Why do I need a cluster file system

From Linuxintro
Revision as of 16:36, 2 April 2009 by imported>ThorstenStaerk

Why do you need a special file system if you have more than one computer accessing a partition?

First, if two computers have file system cache, it can happen that one writes a block and the other one fetches an obsolete block from its cache, so there would be inconsistencies. But if you switch off file system cache, this problem is solved.

OK, let's look at the next problem: Computer A reads a counter file and increases it:

Computer A reads 20 
Computer B reads 20
Computer A writes 21
Computer B writes 21

And we have inconsistencies. But wait, this is not a cluster-specific problem, you will have the same problem in a multi-tasking environment.