Re: sync-Regression in 2.6.28.2?

From: Ralf Hildebrandt
Date: Thu Feb 05 2009 - 05:19:22 EST


* Federico Cuello <fedux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Nick Piggin wrote:
> > [...]
> > Thanks, could you reply-to-all when replying to retain ccs please?
> >
> > Common theme is ext4, which uses no_nrwrite_index_update, and I introduced
> > a bug in there which could possibly cause ext4 to go into a loop...
> >
> > Would it be possible if you can test the following patch?
> >
>
> I'll test it as soon as I get home.
>
> Meanwhile, I think the new patch may be slightly wrong. If I understand
> correctly PageWriteback(page) is called before nr_to_write is tested for
> being > 0 and then decremented if true, but "done" is not set to 1
> until the next iteration. So another call to PageWriteback(page) while
> take place and then "done" will be set to true (if wbc->sync_mode ==
> WB_SYNC_NONE).
>
> If nr_to_write == 1 at the beginning of the loop then two pages will be
> written.
>
> I think the test condition should something like:
>
> if (--nr_to_write <= 0 && wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_NONE) {
> done = 1;
> break;
> }
>
> .
> .
>
> > Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Acked-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@xxxxxxx>
> > Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> > mm/page-writeback.c | 21 +++++++++++++++------
> > 1 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/mm/page-writeback.c b/mm/page-writeback.c
> > index b493db7..dc32dae 100644
> > --- a/mm/page-writeback.c
> > +++ b/mm/page-writeback.c
> > @@ -1051,13 +1051,22 @@ continue_unlock:
> > }
> > }
> >
> > - if (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_NONE) {
> > - wbc->nr_to_write--;
> > - if (wbc->nr_to_write <= 0) {
> > - done = 1;
> > - break;
> > - }
> > + if (nr_to_write > 0)
> > + nr_to_write--;
> > + else if (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_NONE) {
> > + /*
> > + * We stop writing back only if we are not
> > + * doing integrity sync. In case of integrity
> > + * sync we have to keep going because someone
> > + * may be concurrently dirtying pages, and we
> > + * might have synced a lot of newly appeared
> > + * dirty pages, but have not synced all of the
> > + * old dirty pages.
> > + */
> > + done = 1;
> > + break;
> > }
> > +
> > if (wbc->nonblocking && bdi_write_congested(bdi)) {
> > wbc->encountered_congestion = 1;
> > done = 1;
> >
>
While I didn't test the patch, I can confirm that the problem is also
in 2.6.28.3

--
Ralf Hildebrandt Ralf.Hildebrandt@xxxxxxxxxx
Charite - UniversitÃtsmedizin Berlin Tel. +49 (0)30-450 570-155
GeschÃftsbereich IT | Abt. Netzwerk Fax. +49 (0)30-450 570-962
Hindenburgdamm 30 | 12200 Berlin
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