Dynamic Vnodes - Design and Implementation
 
                                    Aju John
                          Digital Equipment Corporation
 
 
                                     Abstract
 
          Dynamic vnodes make the UNIX kernel responsive to a varying
        demand for vnodes, without a need to rebuild the kernel. It also
        optimizes the usage of memory by deallocating excess vnodes.
        This paper describes the design and  implementation of dynamic
        vnodes in DEC OSF/1 V3.0. The focus is on the vnode deallocation
        logic in a Symmetric Multi-Processing environment.
          Deallocation of vnodes differs from the familiar concept of
        dynamically allocated data structures in the following ways:
        the legacy name-cache design implicitly assumes that vnodes are
        never deallocated, and the vnode free-list needs to cache unused
	vnodes effectively.

To Become a USENIX Member, please see our Membership Information.