linux-stable.git/fs/f2fs, branch v3.12

f2fs: optimize gc for better performance

2013-09-05T04:50:32+00:00

This patch improves the gc efficiency by optimizing the victim
selection policy. With this optimization, the random re-write
performance could increase up to 20%.

For f2fs, when disk is in shortage of free spaces, gc will selects
dirty segments and moves valid blocks around for making more space
available. The gc cost of a segment is determined by the valid blocks
in the segment. The less the valid blocks, the higher the efficiency.
The ideal victim segment is the one that has the most garbage blocks.

Currently, it searches up to 20 dirty segments for a victim segment.
The selected victim is not likely the best victim for gc when there
are much more dirty segments. Why not searching more dirty segments
for a better victim? The cost of searching dirty segments is
negligible in comparison to moving blocks.

In this patch, it enlarges the MAX_VICTIM_SEARCH to 4096 to make
the search more aggressively for a possible better victim. Since
it also applies to victim selection for SSR, it will likely improve
the SSR efficiency as well.

The test case is simple. It creates as many files until the disk full.
The size for each file is 32KB. Then it writes as many as 100000
records of 4KB size to random offsets of random files in sync mode.
The testing was done on a 2GB partition of a SDHC card. Let's see the
test result of f2fs without and with the patch.

---------------------------------------
2GB partition, SDHC
create 52023 files of size 32768 bytes
random re-write 100000 records of 4KB
---------------------------------------
| file creation (s) | rewrite time (s) | gc count | gc garbage blocks |
[no patch]  341         4227             1174          174840
[patched]   324         2958             645           106682

It's obvious that, with the patch, f2fs finishes the test in 20+% less
time than without the patch. And internally it does much less gc with
higher efficiency than before.

Since the performance improvement is related to gc, it might not be so
obvious for other tests that do not trigger gc as often as this one (
This is because f2fs selects dirty segments for SSR use most of the
time when free space is in shortage). The well-known iozone test tool
was not used for benchmarking the patch becuase it seems do not have
a test case that performs random re-write on a full disk.

This patch is the revised version based on the suggestion from
Jaegeuk Kim.

Signed-off-by: Jin Xu 
[Jaegeuk Kim: suggested simpler solution]
Reviewed-by: Jaegeuk Kim 
Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: merge more bios of node block writes

2013-09-05T01:17:19+00:00

Previously, we experience bio traces as follows when running simple sequential
write test.

 f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500104928, size = 4K
 f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 499922208, size = 368K
 f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 499914752, size = 140K

 -> total 512K

The first one is to write an indirect node block, and the others are to write
direct node blocks.

The reason why there are two separate bios for direct node blocks is:
0. initial state
------------------    ------------------
|                |    |xxxxxxxx        |
------------------    ------------------

1. write 368K
------------------    ------------------
|                |    |xxxxxxxxWWWWWWWW|
------------------    ------------------

2. write 140K
------------------    ------------------
|WWWWWWW         |    |xxxxxxxxWWWWWWWW|
------------------    ------------------

This is because f2fs_write_node_pages tries to write just 512K totally, so that
we can lose the chance to merge more bios nicely.

After this patch is applied, we can get the following bio traces.

  f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500103168, size = 8K
  f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500111368, size = 4K
  f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500107272, size = 512K
  f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500108296, size = 512K
  f2fs_do_submit_bio: type = NODE, io = no sync, sector = 500109320, size = 500K

And finally, we can improve the sequential write performance,
    from 458.775 MB/s to 479.945 MB/s on SSD.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: avoid an overflow during utilization calculation

2013-09-03T04:41:37+00:00

The current f2fs uses all the block counts with 32 bit numbers, which is able to
cover about 15TB volume.

But in calculation of utilization, f2fs multiplies the count by 100 which can
induce overflow.
This patch fixes this.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: trigger GC when there are prefree segments

2013-09-03T01:11:20+00:00

Previously, f2fs conducts SSR when free_sections() < overprovision_sections.
But, even though there are a lot of prefree segments, it can consider SSR only.
So, let's consider the number of prefree segments too for triggering SSR.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: use strncasecmp() simplify the string comparison

2013-08-27T12:50:12+00:00

Signed-off-by: Gu Zheng 
Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: fix omitting to update inode page

2013-08-27T12:49:04+00:00

The f2fs_set_link updates its parent inode number, so we should sync this to
the inode block.
Otherwise, the data can be lost after sudden-power-off.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: support the inline xattrs

2013-08-26T11:15:23+00:00

0. modified inode structure
--------------------------------------
metadata (e.g., i_mtime, i_ctime, etc)
--------------------------------------
direct pointers [0 ~ 873]

inline xattrs (200 bytes by default)

indirect pointers [0 ~ 4]
--------------------------------------
node footer
--------------------------------------

1. setxattr flow
 - read_all_xattrs copies all the xattrs from inline and xattr node block.
 - handle xattr entries
 - write_all_xattrs copies modified xattrs into inline and xattr node block.

2. getxattr flow
 - read_all_xattrs copies all the xattrs from inline and xattr node block.
 - check target entries

3. Usage
 # mount -t f2fs -o inline_xattr $DEV $MNT

 Once mounted with the inline_xattr option, f2fs marks all the newly created
 files to reserve an amount of inline xattr space explicitly inside the inode
 block. Without the mount option, f2fs will not touch any existing files and
 newly created files as well.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: add the truncate_xattr_node function

2013-08-26T11:15:06+00:00

The truncate_xattr_node function will be used by inline xattr.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: introduce __find_xattr for readability

2013-08-26T11:15:06+00:00

The __find_xattr is to search the wanted xattr entry starting from the
base_addr.

If not found, the returned entry is the last empty xattr entry that can be
allocated newly.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim

f2fs: reserve the xattr space dynamically

2013-08-26T11:15:01+00:00

This patch enables the number of direct pointers inside on-disk inode block to
be changed dynamically according to the size of inline xattr space.

The number of direct pointers, ADDRS_PER_INODE, can be changed only if the file
has inline xattr flag.

The number of direct pointers that will be used by inline xattrs is defined as
F2FS_INLINE_XATTR_ADDRS.
Current patch assigns F2FS_INLINE_XATTR_ADDRS to 0 temporarily.

Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim