The name cache on FreeBSD is responsible for caching file names and their vnodes. It also provides a special database for hashing the contents of large directories.
I would like to know how to empty the name cache but I cannot find any tool or sysctl that would allow me to do that.
Is it even possible?
The NetBSD's manual page for namecache(9) suggests that cache_purgevfs() is called when a file system is unmounted. A quick grep around the FreeBSD kernel sources confirm that this is the case on FreeBSD as well.
Unmounting a file system and then mounting it back again is certainly a way to purge cache, but it would be cool to know if there is a less drastic way to do that (e.g., one a per-file basis).
