Did immutable bvecs accidentally break stable page writes?

From: Mel Gorman
Date: Thu Sep 19 2013 - 05:32:59 EST


Commit ffecfd1a (block: optionally snapshot page contents to provide
stable pages during write) uses bounce buffers for stable page writes in
jbd and ext3. Simplistically, __blk_queue_bounce takes a force parameter
that is used when pages must be snapshot.

Commit 6bc454d1 (bounce: Refactor __blk_queue_bounce to not use
bi_io_vec) refactored __blk_queue_bounce and now the start of the
function looks like this

static void __blk_queue_bounce(struct request_queue *q, struct bio **bio_orig,
mempool_t *pool, int force)
{
struct bio *bio;
int rw = bio_data_dir(*bio_orig);
struct bio_vec *to, *from;
unsigned i;

bio_for_each_segment(from, *bio_orig, i)
if (page_to_pfn(from->bv_page) > queue_bounce_pfn(q))
goto bounce;

return;
bounce:
bio = bio_clone_bioset(*bio_orig, GFP_NOIO, fs_bio_set);

bio_for_each_segment_all(to, bio, i) {
struct page *page = to->bv_page;

if (page_to_pfn(page) <= queue_bounce_pfn(q) && !force)
continue;

Note that the first bio_for_each_segment is completely ignoring the
force parameter and hence snapshotting. This is particularly problematic
for ext3 which forces the use of MS_SNAP_STABLE.

I have not actually reproduced any problem, this is just code inspection
but it looks like commit 6bc454d1 broke ext3. Kent, why was the force
paramter ignored in that commit?

--
Mel Gorman
SUSE Labs
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