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virtiofs: enable cache, inode file handles#1817

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brianmcgillion merged 2 commits intotiiuae:mainfrom
kajusnau:shared-store-perf
Mar 11, 2026
Merged

virtiofs: enable cache, inode file handles#1817
brianmcgillion merged 2 commits intotiiuae:mainfrom
kajusnau:shared-store-perf

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@kajusnau kajusnau commented Mar 10, 2026 •
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Description of Changes

Upstream microvm recently made a change that sets virtiofs to prefer inode file handles by default.

Here we bump microvm.nix to include this change.
In addition, we explicitly change the virtiofs cache setting from the default auto to always.

Reference manual for these options can be found here
https://gitlab.com/virtio-fs/virtiofsd

These options should hopefully improve the load times for various apps, tools, and libraries, especially on subsequent launches.

Other changes:

  • Disabled s76 scheduler by default, as it seems to offer no real performance improvements at this time
  • Enabled transparent_hugepages for the host for balanced and performance profiles

Type of Change

  • New Feature
  • Bug Fix
  • Improvement / Refactor

Related Issues / Tickets

Checklist

  • Clear summary in PR description
  • Detailed and meaningful commit message(s)
  • Commits are logically organized and squashed if appropriate
  • Contribution guidelines followed
  • Ghaf documentation updated with the commit - https://tiiuae.github.io/ghaf/
  • Author has run make-checks and it passes
  • All automatic GitHub Action checks pass - see actions
  • Author has added reviewers and removed PR draft status

Testing Instructions

Applicable Targets

  • Orin AGX aarch64
  • Orin NX aarch64
  • Lenovo X1 x86_64
  • Dell Latitude x86_64
  • System 76 x86_64

Installation Method

  • Requires full re-installation
  • Can be updated with nixos-rebuild ... switch
  • Other:

Test Steps To Verify:

  1. ...

@kajusnau kajusnau self-assigned this Mar 10, 2026
@milva-unikie
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milva-unikie commented Mar 11, 2026

I measured the launch time of Cosmic Settings on Lenovo X1 with mainline and this PR. There is a clear improvement.

image

@kajusnau kajusnau force-pushed the shared-store-perf branch from 91901b4 to 2f0b9d0 Compare March 11, 2026 12:22
@kajusnau kajusnau force-pushed the shared-store-perf branch from 2f0b9d0 to 9b423f8 Compare March 11, 2026 13:47
@kajusnau kajusnau marked this pull request as ready for review March 11, 2026 14:00
vunnyso
vunnyso reviewed Mar 11, 2026
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@kajusnau
microvm: bump microvm, enable virtiofs cache
ead98ae 
Attempt to improve load times for shared store access by enabling
virtiofs cache
Bump microvm.nix to include upstream inodeFileHandles change

Signed-off-by: Kajus Naujokaitis <kajus.naujokaitis@unikie.com>
@kajusnau kajusnau force-pushed the shared-store-perf branch from 9b423f8 to 8a65246 Compare March 11, 2026 14:19
vunnyso
vunnyso reviewed Mar 11, 2026
View reviewed changes
@kajusnau
perf: disable scheduler, adjust tuned config
ec3d0c9 
Disabled s76 scheduler by default, as there seems to be no clear
performance improvement.
Adjusted TuneD config for the host to use transparent_hugepages
when not on powersave profile, reduced vm.swappiness

Signed-off-by: Kajus Naujokaitis <kajus.naujokaitis@unikie.com>
@kajusnau kajusnau force-pushed the shared-store-perf branch from 8a65246 to ec3d0c9 Compare March 11, 2026 14:56
@brianmcgillion brianmcgillion merged commit 3a7476e into tiiuae:main Mar 11, 2026
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@kajusnau kajusnau mentioned this pull request Apr 9, 2026
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@brianmcgillion brianmcgillion brianmcgillion approved these changes

@vunnyso vunnyso vunnyso approved these changes

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@kajusnau @milva-unikie @brianmcgillion @vunnyso