diff options
author | Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> | 2011-01-14 02:45:48 +0300 |
---|---|---|
committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2011-01-14 04:32:32 +0300 |
commit | b9543dac5bbc4aef0a598965b6b34f6259ab9a9b (patch) | |
tree | 255244e6bb9340d4b8ce1fa6b4d2ed4adece4b15 | |
parent | aa373cf550994623efb5d49a4d8775bafd10bbc1 (diff) | |
download | linux-b9543dac5bbc4aef0a598965b6b34f6259ab9a9b.tar.xz |
writeback: avoid livelocking WB_SYNC_ALL writeback
When wb_writeback() is called in WB_SYNC_ALL mode, work->nr_to_write is
usually set to LONG_MAX. The logic in wb_writeback() then calls
__writeback_inodes_sb() with nr_to_write == MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES and we
easily end up with non-positive nr_to_write after the function returns, if
the inode has more than MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES dirty pages at the moment.
When nr_to_write is <= 0 wb_writeback() decides we need another round of
writeback but this is wrong in some cases! For example when a single
large file is continuously dirtied, we would never finish syncing it
because each pass would be able to write MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES and inode
dirty timestamp never gets updated (as inode is never completely clean).
Thus __writeback_inodes_sb() would write the redirtied inode again and
again.
Fix the issue by setting nr_to_write to LONG_MAX in WB_SYNC_ALL mode. We
do not need nr_to_write in WB_SYNC_ALL mode anyway since
write_cache_pages() does livelock avoidance using page tagging in
WB_SYNC_ALL mode.
This makes wb_writeback() call __writeback_inodes_sb() only once on
WB_SYNC_ALL. The latter function won't livelock because it works on
- a finite set of files by doing queue_io() once at the beginning
- a finite set of pages by PAGECACHE_TAG_TOWRITE page tagging
After this patch, program from http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/10/24/154 is no
longer able to stall sync forever.
[fengguang.wu@intel.com: fix locking comment]
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@medozas.de>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
-rw-r--r-- | fs/fs-writeback.c | 27 |
1 files changed, 23 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/fs/fs-writeback.c b/fs/fs-writeback.c index 9e72d04e706e..e8063c938dd2 100644 --- a/fs/fs-writeback.c +++ b/fs/fs-writeback.c @@ -630,6 +630,7 @@ static long wb_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, }; unsigned long oldest_jif; long wrote = 0; + long write_chunk; struct inode *inode; if (wbc.for_kupdate) { @@ -642,6 +643,24 @@ static long wb_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, wbc.range_end = LLONG_MAX; } + /* + * WB_SYNC_ALL mode does livelock avoidance by syncing dirty + * inodes/pages in one big loop. Setting wbc.nr_to_write=LONG_MAX + * here avoids calling into writeback_inodes_wb() more than once. + * + * The intended call sequence for WB_SYNC_ALL writeback is: + * + * wb_writeback() + * __writeback_inodes_sb() <== called only once + * write_cache_pages() <== called once for each inode + * (quickly) tag currently dirty pages + * (maybe slowly) sync all tagged pages + */ + if (wbc.sync_mode == WB_SYNC_NONE) + write_chunk = MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES; + else + write_chunk = LONG_MAX; + wbc.wb_start = jiffies; /* livelock avoidance */ for (;;) { /* @@ -668,7 +687,7 @@ static long wb_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, break; wbc.more_io = 0; - wbc.nr_to_write = MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES; + wbc.nr_to_write = write_chunk; wbc.pages_skipped = 0; trace_wbc_writeback_start(&wbc, wb->bdi); @@ -678,8 +697,8 @@ static long wb_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, writeback_inodes_wb(wb, &wbc); trace_wbc_writeback_written(&wbc, wb->bdi); - work->nr_pages -= MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES - wbc.nr_to_write; - wrote += MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES - wbc.nr_to_write; + work->nr_pages -= write_chunk - wbc.nr_to_write; + wrote += write_chunk - wbc.nr_to_write; /* * If we consumed everything, see if we have more @@ -694,7 +713,7 @@ static long wb_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, /* * Did we write something? Try for more */ - if (wbc.nr_to_write < MAX_WRITEBACK_PAGES) + if (wbc.nr_to_write < write_chunk) continue; /* * Nothing written. Wait for some inode to |