file

Docker for Mac's shared volume performance saga continues!

After monitoring the issue File system performance improvements for years (discussion has moved to this issue now), it seems like the team behind Docker Desktop for Mac has finally settled on the next generation of filesystem sync.

For years, the built-in osxfs sync performance has been abysmal. For a Drupal developer like me, running a default shared volume could lead to excruciating slowdowns as PHP applications like Symfony and Drupal scan thousands of files when building app caches.

Or God forbid you ever have to install dependencies using Composer or NPM over a shared volume!

It got to the point where I started using NFS to speed up volume performance. Heck, the Docker team almost added Mutagen sync, which I tested successfully, but it caused problems for too many projects.

This is a simple guide, part of a series I'll call 'How-To Guide Without Ads'. In it, I'm going to document how I create an NFS share in Linux on a Raspberry Pi.

Install NFS

$ sudo apt-get install -y nfs-kernel-server

Create a shared directory

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/mydrive/shared
$ sudo chmod -R 777 /mnt/mydrive/shared

I won't deal with permissions in this post; read this post for more suggestions.

Configure NFS to share that directory

Edit the NFS exports file with sudo nano /etc/exports, and add the following:

/mnt/mydrive/shared *(rw,all_squash,insecure,async,no_subtree_check,anonuid=1000,anongid=1000)

Update the NFS active exports

sudo exportfs -ra

Connect to the share

From another computer, access: nfs://[hostname-or-ip-of-pi]/mnt/mydrive/shared

I recently needed to force the /etc/resolv.conf file to be immutable on a set of CentOS servers, since the upstream provider's DHCP server was giving me a poorly-running set of default DNS servers, which was getting written to the resolv.conf file on every reboot.

There are a few different ways to force your own DNS servers (and override DHCP), but one of the simplest, at least for my use case, is to change the file attributes on /etc/resolv.conf to make the file immutable (unable to be overwritten, e.g. by the network service's DHCP on reboot).

Typically you would do this on the command line with:

chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

And Ansible's file module has an attributes (alias: attr) parameter which allows the setting of attributes. For example, to set the attributes to i, you would use a task like:

tl;dr: If you want to skip the 'how-to' part and explanation, check out the pix_migrate example Drupal 8 migration module on GitHub.

For a couple years, I wanted to work on my first personal site migration into Drupal 8, for the last Drupal 6 site I had running on my servers. I've run a family photo/audio/video sharing website since 2009, and through the years it has accumulated hundreds of galleries, and over 20,000 media items.

The home page of the Drupal 8 photo sharing website.

Here's a quickie: A lot of Mac users are on Windows networks, and need to sometimes connect to a shared folder on their network to share/retrieve documents with other Windows users. The easiest way to do this is to type in the path to the shared folder in the "Connect to Server..." dialog box. To do this, just:

1. Switch to the Finder.
2. Choose the "Connect to Server..." menu option in the Go menu (or press Command-K).
3. Type in the path to your windows shared folder as follows:

smb://SERVER_NAME/share-name/folder-name

Hopefully, a dialog box will open up asking you to type in your username and password. If you need to find out the path of your windows shared folder, ask your network administrator. (note: private shared folders usually have a dollar sign after them—for example, smb://SERVER_NAME/share-name/folder-name$).

Quite often, I am asked one of two related questions: 1) "Why can't I delete this pesky file? My Mac says the file is locked, and I can't delete it unless I do something special!" or 2) "Gaa! I can't copy <insert name here> to my flash drive or another hard drive because it's locked—help!"

Well, I will answer those questions, and much more, after the break.