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Is there any command to for a file to be read in and loaded into the linux disk cache? This is on an up-to-date debian system.

I know in the general case, it's better to let the linux kernel figure this out. But I have an edge case. I have a laptop that has an NFS director mounted, and i want to play a long video file, but I don't want to have a network problem interrupt the playnig. I know that (largeish) file will be read in it's entirety later on. I know that nothing else (really) will be running while playing this video. There is enough free memory to store this file.

(I know I could just copy the file into a new tmpfs filesystem, but I'm curious if there's an even shorter way to do it)

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2 Answers 2

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A small program that mmap()ed the file with the MAP_LOCKED flag set would do the trick. You'll need to run this program as root, or a user with an RLIMIT_MEMLOCK value greater than the size of the file you want to map.

As SaveTheRbtz has mentioned, vmtouch has this capability built-in. The manpage suggests that vmtouch -l /some/file will do the trick.

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    And don't forget to munlock() that file afterwards again! :)
    – Michuelnik
    Jul 10, 2012 at 12:51
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    Not necessary; as per mlock(2), "Memory locks are [...] automatically removed (unlocked) [...] when the process terminates.".
    – womble ♦
    Jul 10, 2012 at 15:57
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    There is a tool for that: hoytech.com/vmtouch
    – SaveTheRbtz
    Jul 12, 2012 at 8:38
  • @SaveTheRbtz: Thanks for that -- I expected someone would have written it already.
    – womble ♦
    Jul 12, 2012 at 9:22
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If you really control the local environment that strictly, a simple cat $file >/dev/null should be sufficient. It's quite non-deterministic, when cache eviction removes that file - but if you have plenty of RAM and noone consuming it, it should be kept.

If there is a sticky and deterministic way to keep a file in cache - dunno...

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  • Is that guaranteed to put the file into the cache though?
    – Amandasaurus
    Jul 10, 2012 at 16:12
  • Yes, thats the way it works. It's read through the cache.
    – Michuelnik
    Jul 11, 2012 at 14:13

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