From: Kevan Carstensen Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 00:59:14 +0000 (-0800) Subject: Fill in 'docs/performance.txt' with some performance information X-Git-Tag: allmydata-tahoe-1.6.0~6 X-Git-Url: https://git.rkrishnan.org/about.html?a=commitdiff_plain;h=7094f11a287a94f09696cfaacd531c4187d3704c;p=tahoe-lafs%2Ftahoe-lafs.git Fill in 'docs/performance.txt' with some performance information --- diff --git a/docs/performance.txt b/docs/performance.txt index 76cf1f8e..1c74f968 100644 --- a/docs/performance.txt +++ b/docs/performance.txt @@ -1,30 +1,127 @@ -= Performance = - -== performance issues with mutable files == - -Tahoe-LAFS can create mutable files of arbitrary size. There are good -reasons to not overuse these. - -When you first create a mutable file, Tahoe-LAFS generates an RSA -keypair to associate with the file. This takes about a second on an -ordinary desktop PC (and possibly considerably longer on specialized or -embedded hardware). The cost of key generation is probably irrelevant if -you only use a few mutable files, but can quickly add up if you want to -create a lot of them. - -Part of the process of encrypting, encoding, and uploading a mutable -file to a Tahoe-LAFS grid requires that the entire file be loaded into -memory at once. For larger files, this may cause Tahoe-LAFS to have an -unacceptably large memory footprint (at least when uploading your -mutable file). - -As currently implemented, small modifications to mutable files are no -less expensive than large modifications; in both cases, the process -described above (with the performance concerns described above) must be -repeated for the entire file. - -We are exploring ways to address at least some of these problems. In the -meantime, however, it is a good practice to not overuse mutable files, -and to not create exceptionally large mutable files. For more -information on how mutable files are currently implemented, see the -mutable file specification, in docs/specifications/mutable.txt. += Performance costs for some common operations = + +=== Publishing an A-byte immutable file === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: An immutable file uploaded using convergent encryption will + require an additional I/O pass over the entire source file before + the upload process can start, since convergent encryption derives + the encryption key in part from the contents of the source file. + +=== Publishing an A-byte mutable file === + +cost: O(A) + a large constant for RSA + memory usage. + +notes: Tahoe-LAFS generates a new RSA keypair for each mutable file that + it publishes to a grid. This takes up to 1 or 2 seconds on a + typical desktop PC. + + Part of the process of encrypting, encoding, and uploading a + mutable file to a Tahoe-LAFS grid requires that the entire file + be in memory at once. For larger files, this may cause + Tahoe-LAFS to have an unacceptably large memory footprint (at + least when uploading a mutable file). + +=== Downloading B bytes of an A-byte immutable file === + +time/cost until the read is satisfied: variable; up to O(A). +cost of the entire operation: O(A) if the file isn't cached. + +notes: When asked to read an arbitrary range of an immutable file, + Tahoe-LAFS will download from the beginning of the file up until + it has enough of the file to satisfy the requested read. + Depending on where in the file the requested range is, this can + mean that the entire file is downloaded before the request is + satisfied. Tahoe-LAFS will continue to download the rest of the + file even after the request is satisfied, so in any case where the + file actually has to downloaded from the grid, reading part of an + immutable file will result in downloading all of the immutable + file. Ticket #798 is a proposal to change this behavior. + + Tahoe-LAFS will cache files that are read in this manner for a + short while, so subsequent reads of the same file may be served + entirely from cache, depending on what part of the file they need + to read, what part of the file was read by previous reads, and + how much time has elapsed since the last read. + +=== Downloading B bytes of an A-byte mutable file === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: As currently implemented, mutable files must be downloaded in + their entirety before any part of them can be read. We are + exploring fixes for this; see ticket #393 for more information. + +=== Modifying B bytes of an A-byte mutable file === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: If you upload a changed version of a mutable file that you + earlier put onto your grid with, say, 'tahoe put --mutable', + Tahoe-LAFS will replace the old file with the new file on the + grid, rather than attempting to modify only those portions of the + file that have changed. Modifying a file in this manner is + essentially uploading the file over again, except that it re-uses + the existing RSA keypair instead of generating a new one. + +=== Adding/Removing B bytes in an A-byte mutable file === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: Modifying any part of a mutable file in Tahoe-LAFS requires that + the entire file be downloaded, modified, held in memory while it + is encrypted and encoded, and then re-uploaded. Note that this + sort of modification is mostly used internally for directories, + and isn't something that the WUI, CLI, or other interfaces will + do -- instead, they will simply overwrite the file to be + modified, as described in "Modifying B bytes of an A-byte mutable + file". + +=== Adding an entry to an A-entry directory === + +cost: O(A) (roughly) +notes: In Tahoe-LAFS, directories are implemented as specialized mutable + files. So adding an entry to a directory is essentially adding B + (actually, 300-330) bytes somewhere in an existing mutable file. + +=== Listing an A entry directory === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: Listing a directory requires that the mutable file storing the + directory be downloaded from the grid. So listing an A entry + directory requires downloading a (roughly) 330 * A byte mutable + file, since each directory entry is about 300-330 bytes in size. + +=== Checking an A-byte file === + +cost: variable; between O(N) and O(S), where N is the number of shares + generated when the file was initially uploaded, and S is the + number of servers on your grid. + +notes: To check a file, Tahoe-LAFS queries the servers that it knows + about until it either runs out of servers, or finds all of the + shares that were originally uploaded. Note that neither of these + values directly depend on the size of the file. This is + relatively inexpensive, compared to the verify and repair + operations. + +=== Verifying an A-byte file === + +cost: O(A) + +notes: To verify a file, Tahoe-LAFS downloads all of the ciphertext + shares that were originally uploaded to the grid and integrity + checks them. This is, for well-behaved grids, likely to be more + expensive than downloading an A-byte file, since only a fraction + of these shares are necessary to recover the file. + +=== Repairing an A-byte file (mutable or immutable) === + +cost: variable; up to around O(A) + +notes: To repair a file, Tahoe-LAFS generates and uploads missing shares + in the same way as when it initially uploads the file. So, + depending on how many shares are missing, this can be about as + expensive as initially uploading the file in the first place.