Re: [PATCH 1/8] vfs: Fix sys_sync() and fsync_super() reliability(version 4)

[Jan Kara]

On Mon 27-04-09 12:38:25, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:43:48 +0200
> Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > So far, do_sync() called:
> >   sync_inodes(0);
> >   sync_supers();
> >   sync_filesystems(0);
> >   sync_filesystems(1);
> >   sync_inodes(1);
> 
> The description has me all confused.
> 
> > This ordering makes it kind of hard for filesystems as sync_inodes(0) need not
> > submit all the IO (for example it skips inodes with I_SYNC set) so e.g. forcing
> > transaction to disk in ->sync_fs() is not really enough.
> 
> Is not really enough for what?
> 
> sync_fs(wait==0) is not supposed to be reliable - it's an advice to the
> fs that it should push as much "easy" writeback into the queue as
> possible.  We'll do the real sync later, with sync_fs(wait==1).
  Yes, but note that after sync_fs(wait==1) we do sync_inodes(wait==1) and
only this last sync_inodes() call is guaranteed to get all the inode data
to disk. So sync_fs() is called *before* all the dirty data are actually
written. That is against expectation of sync_fs() implementation of most
filesystems...

> > Therefore sys_sync has
> > not been completely reliable on some filesystems (ext3, ext4, reiserfs, ocfs2
> > and others are hit by this) when racing e.g. with background writeback.
> 
> No sync can ever be reliable in the presence of concurrent write
> activity, unless we freeze userspace.
  Of course, but it should be reliable in the presence of pdflush()
flushing dirty data. And it was not currently because even background
writeback sets I_SYNC flag of the inode and sync_inodes(wait==0) skips
these inodes.
  This is the real bug this patch is trying to fix, but generally it tries
to make the code more robust so that the reliability of sys_sync() does not
depend on the exact behavior of WB_SYNC_NONE writeback done by
sync_inodes(wait==0).

> > A
> > similar problem hits also other filesystems (e.g. ext2) because of
> > write_supers() being called before the sync_inodes(1).
> > 
> > Change the ordering of calls in do_sync() - this requires a new function
> > sync_blkdevs() to preserve the property that block devices are always synced
> > after write_super() / sync_fs() call.
> > 
> > The same issue is fixed in __fsync_super() function used on umount /
> > remount read-only.
> 
> So it's all a bit unclear (to me) what this patch is trying to fix?
  Hopefully explained above ;).

									Honza
> 
> 
> > Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  fs/super.c         |   27 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
> >  fs/sync.c          |    3 ++-
> >  include/linux/fs.h |    2 ++
> >  3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/fs/super.c b/fs/super.c
> > index 786fe7d..4826540 100644
> > --- a/fs/super.c
> > +++ b/fs/super.c
> > @@ -267,6 +267,7 @@ void __fsync_super(struct super_block *sb)
> >  {
> >  	sync_inodes_sb(sb, 0);
> >  	vfs_dq_sync(sb);
> > +	sync_inodes_sb(sb, 1);
> >  	lock_super(sb);
> >  	if (sb->s_dirt && sb->s_op->write_super)
> >  		sb->s_op->write_super(sb);
> > @@ -274,7 +275,6 @@ void __fsync_super(struct super_block *sb)
> >  	if (sb->s_op->sync_fs)
> >  		sb->s_op->sync_fs(sb, 1);
> >  	sync_blockdev(sb->s_bdev);
> > -	sync_inodes_sb(sb, 1);
> >  }
> >  
> >  /*
> > @@ -502,6 +502,31 @@ restart:
> >  	mutex_unlock(&mutex);
> >  }
> >  
> > +/*
> > + *  Sync all block devices underlying some superblock
> > + */
> > +void sync_blockdevs(void)
> > +{
> > +	struct super_block *sb;
> > +
> > +	spin_lock(&sb_lock);
> > +restart:
> > +	list_for_each_entry(sb, &super_blocks, s_list) {
> > +		if (!sb->s_bdev)
> > +			continue;
> > +		sb->s_count++;
> > +		spin_unlock(&sb_lock);
> > +		down_read(&sb->s_umount);
> > +		if (sb->s_root)
> > +			sync_blockdev(sb->s_bdev);
> > +		up_read(&sb->s_umount);
> > +		spin_lock(&sb_lock);
> > +		if (__put_super_and_need_restart(sb))
> > +			goto restart;
> > +	}
> > +	spin_unlock(&sb_lock);
> > +}
> 
> The comment doesn't match the implementation.  This function syncs all
> blockdevs underlying _all_ superblocks.
> 
-- 
Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
SUSE Labs, CR
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