linux.git/Documentation/filesystems/Locking, branch v2.6.29

filesystem freeze: add error handling of write_super_lockfs/unlockfs

2009-01-10T00:54:42+00:00

Currently, ext3 in mainline Linux doesn't have the freeze feature which
suspends write requests.  So, we cannot take a backup which keeps the
filesystem's consistency with the storage device's features (snapshot and
replication) while it is mounted.

In many case, a commercial filesystem (e.g.  VxFS) has the freeze feature
and it would be used to get the consistent backup.

If Linux's standard filesystem ext3 has the freeze feature, we can do it
without a commercial filesystem.

So I have implemented the ioctls of the freeze feature.
I think we can take the consistent backup with the following steps.
1. Freeze the filesystem with the freeze ioctl.
2. Separate the replication volume or create the snapshot
   with the storage device's feature.
3. Unfreeze the filesystem with the unfreeze ioctl.
4. Take the backup from the separated replication volume
   or the snapshot.

This patch:

VFS:
Changed the type of write_super_lockfs and unlockfs from "void"
to "int" so that they can return an error.
Rename write_super_lockfs and unlockfs of the super block operation
freeze_fs and unfreeze_fs to avoid a confusion.

ext3, ext4, xfs, gfs2, jfs:
Changed the type of write_super_lockfs and unlockfs from "void"
to "int" so that write_super_lockfs returns an error if needed,
and unlockfs always returns 0.

reiserfs:
Changed the type of write_super_lockfs and unlockfs from "void"
to "int" so that they always return 0 (success) to keep a current behavior.

Signed-off-by: Takashi Sato 
Signed-off-by: Masayuki Hamaguchi 
Cc: 
Cc: 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Cc: Dave Kleikamp 
Cc: Dave Chinner 
Cc: Alasdair G Kergon 
Cc: Al Viro 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

poll: allow f_op->poll to sleep

2009-01-06T23:59:12+00:00

f_op->poll is the only vfs operation which is not allowed to sleep.  It's
because poll and select implementation used task state to synchronize
against wake ups, which doesn't have to be the case anymore as wait/wake
interface can now use custom wake up functions.  The non-sleep restriction
can be a bit tricky because ->poll is not called from an atomic context
and the result of accidentally sleeping in ->poll only shows up as
temporary busy looping when the timing is right or rather wrong.

This patch converts poll/select to use custom wake up function and use
separate triggered variable to synchronize against wake up events.  The
only added overhead is an extra function call during wake up and
negligible.

This patch removes the one non-sleep exception from vfs locking rules and
is beneficial to userland filesystem implementations like FUSE, 9p or
peculiar fs like spufs as it's very difficult for those to implement
non-sleeping poll method.

While at it, make the following cosmetic changes to make poll.h and
select.c checkpatch friendly.

* s/type * symbol/type *symbol/		   : three places in poll.h
* remove blank line before EXPORT_SYMBOL() : two places in select.c

Oleg: spotted missing barrier in poll_schedule_timeout()
Davide: spotted missing write barrier in pollwake()

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo 
Cc: Eric Van Hensbergen 
Cc: Ron Minnich 
Cc: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi 
Cc: Davide Libenzi 
Cc: Brad Boyer 
Cc: Al Viro 
Cc: Roland McGrath 
Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Cc: Davide Libenzi 
Cc: Oleg Nesterov 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

kill ->dir_notify()

2008-12-31T23:07:43+00:00

Remove the hopelessly misguided ->dir_notify().  The only instance (cifs)
has been broken by design from the very beginning; the objects it creates
are never destroyed, keep references to struct file they can outlive, nothing
that could possibly evict them exists on close(2) path *and* no locking
whatsoever is done to prevent races with close(), should the previous, er,
deficiencies someday be dealt with.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro

fs: remove prepare_write/commit_write

2008-10-30T18:38:45+00:00

Nothing uses prepare_write or commit_write. Remove them from the tree
completely.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: schedule simple_prepare_write() for unexporting]
Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin 
Cc: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

update Documentation/filesystems/Locking for 2.6.27 changes

2008-09-09T18:51:15+00:00

In the 2.6.27 circle ->fasync lost the BKL, and the last remaining
->open variant that takes the BKL is also gone.  ->get_sb and ->kill_sb
didn't have BKL forever, so updated the entries while we're at that.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

access_process_vm device memory infrastructure

2008-07-24T17:47:15+00:00

In order to be able to debug things like the X server and programs using
the PPC Cell SPUs, the debugger needs to be able to access device memory
through ptrace and /proc/pid/mem.

This patch:

Add the generic_access_phys access function and put the hooks in place
to allow access_process_vm to access device or PPC Cell SPU memory.

[riel@redhat.com: Add documentation for the vm_ops->access function]
Signed-off-by: Rik van Riel 
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrensmidt 
Cc: Dave Airlie 
Cc: Hugh Dickins 
Cc: Paul Mackerras 
Cc: Arnd Bergmann 
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] kill ->put_inode

2008-05-06T17:45:34+00:00

And with that last patch to affs killing the last put_inode instance we
can finally, after many years of transition kill this racy and awkward
interface.

(It's kinda funny that even the description in
Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt was entirely wrong..)

Also remove a very misleading comment above the defintion of
struct super_operations.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Al Viro

mm: remove nopage

2008-04-28T15:58:18+00:00

Nothing in the tree uses nopage any more.  Remove support for it in the
core mm code and documentation (and a few stray references to it in
comments).

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

iget: remove iget() and the read_inode() super op as being obsolete

2008-02-07T16:42:29+00:00

Remove the old iget() call and the read_inode() superblock operation it uses
as these are really obsolete, and the use of read_inode() does not produce
proper error handling (no distinction between ENOMEM and EIO when marking an
inode bad).

Furthermore, this removes the temptation to use iget() to find an inode by
number in a filesystem from code outside that filesystem.

iget_locked() should be used instead.  A new function is added in an earlier
patch (iget_failed) that is to be called to mark an inode as bad, unlock it
and release it should the get routine fail.  Mark iget() and read_inode() as
being obsolete and remove references to them from the documentation.

Typically a filesystem will be modified such that the read_inode function
becomes an internal iget function, for example the following:

	void thingyfs_read_inode(struct inode *inode)
	{
		...
	}

would be changed into something like:

	struct inode *thingyfs_iget(struct super_block *sp, unsigned long ino)
	{
		struct inode *inode;
		int ret;

		inode = iget_locked(sb, ino);
		if (!inode)
			return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
		if (!(inode->i_state & I_NEW))
			return inode;

		...
		unlock_new_inode(inode);
		return inode;
	error:
		iget_failed(inode);
		return ERR_PTR(ret);
	}

and then thingyfs_iget() would be called rather than iget(), for example:

	ret = -EINVAL;
	inode = iget(sb, ino);
	if (!inode || is_bad_inode(inode))
		goto error;

becomes:

	inode = thingyfs_iget(sb, ino);
	if (IS_ERR(inode)) {
		ret = PTR_ERR(inode);
		goto error;
	}

Note that is_bad_inode() does not need to be called.  The error returned by
thingyfs_iget() should render it unnecessary.

Signed-off-by: David Howells 
Acked-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Fix misspellings of "system", "controller", "interrupt" and "necessary".

2007-10-19T21:10:43+00:00

Fix the various misspellings of "system", controller", "interrupt" and
"[un]necessary".

Signed-off-by: Robert P. J. Day 
Signed-off-by: Adrian Bunk