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@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +== fmlock -- map files into memory and lock them to RAM == + +fmlock is a small tool intended to load file into the block I/O cache and lock +them there. This is done by mmap-ing the whole file and calling mlock on the +address space occupied by the file. In addition the whole file is read to heat +the cache; this should not be necessary, but some systems may require this, for +this tool to be effective. + +Once the files are locked into memory and the cache is hot the program puts +itself to sleep until a signal arrives. Once the program is sleeping that's it. +Any changes to the files that'd require to remap the files are not caught by +fmlock and the cache on any changed or grown pages may become cold over time. + +Please note, that memory locking is subject to process limits. See prlimit(2) +and your system's limits configuration. The information found in pam_limits(8) +is applicable to most systems. + +The purpose of this is that (large) files can be preloaded into RAM, namely the +block I/O cache for other processes to read from. This is for example required +to measure the RAM bandwidth and CPU limited throughput of data processing code, +working on real data without getting effected by I/O bottlenecks. |