2000-12-20 04:37:23

by Al Peat

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Purging the Buffer Cache

Is there any way to completely purge the buffer
cache -- not just the write requests (ala 'sync' or
'update'), but the whole thing? Can I just call
invalidate_buffers() or destroy_buffers()?

I know, why in the world would a person do such a
thing? Research. It'd be easier for me to write a
little program or add it to a module than wait for a
reboot each time I need a clean buffer cache.

Thanks in advance,
Al


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/


2000-12-20 10:33:44

by Juri Haberland

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Purging the Buffer Cache

Al Peat wrote:
>
> Is there any way to completely purge the buffer
> cache -- not just the write requests (ala 'sync' or
> 'update'), but the whole thing? Can I just call
> invalidate_buffers() or destroy_buffers()?
>
> I know, why in the world would a person do such a
> thing? Research. It'd be easier for me to write a
> little program or add it to a module than wait for a
> reboot each time I need a clean buffer cache.

What about the ioctl BLKFLSBUF ?
If you are running a SuSE distrib there is already a tool called flushb
that does what you want. If not, you can download the simple tool from
http://innominate.org/~juri/flushb.tar.gz

Juri

--
[email protected]
system engineer innominate AG
clustering & security the linux architects
tel: +49-30-308806-45 fax: -77 http://www.innominate.com