Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] blkcg: prevent priority inversion problem during sync()

[Josef Bacik]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2019 at 07:08:32PM +0100, Andrea Righi wrote:
> Prevent priority inversion problem when a high-priority blkcg issues a
> sync() and it is forced to wait the completion of all the writeback I/O
> generated by any other low-priority blkcg, causing massive latencies to
> processes that shouldn't be I/O-throttled at all.
> 
> The idea is to save a list of blkcg's that are waiting for writeback:
> every time a sync() is executed the current blkcg is added to the list.
> 
> Then, when I/O is throttled, if there's a blkcg waiting for writeback
> different than the current blkcg, no throttling is applied (we can
> probably refine this logic later, i.e., a better policy could be to
> adjust the throttling I/O rate using the blkcg with the highest speed
> from the list of waiters - priority inheritance, kinda).
> 
> Signed-off-by: Andrea Righi <andrea.righi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  block/blk-cgroup.c               | 131 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  block/blk-throttle.c             |  11 ++-
>  fs/fs-writeback.c                |   5 ++
>  fs/sync.c                        |   8 +-
>  include/linux/backing-dev-defs.h |   2 +
>  include/linux/blk-cgroup.h       |  23 ++++++
>  mm/backing-dev.c                 |   2 +
>  7 files changed, 178 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/block/blk-cgroup.c b/block/blk-cgroup.c
> index 2bed5725aa03..4305e78d1bb2 100644
> --- a/block/blk-cgroup.c
> +++ b/block/blk-cgroup.c
> @@ -1351,6 +1351,137 @@ struct cgroup_subsys io_cgrp_subsys = {
>  };
>  EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(io_cgrp_subsys);
>  
> +#ifdef CONFIG_CGROUP_WRITEBACK
> +struct blkcg_wb_sleeper {
> +	struct backing_dev_info *bdi;
> +	struct blkcg *blkcg;
> +	refcount_t refcnt;
> +	struct list_head node;
> +};
> +
> +static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(blkcg_wb_sleeper_lock);
> +static LIST_HEAD(blkcg_wb_sleeper_list);
> +
> +static struct blkcg_wb_sleeper *
> +blkcg_wb_sleeper_find(struct blkcg *blkcg, struct backing_dev_info *bdi)
> +{
> +	struct blkcg_wb_sleeper *bws;
> +
> +	list_for_each_entry(bws, &blkcg_wb_sleeper_list, node)
> +		if (bws->blkcg == blkcg && bws->bdi == bdi)
> +			return bws;
> +	return NULL;
> +}
> +
> +static void blkcg_wb_sleeper_add(struct blkcg_wb_sleeper *bws)
> +{
> +	list_add(&bws->node, &blkcg_wb_sleeper_list);
> +}
> +
> +static void blkcg_wb_sleeper_del(struct blkcg_wb_sleeper *bws)
> +{
> +	list_del_init(&bws->node);
> +}
> +
> +/**
> + * blkcg_wb_waiters_on_bdi - check for writeback waiters on a block device
> + * @blkcg: current blkcg cgroup
> + * @bdi: block device to check
> + *
> + * Return true if any other blkcg different than the current one is waiting for
> + * writeback on the target block device, false otherwise.
> + */
> +bool blkcg_wb_waiters_on_bdi(struct blkcg *blkcg, struct backing_dev_info *bdi)
> +{
> +	struct blkcg_wb_sleeper *bws;
> +	bool ret = false;
> +
> +	spin_lock(&blkcg_wb_sleeper_lock);
> +	list_for_each_entry(bws, &blkcg_wb_sleeper_list, node)
> +		if (bws->bdi == bdi && bws->blkcg != blkcg) {
> +			ret = true;
> +			break;
> +		}
> +	spin_unlock(&blkcg_wb_sleeper_lock);
> +
> +	return ret;
> +}

No global lock please, add something to the bdi I think?  Also have a fast path
of

if (list_empty(blkcg_wb_sleeper_list))
   return false;

we don't need to be super accurate here.  Thanks,

Josef