linux-stable.git/fs/fs-writeback.c, branch linux-2.6.37.y

writeback: avoid livelocking WB_SYNC_ALL writeback

2011-02-17T23:14:19+00:00

commit b9543dac5bbc4aef0a598965b6b34f6259ab9a9b upstream.

When wb_writeback() is called in WB_SYNC_ALL mode, work->nr_to_write is
usually set to LONG_MAX.  The logic in wb_writeback() then calls
__writeback_inodes_sb() with nr_to_write == MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES and we
easily end up with non-positive nr_to_write after the function returns, if
the inode has more than MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES dirty pages at the moment.

When nr_to_write is <= 0 wb_writeback() decides we need another round of
writeback but this is wrong in some cases!  For example when a single
large file is continuously dirtied, we would never finish syncing it
because each pass would be able to write MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES and inode
dirty timestamp never gets updated (as inode is never completely clean).
Thus __writeback_inodes_sb() would write the redirtied inode again and
again.

Fix the issue by setting nr_to_write to LONG_MAX in WB_SYNC_ALL mode.  We
do not need nr_to_write in WB_SYNC_ALL mode anyway since
write_cache_pages() does livelock avoidance using page tagging in
WB_SYNC_ALL mode.

This makes wb_writeback() call __writeback_inodes_sb() only once on
WB_SYNC_ALL.  The latter function won't livelock because it works on

- a finite set of files by doing queue_io() once at the beginning
- a finite set of pages by PAGECACHE_TAG_TOWRITE page tagging

After this patch, program from http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/10/24/154 is no
longer able to stall sync forever.

[fengguang.wu@intel.com: fix locking comment]
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara 
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang 
Cc: Johannes Weiner 
Cc: Dave Chinner 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Cc: Jan Engelhardt 
Cc: Jens Axboe 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

writeback: stop background/kupdate works from livelocking other works

2011-02-17T23:14:19+00:00

commit aa373cf550994623efb5d49a4d8775bafd10bbc1 upstream.

Background writeback is easily livelockable in a loop in wb_writeback() by
a process continuously re-dirtying pages (or continuously appending to a
file).  This is in fact intended as the target of background writeback is
to write dirty pages it can find as long as we are over
dirty_background_threshold.

But the above behavior gets inconvenient at times because no other work
queued in the flusher thread's queue gets processed.  In particular, since
e.g.  sync(1) relies on flusher thread to do all the IO for it, sync(1)
can hang forever waiting for flusher thread to do the work.

Generally, when a flusher thread has some work queued, someone submitted
the work to achieve a goal more specific than what background writeback
does.  Moreover by working on the specific work, we also reduce amount of
dirty pages which is exactly the target of background writeout.  So it
makes sense to give specific work a priority over a generic page cleaning.

Thus we interrupt background writeback if there is some other work to do.
We return to the background writeback after completing all the queued
work.

This may delay the writeback of expired inodes for a while, however the
expired inodes will eventually be flushed to disk as long as the other
works won't livelock.

[fengguang.wu@intel.com: update comment]
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara 
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang 
Cc: Johannes Weiner 
Cc: Dave Chinner 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Cc: Jan Engelhardt 
Cc: Jens Axboe 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

writeback: integrated background writeback work

2011-02-17T23:14:19+00:00

commit 6585027a5e8cb490e3a761b2f3f3c3acf722aff2 upstream.

Check whether background writeback is needed after finishing each work.

When bdi flusher thread finishes doing some work check whether any kind of
background writeback needs to be done (either because
dirty_background_ratio is exceeded or because we need to start flushing
old inodes).  If so, just do background write back.

This way, bdi_start_background_writeback() just needs to wake up the
flusher thread.  It will do background writeback as soon as there is no
other work.

This is a preparatory patch for the next patch which stops background
writeback as soon as there is other work to do.

Signed-off-by: Jan Kara 
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang 
Cc: Johannes Weiner 
Cc: Dave Chinner 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Cc: Jan Engelhardt 
Cc: Jens Axboe 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mason/btrfs-unstable

2010-10-30T16:05:48+00:00

* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mason/btrfs-unstable: (39 commits)
  Btrfs: deal with errors from updating the tree log
  Btrfs: allow subvol deletion by unprivileged user with -o user_subvol_rm_allowed
  Btrfs: make SNAP_DESTROY async
  Btrfs: add SNAP_CREATE_ASYNC ioctl
  Btrfs: add START_SYNC, WAIT_SYNC ioctls
  Btrfs: async transaction commit
  Btrfs: fix deadlock in btrfs_commit_transaction
  Btrfs: fix lockdep warning on clone ioctl
  Btrfs: fix clone ioctl where range is adjacent to extent
  Btrfs: fix delalloc checks in clone ioctl
  Btrfs: drop unused variable in block_alloc_rsv
  Btrfs: cleanup warnings from gcc 4.6 (nonbugs)
  Btrfs: Fix variables set but not read (bugs found by gcc 4.6)
  Btrfs: Use ERR_CAST helpers
  Btrfs: use memdup_user helpers
  Btrfs: fix raid code for removing missing drives
  Btrfs: Switch the extent buffer rbtree into a radix tree
  Btrfs: restructure try_release_extent_buffer()
  Btrfs: use the flusher threads for delalloc throttling
  Btrfs: tune the chunk allocation to 5% of the FS as metadata
  ...

Fix up trivial conflicts in fs/btrfs/super.c and fs/fs-writeback.c, and
remove use of INIT_RCU_HEAD in fs/btrfs/extent_io.c (that init macro was
useless and removed in commit 5e8067adfdba: "rcu head remove init")

fs-writeback.c: unify some common code

2010-10-30T15:55:52+00:00

The btrfs merge looks like hell, because it changes fs-writeback.c, and
the crazy code has this repeated "estimate number of dirty pages"
counting that involves three different helper functions.  And it's done
in two different places.

Just unify that whole calculation as a "get_nr_dirty_pages()" helper
function, and the merge result will look half-way decent.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Add new functions for triggering inode writeback

2010-10-29T15:25:29+00:00

When btrfs is running low on metadata space, it needs to force delayed
allocation pages to disk.  It currently does this with a suboptimal walk
of a private list of inodes with delayed allocation, and it would be
much better if we used the generic flusher threads.

writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle would be ideal, but it waits for the flusher
thread to start IO on all the dirty pages in the FS before it returns.
This adds variants of writeback_inodes_sb* that allow the caller to
control how many pages get sent down.

Signed-off-by: Chris Mason

Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6

2010-10-27T00:58:44+00:00

* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6: (52 commits)
  split invalidate_inodes()
  fs: skip I_FREEING inodes in writeback_sb_inodes
  fs: fold invalidate_list into invalidate_inodes
  fs: do not drop inode_lock in dispose_list
  fs: inode split IO and LRU lists
  fs: switch bdev inode bdi's correctly
  fs: fix buffer invalidation in invalidate_list
  fsnotify: use dget_parent
  smbfs: use dget_parent
  exportfs: use dget_parent
  fs: use RCU read side protection in d_validate
  fs: clean up dentry lru modification
  fs: split __shrink_dcache_sb
  fs: improve DCACHE_REFERENCED usage
  fs: use percpu counter for nr_dentry and nr_dentry_unused
  fs: simplify __d_free
  fs: take dcache_lock inside __d_path
  fs: do not assign default i_ino in new_inode
  fs: introduce a per-cpu last_ino allocator
  new helper: ihold()
  ...

kernel: remove PF_FLUSHER

2010-10-26T23:52:15+00:00

PF_FLUSHER is only ever set, not tested, remove it.

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra 
Cc: Jens Axboe 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

fs/fs-writeback.c: restore lost comment

2010-10-26T23:52:10+00:00

I had to go back to a 2.6.20 tree to work out why we're adding a
number-of-inodes into a number-of-pages count.  Restore the lost comment.

Cc: Jens Axboe 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

writeback: remove the internal 5% low bound on dirty_ratio

2010-10-26T23:52:08+00:00

The dirty_ratio was silently limited in global_dirty_limits() to >= 5%.
This is not a user expected behavior.  And it's inconsistent with
calc_period_shift(), which uses the plain vm_dirty_ratio value.

Let's remove the internal bound.

At the same time, fix balance_dirty_pages() to work with the
dirty_thresh=0 case.  This allows applications to proceed when
dirty+writeback pages are all cleaned.

And ">" fits with the name "exceeded" better than ">=" does.  Neil thinks
it is an aesthetic improvement as well as a functional one :)

Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang 
Cc: Jan Kara 
Proposed-by: Con Kolivas 
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra 
Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel 
Reviewed-by: Neil Brown 
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro 
Cc: Michael Rubin 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds