Ubuntu – How to cache NFS shares on a local disk

nfs

I use NFS to share media to computers around my house. Unfortunately one of the machines is on a slow wireless link, is there a way to cache network shares on the local disk for performance?

Best Answer

Stefan led me down the right track. This will work on any system 12.04 and newer.

Your filesystem will also need extended attribute support. If you're using EXT4 you're fine, if you're using EXT3 you'll need to ensure your filesystem is mounted with the user_xattr attribute.

Here's how I set it up on the client machine, you don't need to do anything on the server side.

  1. First, install the user space daemon: sudo apt-get install cachefilesd

  2. Then turn it on by editing /etc/default/cachefilesd and changing the run line to RUN=yes

  3. Ensure your NFS mount in /etc/fstab has an fsc option. Don't forget to remount it after you've made the changes. Here's my excerpt (modify to your needs):

    192.168.1.115:/home/jorge /home/jorge/Backup nfs fsc

  4. Start the service: sudo /etc/init.d/cachefilesd start

Configuration of the cache is done in /etc/cachefilesd.conf, see the references for what the setting options are.

References:

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