Linux 6.1 To Allow Faster File Sharing Between Host & Guests With 9P VirtIO Optimization

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.1 To Allow Faster File Sharing Between Host & Guests With 9P VirtIO Optimization

The 9P network protocol is commonly used -- such as with with QEMU's 9pfs pass-through file-system -- for being able to share certain directories/files on host machines with the guest operating systems. With Linux 6.1 the 9p code has seen a nice set of optimizations that can allow for faster communication between the host and guest(s)...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.1-Faster-9P

[cypx]

This fix https://linus.schreibt.jetzt/posts/q...rformance.html must also help a lot.

[szymon_g]

Plan 9 will forever be alive. In our hearts, and in our code

[uid313]

I wonder why no FTP servers or FTP clients support the 9P protocol?
Maybe something like FileZilla could support it.

FTP is terrible. Could 9P be used as an alternative to FTP?
Imagine if there was a JavaScript 9P client/server over something like WebTransport maybe?

Or if you could access the files on your Android device over 9P over Wi-Fi instead of though USB.

[dragorth]

This should eventually help WSL2 performance because MS uses 9p as its transfer protocol, doesn't it?

[flower]

I would lile to see a benchmark comparing virtiofs vs 9p over virtio.

I switched to virtiofs a while ago

[sinepgib]

I would lile to see a benchmark comparing virtiofs vs 9p over virtio.

I switched to virtiofs a while ago

Not for Linux servers, but there are some comparing 9p vs virtiofs for Docker Desktop on Mac, and virtiofs runs circles around 9p.

I wonder if the changes were tested with actual network setups or qemu only? Big buffers sound like something much more useful when we're talking about remotes, shrinking them could produce a hit there.

[kwinz]

I have been searching for some benchmark numbers comparing 9p, 9pnet_virtio, virtiofs and network FSes such as NFS and smb3 for some time now. But I can't find any!

[sinepgib]

I have been searching for some benchmark numbers comparing 9p, 9pnet_virtio, virtiofs and network FSes such as NFS and smb3 for some time now. But I can't find any!

This is the one I referred to: https://ddev.com/ddev-local/docker-d...king-on-macos/
Note Mutagen doesn't work the same way as the other drivers in that it keeps a sync'd copy or something like that, it has some delay to propagate state between the host and the guest.

There's also some user feedback with approximate numbers for real world usage here: https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/7

Again, in none of these cases is the server a Linux box, but the client is, and still it tests the concept in a way.

[JEBjames]

Michael

Typo/grammar

"such as with with" should be "such as with"

"for being able to share" should be "to be able to share"