Re: NR_UNSTABLE_FS vs. NR_FILE_DIRTY: double counting pages?

From: Ethan Solomita
Date: Sun Apr 29 2007 - 20:27:26 EST


Trond Myklebust wrote:
On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 18:21 -0700, Ethan Solomita wrote:
There are several places where we add together NR_UNSTABLE_FS and
NF_FILE_DIRTY:

sync_inodes_sb()
balance_dirty_pages()
wakeup_pdflush()
wb_kupdate()
prefetch_suitable()

I can trace a standard codepath where it seems both of these are set
on the same page:

nfs_file_aops.commit_write ->
nfs_commit_write
nfs_updatepages
nfs_writepage_setup
nfs_wb_page
nfs_wb_page_priority
nfs_writepage_locked
nfs_flush_mapping
nfs_flush_list
nfs_flush_multi
nfs_write_partial_ops.rpc_call_done
nfs_writeback_done_partial
nfs_writepage_release
nfs_reschedule_unstable_write
nfs_mark_request_commit
incr NR_UNSTABLE_NFS

nfs_file_aops.commit_write ->
nfs_commit_write
nfs_updatepage
__set_page_dirty_nobuffers
incr NF_FILE_DIRTY


This is the standard code path that derives from sys_write(). Can
someone either show how this code sequence can't happen, or confirm for
me that there's a bug?
-- Ethan

It should not happen. If the page is on the unstable list, then it will
be committed before nfs_updatepage is allowed to redirty it. See the
recent fixes in 2.6.21-rc7.

Above I present a codepath called straight from sys_write() which seems to do what I say. I could be wrong, but can you address the code paths I show above which seem to set both?
-- Ethan
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