CentOS / RHEL CacheFS: Speed Up Network File System (NFS) File Access

CacheFS is a feature in CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that caches frequently accessed files from a network file system (NFS) in the local file system. This can speed up file access and reduce network traffic, as the cached files can be accessed directly from the local file system rather than having to be fetched over the network each time they are used.

Here’s how you can enable CacheFS in CentOS/RHEL:

1. Install the cachefs package using the following command:
   yum install cachefs

2. Create a directory to act as the cache root. This directory will be used to store the cached files:
   mkdir /cache

3. Create a cachefs configuration file in the /etc/cachefs.conf directory. The file should have the following content:
   /nfs /cache nfs


   This configuration file tells CacheFS to mount the NFS file system located at /nfs and cache it in the /cache directory.

4. Start the CacheFS service using the following command:
   systemctl start cachefs

5. Mount the CacheFS file system using the following command:
   mount -t cachefs /nfs /nfs


Note: CacheFS is not appropriate for all NFS file systems, and its use can have unintended consequences. Before enabling CacheFS, you should thoroughly test it in a non-production environment to ensure that it provides the desired performance improvement and does not cause any problems with file access or consistency. Additionally, be sure to monitor your CacheFS implementation for adequate disk space and performance to avoid running into issues down the road.