kernel/linux.git/fs/fs-writeback.c, branch v6.19.11

writeback: don't block sync for filesystems with no data integrity guarantees

2026-04-02T11:25:43+00:00

commit 76f9377cd2ab7a9220c25d33940d9ca20d368172 upstream. Add a SB_I_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY superblock flag for filesystems that cannot guarantee data persistence on sync (eg fuse). For superblocks with this flag set, sync kicks off writeback of dirty inodes but does not wait for the flusher threads to complete the writeback. This replaces the per-inode AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mapping flag added in commit f9a49aa302a0 ("fs/writeback: skip AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mappings in wait_sb_inodes()"). The flag belongs at the superblock level because data integrity is a filesystem-wide property, not a per-inode one. Having this flag at the superblock level also allows us to skip having to iterate every dirty inode in wait_sb_inodes() only to skip each inode individually. Prior to this commit, mappings with no data integrity guarantees skipped waiting on writeback completion but still waited on the flusher threads to finish initiating the writeback. Waiting on the flusher threads is unnecessary. This commit kicks off writeback but does not wait on the flusher threads. This change properly addresses a recent report [1] for a suspend-to-RAM hang seen on fuse-overlayfs that was caused by waiting on the flusher threads to finish: Workqueue: pm_fs_sync pm_fs_sync_work_fn Call Trace: __schedule+0x457/0x1720 schedule+0x27/0xd0 wb_wait_for_completion+0x97/0xe0 sync_inodes_sb+0xf8/0x2e0 __iterate_supers+0xdc/0x160 ksys_sync+0x43/0xb0 pm_fs_sync_work_fn+0x17/0xa0 process_one_work+0x193/0x350 worker_thread+0x1a1/0x310 kthread+0xfc/0x240 ret_from_fork+0x243/0x280 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 On fuse this is problematic because there are paths that may cause the flusher thread to block (eg if systemd freezes the user session cgroups first, which freezes the fuse daemon, before invoking the kernel suspend. The kernel suspend triggers ->write_node() which on fuse issues a synchronous setattr request, which cannot be processed since the daemon is frozen. Or if the daemon is buggy and cannot properly complete writeback, initiating writeback on a dirty folio already under writeback leads to writeback_get_folio() -> folio_prepare_writeback() -> unconditional wait on writeback to finish, which will cause a hang). This commit restores fuse to its prior behavior before tmp folios were removed, where sync was essentially a no-op. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/CAJnrk1a-asuvfrbKXbEwwDSctvemF+6zfhdnuzO65Pt8HsFSRw@mail.gmail.com/T/#m632c4648e9cafc4239299887109ebd880ac6c5c1 Fixes: 0c58a97f919c ("fuse: remove tmp folio for writebacks and internal rb tree") Reported-by: John Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Joanne Koong Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260320005145.2483161-2-joannelkoong@gmail.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Reviewed-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

writeback: Fix wakeup and logging timeouts for !DETECT_HUNG_TASK

2026-03-04T12:20:51+00:00

[ Upstream commit 9eed043d10f17301c1b5141e16bb98a85a8fd07e ] Recent changes of fs-writeback cause such warnings if DETECT_HUNG_TASK is not enabled: INFO: The task sync:1342 has been waiting for writeback completion for more than 1 seconds. The reason is sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs is 0 when DETECT_HUNG_TASK is not enabled, then it causes the warning message even if the writeback lasts for only one second. Guard the wakeup and logging with "#ifdef CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK" can eliminate the warning messages. But on the other hand, it is possible that sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs be also 0 when DETECT_HUNG_TASK is enabled. So let's just check the value of sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs to decide whether do wakeup and logging. Fixes: 1888635532fb ("writeback: Wake up waiting tasks when finishing the writeback of a chunk.") Fixes: d6e621590764 ("writeback: Add logging for slow writeback (exceeds sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs)") Signed-off-by: Huacai Chen Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260203094014.2273240-1-chenhuacai@loongson.cn Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

Merge tag 'vfs-6.19-rc8.fixes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs

2026-01-26T17:30:48+00:00

Pull vfs fixes from Christian Brauner: - Fix the the buggy conversion of fuse_reverse_inval_entry() introduced during the creation rework - Disallow nfs delegation requests for directories by setting simple_nosetlease() - Require an opt-in for getting readdir flag bits outside of S_DT_MASK set in d_type - Fix scheduling delayed writeback work by only scheduling when the dirty time expiry interval is non-zero and cancel the delayed work if the interval is set to zero - Use rounded_jiffies_interval for dirty time work - Check the return value of sb_set_blocksize() for romfs - Wait for batched folios to be stable in __iomap_get_folio() - Use private naming for fuse hash size - Fix the stale dentry cleanup to prevent a race that causes a UAF * tag 'vfs-6.19-rc8.fixes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs: vfs: document d_dispose_if_unused() fuse: shrink once after all buckets have been scanned fuse: clean up fuse_dentry_tree_work() fuse: add need_resched() before unlocking bucket fuse: make sure dentry is evicted if stale fuse: fix race when disposing stale dentries fuse: use private naming for fuse hash size writeback: use round_jiffies_relative for dirtytime_work iomap: wait for batched folios to be stable in __iomap_get_folio romfs: check sb_set_blocksize() return value docs: clarify that dirtytime_expire_seconds=0 disables writeback writeback: fix 100% CPU usage when dirtytime_expire_interval is 0 readdir: require opt-in for d_type flags vboxsf: don't allow delegations to be set on directories ceph: don't allow delegations to be set on directories gfs2: don't allow delegations to be set on directories 9p: don't allow delegations to be set on directories smb/client: properly disallow delegations on directories nfs: properly disallow delegation requests on directories fuse: fix conversion of fuse_reverse_inval_entry() to start_removing()

fs/writeback: skip AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mappings in wait_sb_inodes()

2026-01-19T20:30:01+00:00

Above the while() loop in wait_sb_inodes(), we document that we must wait for all pages under writeback for data integrity. Consequently, if a mapping, like fuse, traditionally does not have data integrity semantics, there is no need to wait at all; we can simply skip these inodes. This restores fuse back to prior behavior where syncs are no-ops. This fixes a user regression where if a system is running a faulty fuse server that does not reply to issued write requests, this causes wait_sb_inodes() to wait forever. Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20260105211737.4105620-2-joannelkoong@gmail.com Fixes: 0c58a97f919c ("fuse: remove tmp folio for writebacks and internal rb tree") Signed-off-by: Joanne Koong Reported-by: Athul Krishna Reported-by: J. Neuschäfer Reviewed-by: Bernd Schubert Tested-by: J. Neuschäfer Cc: Alexander Viro Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: Bonaccorso Salvatore Cc: Christian Brauner Cc: David Hildenbrand Cc: Jan Kara Cc: "Liam R. Howlett" Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes Cc: "Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)" Cc: Michal Hocko Cc: Mike Rapoport Cc: Miklos Szeredi Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan Cc: Vlastimil Babka Cc: Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton

writeback: use round_jiffies_relative for dirtytime_work

2026-01-14T16:11:43+00:00

The dirtytime_work is a background housekeeping task that flushes dirty inodes, using round_jiffies_relative() will allow kernel to batch this work with other aligned system tasks, reducing power consumption. Signed-off-by: Zhao Mengmeng Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260113082614.231580-1-zhaomzhao@126.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner

writeback: fix 100% CPU usage when dirtytime_expire_interval is 0

2026-01-12T10:07:25+00:00

When vm.dirtytime_expire_seconds is set to 0, wakeup_dirtytime_writeback() schedules delayed work with a delay of 0, causing immediate execution. The function then reschedules itself with 0 delay again, creating an infinite busy loop that causes 100% kworker CPU usage. Fix by: - Only scheduling delayed work in wakeup_dirtytime_writeback() when dirtytime_expire_interval is non-zero - Cancelling the delayed work in dirtytime_interval_handler() when the interval is set to 0 - Adding a guard in start_dirtytime_writeback() for defensive coding Tested by booting kernel in QEMU with virtme-ng: - Before fix: kworker CPU spikes to ~73% - After fix: CPU remains at normal levels - Setting interval back to non-zero correctly resumes writeback Fixes: a2f4870697a5 ("fs: make sure the timestamps for lazytime inodes eventually get written") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Closes: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220227 Signed-off-by: Laveesh Bansal Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260106145059.543282-2-laveeshb@laveeshbansal.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner

Merge tag 'vfs-6.19-rc1.writeback' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs

2025-12-01T17:20:51+00:00

Pull writeback updates from Christian Brauner: "Features: - Allow file systems to increase the minimum writeback chunk size. The relatively low minimal writeback size of 4MiB means that written back inodes on rotational media are switched a lot. Besides introducing additional seeks, this also can lead to extreme file fragmentation on zoned devices when a lot of files are cached relative to the available writeback bandwidth. This adds a superblock field that allows the file system to override the default size, and sets it to the zone size for zoned XFS. - Add logging for slow writeback when it exceeds sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs. This helps identify tasks waiting for a long time and pinpoint potential issues. Recording the starting jiffies is also useful when debugging a crashed vmcore. - Wake up waiting tasks when finishing the writeback of a chunk Cleanups: - filemap_* writeback interface cleanups. Adding filemap_fdatawrite_wbc ended up being a mistake, as all but the original btrfs caller should be using better high level interfaces instead. This series removes all these low-level interfaces, switches btrfs to a more specific interface, and cleans up other too low-level interfaces. With this the writeback_control that is passed to the writeback code is only initialized in three places. - Remove __filemap_fdatawrite, __filemap_fdatawrite_range, and filemap_fdatawrite_wbc - Add filemap_flush_nr helper for btrfs - Push struct writeback_control into start_delalloc_inodes in btrfs - Rename filemap_fdatawrite_range_kick to filemap_flush_range - Stop opencoding filemap_fdatawrite_range in 9p, ocfs2, and mm - Make wbc_to_tag() inline and use it in fs" * tag 'vfs-6.19-rc1.writeback' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs: fs: Make wbc_to_tag() inline and use it in fs. xfs: set s_min_writeback_pages for zoned file systems writeback: allow the file system to override MIN_WRITEBACK_PAGES writeback: cleanup writeback_chunk_size mm: rename filemap_fdatawrite_range_kick to filemap_flush_range mm: remove __filemap_fdatawrite_range mm: remove filemap_fdatawrite_wbc mm: remove __filemap_fdatawrite mm,btrfs: add a filemap_flush_nr helper btrfs: push struct writeback_control into start_delalloc_inodes btrfs: use the local tmp_inode variable in start_delalloc_inodes ocfs2: don't opencode filemap_fdatawrite_range in ocfs2_journal_submit_inode_data_buffers 9p: don't opencode filemap_fdatawrite_range in v9fs_mmap_vm_close mm: don't opencode filemap_fdatawrite_range in filemap_invalidate_inode writeback: Add logging for slow writeback (exceeds sysctl_hung_task_timeout_secs) writeback: Wake up waiting tasks when finishing the writeback of a chunk.

fs: push list presence check into inode_io_list_del()

2025-11-25T09:34:49+00:00

For consistency with sb routines. ext4 is the only consumer outside of evict(). Damage-controlling it is outside of the scope of this cleanup. Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251103230911.516866-1-mjguzik@gmail.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner

fs: cosmetic fixes to lru handling

2025-11-25T09:34:49+00:00

1. inode_bit_waitqueue() was somehow placed between __inode_add_lru() and inode_add_lru(). move it up 2. assert ->i_lock is held in __inode_add_lru instead of just claiming it is needed 3. s/__inode_add_lru/__inode_lru_list_add/ for consistency with itself (inode_lru_list_del()) and similar routines for sb and io list management 4. push list presence check into inode_lru_list_del(), just like sb and io list Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251029131428.654761-2-mjguzik@gmail.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner

writeback: allow the file system to override MIN_WRITEBACK_PAGES

2025-10-29T14:54:31+00:00

The relatively low minimal writeback size of 4MiB means that written back inodes on rotational media are switched a lot. Besides introducing additional seeks, this also can lead to extreme file fragmentation on zoned devices when a lot of files are cached relative to the available writeback bandwidth. Add a superblock field that allows the file system to override the default size. Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251017034611.651385-3-hch@lst.de Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Reviewed-by: Darrick J. Wong Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner