a-b.xyz/23/666a >/tmp/mountcwfs
chmod +x /tmp/mountcwfs
Override the mountcwfs
stage using bind(1)
:
bind /tmp/mountcwfs /bin/inst/mountcwfs
Run inst/start
and complete the stages up to preppart
as you would
normally. At preppart
, delete the default partitions and create one
named fsmain
with a desired size:
d other
d fscache
d fsworm
a fsmain 123456 .+100%
w
q
Make sure to “ream” the new partition at the next step.
Complete the rest of the installation, reboot. That is all.