Commit Graph

97 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Darrick J. Wong
7d311cdab6 bdi: allow block devices to say that they require stable page writes
This patchset ("stable page writes, part 2") makes some key
modifications to the original 'stable page writes' patchset.  First, it
provides creators (devices and filesystems) of a backing_dev_info a flag
that declares whether or not it is necessary to ensure that page
contents cannot change during writeout.  It is no longer assumed that
this is true of all devices (which was never true anyway).  Second, the
flag is used to relaxed the wait_on_page_writeback calls so that wait
only occurs if the device needs it.  Third, it fixes up the remaining
disk-backed filesystems to use this improved conditional-wait logic to
provide stable page writes on those filesystems.

It is hoped that (for people not using checksumming devices, anyway)
this patchset will give back unnecessary performance decreases since the
original stable page write patchset went into 3.0.  Sorry about not
fixing it sooner.

Complaints were registered by several people about the long write
latencies introduced by the original stable page write patchset.
Generally speaking, the kernel ought to allocate as little extra memory
as possible to facilitate writeout, but for people who simply cannot
wait, a second page stability strategy is (re)introduced: snapshotting
page contents.  The waiting behavior is still the default strategy; to
enable page snapshotting, a superblock flag (MS_SNAP_STABLE) must be
set.  This flag is used to bandaid^Henable stable page writeback on
ext3[1], and is not used anywhere else.

Given that there are already a few storage devices and network FSes that
have rolled their own page stability wait/page snapshot code, it would
be nice to move towards consolidating all of these.  It seems possible
that iscsi and raid5 may wish to use the new stable page write support
to enable zero-copy writeout.

Thank you to Jan Kara for helping fix a couple more filesystems.

Per Andrew Morton's request, here are the result of using dbench to measure
latencies on ext2:

3.8.0-rc3:
   Operation      Count    AvgLat    MaxLat
   ----------------------------------------
   WriteX        109347     0.028    59.817
   ReadX         347180     0.004     3.391
   Flush          15514    29.828   287.283

  Throughput 57.429 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=287.290 ms

3.8.0-rc3 + patches:
   WriteX        105556     0.029     4.273
   ReadX         335004     0.005     4.112
   Flush          14982    30.540   298.634

  Throughput 55.4496 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=298.650 ms

As you can see, for ext2 the maximum write latency decreases from ~60ms
on a laptop hard disk to ~4ms.  I'm not sure why the flush latencies
increase, though I suspect that being able to dirty pages faster gives
the flusher more work to do.

On ext4, the average write latency decreases as well as all the maximum
latencies:

3.8.0-rc3:
   WriteX         85624     0.152    33.078
   ReadX         272090     0.010    61.210
   Flush          12129    36.219   168.260

  Throughput 44.8618 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=168.276 ms

3.8.0-rc3 + patches:
   WriteX         86082     0.141    30.928
   ReadX         273358     0.010    36.124
   Flush          12214    34.800   165.689

  Throughput 44.9941 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=165.722 ms

XFS seems to exhibit similar latency improvements as ext2:

3.8.0-rc3:
   WriteX        125739     0.028   104.343
   ReadX         399070     0.005     4.115
   Flush          17851    25.004   131.390

  Throughput 66.0024 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=131.406 ms

3.8.0-rc3 + patches:
   WriteX        123529     0.028     6.299
   ReadX         392434     0.005     4.287
   Flush          17549    25.120   188.687

  Throughput 64.9113 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=188.704 ms

...and btrfs, just to round things out, also shows some latency
decreases:

3.8.0-rc3:
   WriteX         67122     0.083    82.355
   ReadX         212719     0.005     2.828
   Flush           9547    47.561   147.418

  Throughput 35.3391 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=147.433 ms

3.8.0-rc3 + patches:
   WriteX         64898     0.101    71.631
   ReadX         206673     0.005     7.123
   Flush           9190    47.963   219.034

  Throughput 34.0795 MB/sec  4 clients  4 procs  max_latency=219.044 ms

Before this patchset, all filesystems would block, regardless of whether
or not it was necessary.  ext3 would wait, but still generate occasional
checksum errors.  The network filesystems were left to do their own
thing, so they'd wait too.

After this patchset, all the disk filesystems except ext3 and btrfs will
wait only if the hardware requires it.  ext3 (if necessary) snapshots
pages instead of blocking, and btrfs provides its own bdi so the mm will
never wait.  Network filesystems haven't been touched, so either they
provide their own wait code, or they don't block at all.  The blocking
behavior is back to what it was before 3.0 if you don't have a disk
requiring stable page writes.

This patchset has been tested on 3.8.0-rc3 on x64 with ext3, ext4, and
xfs.  I've spot-checked 3.8.0-rc4 and seem to be getting the same
results as -rc3.

[1] The alternative fixes to ext3 include fixing the locking order and
page bit handling like we did for ext4 (but then why not just use
ext4?), or setting PG_writeback so early that ext3 becomes extremely
slow.  I tried that, but the number of write()s I could initiate dropped
by nearly an order of magnitude.  That was a bit much even for the
author of the stable page series! :)

This patch:

Creates a per-backing-device flag that tracks whether or not pages must
be held immutable during writeout.  Eventually it will be used to waive
wait_for_page_writeback() if nothing requires stable pages.

Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@gmail.com>
Cc: Joel Becker <jlbec@evilplan.org>
Cc: Mark Fasheh <mfasheh@suse.com>
Cc: Steven Whitehouse <swhiteho@redhat.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Cc: Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>
Cc: Ron Minnich <rminnich@sandia.gov>
Cc: Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-02-21 17:22:19 -08:00
Linus Torvalds
9360b53661 Revert "bdi: add a user-tunable cpu_list for the bdi flusher threads"
This reverts commit 8fa72d234d.

People disagree about how this should be done, so let's revert this for
now so that nobody starts using the new tuning interface.  Tejun is
thinking about a more generic interface for thread pool affinity.

Requested-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-12-17 11:29:09 -08:00
Jeff Moyer
8fa72d234d bdi: add a user-tunable cpu_list for the bdi flusher threads
In realtime environments, it may be desirable to keep the per-bdi
flusher threads from running on certain cpus.  This patch adds a
cpu_list file to /sys/class/bdi/* to enable this.  The default is to tie
the flusher threads to the same numa node as the backing device (though
I could be convinced to make it a mask of all cpus to avoid a change in
behaviour).

Thanks to Jeremy Eder for the original idea.

Signed-off-by: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
2012-12-05 20:17:21 +01:00
Namjae Jeon
7034ed132f backing-dev: use kstrto* in preference to simple_strtoul
Fix checkpatch warnings:

WARNING: consider using kstrto* in preference to simple_strtoul

for the below sys entry parsers:
/sys/block/<block device>/bdi/read_ahead_kb
/sys/block/<block device>/bdi/max_ratio
/sys/block/<block device>/bdi/min_ratio

Signed-off-by: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Vivek Trivedi <vtrivedi018@gmail.com>
2012-08-25 16:58:14 +08:00
Artem Bityutskiy
f0cd2dbb6c vfs: kill write_super and sync_supers
Finally we can kill the 'sync_supers' kernel thread along with the
'->write_super()' superblock operation because all the users are gone.
Now every file-system is supposed to self-manage own superblock and
its dirty state.

The nice thing about killing this thread is that it improves power management.
Indeed, 'sync_supers' is a source of monotonic system wake-ups - it woke up
every 5 seconds no matter what - even if there were no dirty superblocks and
even if there were no file-systems using this service (e.g., btrfs and
journalled ext4 do not need it). So it was wasting power most of the time. And
because the thread was in the core of the kernel, all systems had to have it.
So I am quite happy to make it go away.

Interestingly, this thread is a left-over from the pdflush kernel thread which
was a self-forking kernel thread responsible for all the write-back in old
Linux kernels. It was turned into per-block device BDI threads, and
'sync_supers' was a left-over. Thus, R.I.P, pdflush as well.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2012-08-04 01:24:44 +04:00
Wanpeng Li
3965c9ae47 mm: prepare for removal of obsolete /proc/sys/vm/nr_pdflush_threads
Since per-BDI flusher threads were introduced in 2.6, the pdflush
mechanism is not used any more.  But the old interface exported through
/proc/sys/vm/nr_pdflush_threads still exists and is obviously useless.

For back-compatibility, printk warning information and return 2 to notify
the users that the interface is removed.

Signed-off-by: Wanpeng Li <liwp@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-31 18:42:40 -07:00
Jan Kara
eb608e3a34 block: Convert BDI proportion calculations to flexible proportions
Convert calculations of proportion of writeback each bdi does to new flexible
proportion code. That allows us to use aging period of fixed wallclock time
which gives better proportion estimates given the hugely varying throughput of
different devices.

Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2012-06-09 08:37:56 +09:00
Rabin Vincent
2673b4cf5d backing-dev: fix wakeup timer races with bdi_unregister()
While 7a401a972d ("backing-dev: ensure wakeup_timer is deleted")
addressed the problem of the bdi being freed with a queued wakeup
timer, there are other races that could happen if the wakeup timer
expires after/during bdi_unregister(), before bdi_destroy() is called.

wakeup_timer_fn() could attempt to wakeup a task which has already has
been freed, or could access a NULL bdi->dev via the wake_forker_thread
tracepoint.

Cc: <stable@kernel.org>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Reported-by: Chanho Min <chanho.min@lge.com>
Reviewed-by: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Rabin Vincent <rabin@rab.in>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2012-02-01 16:52:49 +08:00
Tejun Heo
8a32c441c1 freezer: implement and use kthread_freezable_should_stop()
Writeback and thinkpad_acpi have been using thaw_process() to prevent
deadlock between the freezer and kthread_stop(); unfortunately, this
is inherently racy - nothing prevents freezing from happening between
thaw_process() and kthread_stop().

This patch implements kthread_freezable_should_stop() which enters
refrigerator if necessary but is guaranteed to return if
kthread_stop() is invoked.  Both thaw_process() users are converted to
use the new function.

Note that this deadlock condition exists for many of freezable
kthreads.  They need to be converted to use the new should_stop or
freezable workqueue.

Tested with synthetic test case.

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <ibm-acpi@hmh.eng.br>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
2011-11-21 12:32:23 -08:00
Rabin Vincent
7a401a972d backing-dev: ensure wakeup_timer is deleted
bdi_prune_sb() in bdi_unregister() attempts to removes the bdi links
from all super_blocks and then del_timer_sync() the writeback timer.

However, this can race with __mark_inode_dirty(), leading to
bdi_wakeup_thread_delayed() rearming the writeback timer on the bdi
we're unregistering, after we've called del_timer_sync().

This can end up with the bdi being freed with an active timer inside it,
as in the case of the following dump after the removal of an SD card.

Fix this by redoing the del_timer_sync() in bdi_destory().

 ------------[ cut here ]------------
 WARNING: at /home/rabin/kernel/arm/lib/debugobjects.c:262 debug_print_object+0x9c/0xc8()
 ODEBUG: free active (active state 0) object type: timer_list hint: wakeup_timer_fn+0x0/0x180
 Modules linked in:
 Backtrace:
 [<c00109dc>] (dump_backtrace+0x0/0x110) from [<c0236e4c>] (dump_stack+0x18/0x1c)
  r6:c02bc638 r5:00000106 r4:c79f5d18 r3:00000000
 [<c0236e34>] (dump_stack+0x0/0x1c) from [<c0025e6c>] (warn_slowpath_common+0x54/0x6c)
 [<c0025e18>] (warn_slowpath_common+0x0/0x6c) from [<c0025f28>] (warn_slowpath_fmt+0x38/0x40)
  r8:20000013 r7:c780c6f0 r6:c031613c r5:c780c6f0 r4:c02b1b29
 r3:00000009
 [<c0025ef0>] (warn_slowpath_fmt+0x0/0x40) from [<c015eb4c>] (debug_print_object+0x9c/0xc8)
  r3:c02b1b29 r2:c02bc662
 [<c015eab0>] (debug_print_object+0x0/0xc8) from [<c015f574>] (debug_check_no_obj_freed+0xac/0x1dc)
  r6:c7964000 r5:00000001 r4:c7964000
 [<c015f4c8>] (debug_check_no_obj_freed+0x0/0x1dc) from [<c00a9e38>] (kmem_cache_free+0x88/0x1f8)
 [<c00a9db0>] (kmem_cache_free+0x0/0x1f8) from [<c014286c>] (blk_release_queue+0x70/0x78)
 [<c01427fc>] (blk_release_queue+0x0/0x78) from [<c015290c>] (kobject_release+0x70/0x84)
  r5:c79641f0 r4:c796420c
 [<c015289c>] (kobject_release+0x0/0x84) from [<c0153ce4>] (kref_put+0x68/0x80)
  r7:00000083 r6:c74083d0 r5:c015289c r4:c796420c
 [<c0153c7c>] (kref_put+0x0/0x80) from [<c01527d0>] (kobject_put+0x48/0x5c)
  r5:c79643b4 r4:c79641f0
 [<c0152788>] (kobject_put+0x0/0x5c) from [<c013ddd8>] (blk_cleanup_queue+0x68/0x74)
  r4:c7964000
 [<c013dd70>] (blk_cleanup_queue+0x0/0x74) from [<c01a6370>] (mmc_blk_put+0x78/0xe8)
  r5:00000000 r4:c794c400
 [<c01a62f8>] (mmc_blk_put+0x0/0xe8) from [<c01a64b4>] (mmc_blk_release+0x24/0x38)
  r5:c794c400 r4:c0322824
 [<c01a6490>] (mmc_blk_release+0x0/0x38) from [<c00de11c>] (__blkdev_put+0xe8/0x170)
  r5:c78d5e00 r4:c74083c0
 [<c00de034>] (__blkdev_put+0x0/0x170) from [<c00de2c0>] (blkdev_put+0x11c/0x12c)
  r8:c79f5f70 r7:00000001 r6:c74083d0 r5:00000083 r4:c74083c0
 r3:00000000
 [<c00de1a4>] (blkdev_put+0x0/0x12c) from [<c00b0724>] (kill_block_super+0x60/0x6c)
  r7:c7942300 r6:c79f4000 r5:00000083 r4:c74083c0
 [<c00b06c4>] (kill_block_super+0x0/0x6c) from [<c00b0a94>] (deactivate_locked_super+0x44/0x70)
  r6:c79f4000 r5:c031af64 r4:c794dc00 r3:c00b06c4
 [<c00b0a50>] (deactivate_locked_super+0x0/0x70) from [<c00b1358>] (deactivate_super+0x6c/0x70)
  r5:c794dc00 r4:c794dc00
 [<c00b12ec>] (deactivate_super+0x0/0x70) from [<c00c88b0>] (mntput_no_expire+0x188/0x194)
  r5:c794dc00 r4:c7942300
 [<c00c8728>] (mntput_no_expire+0x0/0x194) from [<c00c95e0>] (sys_umount+0x2e4/0x310)
  r6:c7942300 r5:00000000 r4:00000000 r3:00000000
 [<c00c92fc>] (sys_umount+0x0/0x310) from [<c000d940>] (ret_fast_syscall+0x0/0x30)
 ---[ end trace e5c83c92ada51c76 ]---

Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Rabin Vincent <rabin.vincent@stericsson.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
2011-11-11 13:29:04 +01:00
Linus Torvalds
208bca0860 Merge branch 'writeback-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wfg/linux
* 'writeback-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wfg/linux:
  writeback: Add a 'reason' to wb_writeback_work
  writeback: send work item to queue_io, move_expired_inodes
  writeback: trace event balance_dirty_pages
  writeback: trace event bdi_dirty_ratelimit
  writeback: fix ppc compile warnings on do_div(long long, unsigned long)
  writeback: per-bdi background threshold
  writeback: dirty position control - bdi reserve area
  writeback: control dirty pause time
  writeback: limit max dirty pause time
  writeback: IO-less balance_dirty_pages()
  writeback: per task dirty rate limit
  writeback: stabilize bdi->dirty_ratelimit
  writeback: dirty rate control
  writeback: add bg_threshold parameter to __bdi_update_bandwidth()
  writeback: dirty position control
  writeback: account per-bdi accumulated dirtied pages
2011-11-06 19:02:23 -08:00
Andrew Morton
20c8c62891 mm-add-comment-explaining-task-state-setting-in-bdi_forker_thread-fix
fiddle wording

Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-10-31 17:30:49 -07:00
Curt Wohlgemuth
0e175a1835 writeback: Add a 'reason' to wb_writeback_work
This creates a new 'reason' field in a wb_writeback_work
structure, which unambiguously identifies who initiates
writeback activity.  A 'wb_reason' enumeration has been
added to writeback.h, to enumerate the possible reasons.

The 'writeback_work_class' and tracepoint event class and
'writeback_queue_io' tracepoints are updated to include the
symbolic 'reason' in all trace events.

And the 'writeback_inodes_sbXXX' family of routines has had
a wb_stats parameter added to them, so callers can specify
why writeback is being started.

Acked-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Curt Wohlgemuth <curtw@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-10-31 00:33:36 +08:00
Wu Fengguang
7381131cbc writeback: stabilize bdi->dirty_ratelimit
There are some imperfections in balanced_dirty_ratelimit.

1) large fluctuations

The dirty_rate used for computing balanced_dirty_ratelimit is merely
averaged in the past 200ms (very small comparing to the 3s estimation
period for write_bw), which makes rather dispersed distribution of
balanced_dirty_ratelimit.

It's pretty hard to average out the singular points by increasing the
estimation period. Considering that the averaging technique will
introduce very undesirable time lags, I give it up totally. (btw, the 3s
write_bw averaging time lag is much more acceptable because its impact
is one-way and therefore won't lead to oscillations.)

The more practical way is filtering -- most singular
balanced_dirty_ratelimit points can be filtered out by remembering some
prev_balanced_rate and prev_prev_balanced_rate. However the more
reliable way is to guard balanced_dirty_ratelimit with task_ratelimit.

2) due to truncates and fs redirties, the (write_bw <=> dirty_rate)
match could become unbalanced, which may lead to large systematical
errors in balanced_dirty_ratelimit. The truncates, due to its possibly
bumpy nature, can hardly be compensated smoothly. So let's face it. When
some over-estimated balanced_dirty_ratelimit brings dirty_ratelimit
high, dirty pages will go higher than the setpoint. task_ratelimit will
in turn become lower than dirty_ratelimit.  So if we consider both
balanced_dirty_ratelimit and task_ratelimit and update dirty_ratelimit
only when they are on the same side of dirty_ratelimit, the systematical
errors in balanced_dirty_ratelimit won't be able to bring
dirty_ratelimit far away.

The balanced_dirty_ratelimit estimation may also be inaccurate near
@limit or @freerun, however is less an issue.

3) since we ultimately want to

- keep the fluctuations of task ratelimit as small as possible
- keep the dirty pages around the setpoint as long time as possible

the update policy used for (2) also serves the above goals nicely:
if for some reason the dirty pages are high (task_ratelimit < dirty_ratelimit),
and dirty_ratelimit is low (dirty_ratelimit < balanced_dirty_ratelimit),
there is no point to bring up dirty_ratelimit in a hurry only to hurt
both the above two goals.

So, we make use of task_ratelimit to limit the update of dirty_ratelimit
in two ways:

1) avoid changing dirty rate when it's against the position control target
   (the adjusted rate will slow down the progress of dirty pages going
   back to setpoint).

2) limit the step size. task_ratelimit is changing values step by step,
   leaving a consistent trace comparing to the randomly jumping
   balanced_dirty_ratelimit. task_ratelimit also has the nice smaller
   errors in stable state and typically larger errors when there are big
   errors in rate.  So it's a pretty good limiting factor for the step
   size of dirty_ratelimit.

Note that bdi->dirty_ratelimit is always tracking balanced_dirty_ratelimit.
task_ratelimit is merely used as a limiting factor.

Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-10-03 21:08:57 +08:00
Wu Fengguang
be3ffa2764 writeback: dirty rate control
It's all about bdi->dirty_ratelimit, which aims to be (write_bw / N)
when there are N dd tasks.

On write() syscall, use bdi->dirty_ratelimit
============================================

    balance_dirty_pages(pages_dirtied)
    {
        task_ratelimit = bdi->dirty_ratelimit * bdi_position_ratio();
        pause = pages_dirtied / task_ratelimit;
        sleep(pause);
    }

On every 200ms, update bdi->dirty_ratelimit
===========================================

    bdi_update_dirty_ratelimit()
    {
        task_ratelimit = bdi->dirty_ratelimit * bdi_position_ratio();
        balanced_dirty_ratelimit = task_ratelimit * write_bw / dirty_rate;
        bdi->dirty_ratelimit = balanced_dirty_ratelimit
    }

Estimation of balanced bdi->dirty_ratelimit
===========================================

balanced task_ratelimit
-----------------------

balance_dirty_pages() needs to throttle tasks dirtying pages such that
the total amount of dirty pages stays below the specified dirty limit in
order to avoid memory deadlocks. Furthermore we desire fairness in that
tasks get throttled proportionally to the amount of pages they dirty.

IOW we want to throttle tasks such that we match the dirty rate to the
writeout bandwidth, this yields a stable amount of dirty pages:

        dirty_rate == write_bw                                          (1)

The fairness requirement gives us:

        task_ratelimit = balanced_dirty_ratelimit
                       == write_bw / N                                  (2)

where N is the number of dd tasks.  We don't know N beforehand, but
still can estimate balanced_dirty_ratelimit within 200ms.

Start by throttling each dd task at rate

        task_ratelimit = task_ratelimit_0                               (3)
                         (any non-zero initial value is OK)

After 200ms, we measured

        dirty_rate = # of pages dirtied by all dd's / 200ms
        write_bw   = # of pages written to the disk / 200ms

For the aggressive dd dirtiers, the equality holds

        dirty_rate == N * task_rate
                   == N * task_ratelimit_0                              (4)
Or
        task_ratelimit_0 == dirty_rate / N                              (5)

Now we conclude that the balanced task ratelimit can be estimated by

                                                      write_bw
        balanced_dirty_ratelimit = task_ratelimit_0 * ----------        (6)
                                                      dirty_rate

Because with (4) and (5) we can get the desired equality (1):

                                                       write_bw
        balanced_dirty_ratelimit == (dirty_rate / N) * ----------
                                                       dirty_rate
                                 == write_bw / N

Then using the balanced task ratelimit we can compute task pause times like:

        task_pause = task->nr_dirtied / task_ratelimit

task_ratelimit with position control
------------------------------------

However, while the above gives us means of matching the dirty rate to
the writeout bandwidth, it at best provides us with a stable dirty page
count (assuming a static system). In order to control the dirty page
count such that it is high enough to provide performance, but does not
exceed the specified limit we need another control.

The dirty position control works by extending (2) to

        task_ratelimit = balanced_dirty_ratelimit * pos_ratio           (7)

where pos_ratio is a negative feedback function that subjects to

1) f(setpoint) = 1.0
2) df/dx < 0

That is, if the dirty pages are ABOVE the setpoint, we throttle each
task a bit more HEAVY than balanced_dirty_ratelimit, so that the dirty
pages are created less fast than they are cleaned, thus DROP to the
setpoints (and the reverse).

Based on (7) and the assumption that both dirty_ratelimit and pos_ratio
remains CONSTANT for the past 200ms, we get

        task_ratelimit_0 = balanced_dirty_ratelimit * pos_ratio         (8)

Putting (8) into (6), we get the formula used in
bdi_update_dirty_ratelimit():

                                                write_bw
        balanced_dirty_ratelimit *= pos_ratio * ----------              (9)
                                                dirty_rate

Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-10-03 21:08:56 +08:00
Wu Fengguang
c8e28ce049 writeback: account per-bdi accumulated dirtied pages
Introduce the BDI_DIRTIED counter. It will be used for estimating the
bdi's dirty bandwidth.

CC: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
CC: Michael Rubin <mrubin@google.com>
CC: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-10-03 21:08:56 +08:00
Jan Kara
09f40f98bf mm: Add comment explaining task state setting in bdi_forker_thread()
CC: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
CC: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-09-02 17:17:02 -06:00
Jan Kara
5a042aa4b8 mm: Cleanup clearing of BDI_pending bit in bdi_forker_thread()
bdi_forker_thread() clears BDI_pending bit at the end of the main loop.
However clearing of this bit must not be done in some cases which is
handled by calling 'continue' from switch statement. That's kind of
unusual construct and without a good reason so change the function into
more intuitive code flow.

CC: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
CC: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-09-02 17:17:02 -06:00
Linus Torvalds
f01ef569cd Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wfg/writeback
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wfg/writeback: (27 commits)
  mm: properly reflect task dirty limits in dirty_exceeded logic
  writeback: don't busy retry writeback on new/freeing inodes
  writeback: scale IO chunk size up to half device bandwidth
  writeback: trace global_dirty_state
  writeback: introduce max-pause and pass-good dirty limits
  writeback: introduce smoothed global dirty limit
  writeback: consolidate variable names in balance_dirty_pages()
  writeback: show bdi write bandwidth in debugfs
  writeback: bdi write bandwidth estimation
  writeback: account per-bdi accumulated written pages
  writeback: make writeback_control.nr_to_write straight
  writeback: skip tmpfs early in balance_dirty_pages_ratelimited_nr()
  writeback: trace event writeback_queue_io
  writeback: trace event writeback_single_inode
  writeback: remove .nonblocking and .encountered_congestion
  writeback: remove writeback_control.more_io
  writeback: skip balance_dirty_pages() for in-memory fs
  writeback: add bdi_dirty_limit() kernel-doc
  writeback: avoid extra sync work at enqueue time
  writeback: elevate queue_io() into wb_writeback()
  ...

Fix up trivial conflicts in fs/fs-writeback.c and mm/filemap.c
2011-07-26 10:39:54 -07:00
Linus Torvalds
45b583b10a Merge 'akpm' patch series
* Merge akpm patch series: (122 commits)
  drivers/connector/cn_proc.c: remove unused local
  Documentation/SubmitChecklist: add RCU debug config options
  reiserfs: use hweight_long()
  reiserfs: use proper little-endian bitops
  pnpacpi: register disabled resources
  drivers/rtc/rtc-tegra.c: properly initialize spinlock
  drivers/rtc/rtc-twl.c: check return value of twl_rtc_write_u8() in twl_rtc_set_time()
  drivers/rtc: add support for Qualcomm PMIC8xxx RTC
  drivers/rtc/rtc-s3c.c: support clock gating
  drivers/rtc/rtc-mpc5121.c: add support for RTC on MPC5200
  init: skip calibration delay if previously done
  misc/eeprom: add eeprom access driver for digsy_mtc board
  misc/eeprom: add driver for microwire 93xx46 EEPROMs
  checkpatch.pl: update $logFunctions
  checkpatch: make utf-8 test --strict
  checkpatch.pl: add ability to ignore various messages
  checkpatch: add a "prefer __aligned" check
  checkpatch: validate signature styles and To: and Cc: lines
  checkpatch: add __rcu as a sparse modifier
  checkpatch: suggest using min_t or max_t
  ...

Did this as a merge because of (trivial) conflicts in
 - Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt
 - arch/xtensa/include/asm/uaccess.h
that were just easier to fix up in the merge than in the patch series.
2011-07-25 21:00:19 -07:00
Peter Zijlstra
ccb6108f5b mm/backing-dev.c: reset bdi min_ratio in bdi_unregister()
Vito said:

: The system has many usb disks coming and going day to day, with their
: respective bdi's having min_ratio set to 1 when inserted.  It works for
: some time until eventually min_ratio can no longer be set, even when the
: active set of bdi's seen in /sys/class/bdi/*/min_ratio doesn't add up to
: anywhere near 100.
:
: This then leads to an unrelated starvation problem caused by write-heavy
: fuse mounts being used atop the usb disks, a problem the min_ratio setting
: at the underlying devices bdi effectively prevents.

Fix this leakage by resetting the bdi min_ratio when unregistering the
BDI.

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Reported-by: Vito Caputo <lkml@pengaru.com>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>
Cc: <stable@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-07-25 20:57:07 -07:00
Mikulas Patocka
ef3230880a backing-dev: use synchronize_rcu_expedited instead of synchronize_rcu
backing-dev: use synchronize_rcu_expedited instead of synchronize_rcu

synchronize_rcu sleeps several timer ticks. synchronize_rcu_expedited is
much faster.

With 100Hz timer frequency, when we remove 10000 block devices with
"dmsetup remove_all" command, it takes 27 minutes. With this patch,
removing 10000 block devices takes only 15 seconds.

Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-07-23 20:44:24 +02:00
Wu Fengguang
00821b002d writeback: show bdi write bandwidth in debugfs
Add a "BdiWriteBandwidth" entry and indent others in /debug/bdi/*/stats.

btw, increase digital field width to 10, for keeping the possibly
huge BdiWritten number aligned at least for desktop systems.

Impact: this could break user space tools if they are dumb enough to
depend on the number of white spaces.

CC: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
CC: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
CC: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-07-09 22:09:02 -07:00
Wu Fengguang
e98be2d599 writeback: bdi write bandwidth estimation
The estimation value will start from 100MB/s and adapt to the real
bandwidth in seconds.

It tries to update the bandwidth only when disk is fully utilized.
Any inactive period of more than one second will be skipped.

The estimated bandwidth will be reflecting how fast the device can
writeout when _fully utilized_, and won't drop to 0 when it goes idle.
The value will remain constant at disk idle time. At busy write time, if
not considering fluctuations, it will also remain high unless be knocked
down by possible concurrent reads that compete for the disk time and
bandwidth with async writes.

The estimation is not done purely in the flusher because there is no
guarantee for write_cache_pages() to return timely to update bandwidth.

The bdi->avg_write_bandwidth smoothing is very effective for filtering
out sudden spikes, however may be a little biased in long term.

The overheads are low because the bdi bandwidth update only occurs at
200ms intervals.

The 200ms update interval is suitable, because it's not possible to get
the real bandwidth for the instance at all, due to large fluctuations.

The NFS commits can be as large as seconds worth of data. One XFS
completion may be as large as half second worth of data if we are going
to increase the write chunk to half second worth of data. In ext4,
fluctuations with time period of around 5 seconds is observed. And there
is another pattern of irregular periods of up to 20 seconds on SSD tests.

That's why we are not only doing the estimation at 200ms intervals, but
also averaging them over a period of 3 seconds and then go further to do
another level of smoothing in avg_write_bandwidth.

CC: Li Shaohua <shaohua.li@intel.com>
CC: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-07-09 22:09:01 -07:00
Jan Kara
f7d2b1ecd0 writeback: account per-bdi accumulated written pages
Introduce the BDI_WRITTEN counter. It will be used for estimating the
bdi's write bandwidth.

Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>:
Move BDI_WRITTEN accounting into __bdi_writeout_inc().
This will cover and fix fuse, which only calls bdi_writeout_inc().

CC: Michael Rubin <mrubin@google.com>
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-07-09 22:09:01 -07:00
Wu Fengguang
d46db3d582 writeback: make writeback_control.nr_to_write straight
Pass struct wb_writeback_work all the way down to writeback_sb_inodes(),
and initialize the struct writeback_control there.

struct writeback_control is basically designed to control writeback of a
single file, but we keep abuse it for writing multiple files in
writeback_sb_inodes() and its callers.

It immediately clean things up, e.g. suddenly wbc.nr_to_write vs
work->nr_pages starts to make sense, and instead of saving and restoring
pages_skipped in writeback_sb_inodes it can always start with a clean
zero value.

It also makes a neat IO pattern change: large dirty files are now
written in the full 4MB writeback chunk size, rather than whatever
remained quota in wbc->nr_to_write.

Acked-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Proposed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-07-09 22:09:01 -07:00
Christoph Hellwig
f758eeabeb writeback: split inode_wb_list_lock into bdi_writeback.list_lock
Split the global inode_wb_list_lock into a per-bdi_writeback list_lock,
as it's currently the most contended lock in the system for metadata
heavy workloads.  It won't help for single-filesystem workloads for
which we'll need the I/O-less balance_dirty_pages, but at least we
can dedicate a cpu to spinning on each bdi now for larger systems.

Based on earlier patches from Nick Piggin and Dave Chinner.

It reduces lock contentions to 1/4 in this test case:
10 HDD JBOD, 100 dd on each disk, XFS, 6GB ram

lock_stat version 0.3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              class name    con-bounces    contentions   waittime-min   waittime-max waittime-total    acq-bounces   acquisitions   holdtime-min   holdtime-max holdtime-total
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vanilla 2.6.39-rc3:
                      inode_wb_list_lock:         42590          44433           0.12         147.74      144127.35         252274         886792           0.08         121.34      917211.23
                      ------------------
                      inode_wb_list_lock              2          [<ffffffff81165da5>] bdev_inode_switch_bdi+0x29/0x85
                      inode_wb_list_lock             34          [<ffffffff8115bd0b>] inode_wb_list_del+0x22/0x49
                      inode_wb_list_lock          12893          [<ffffffff8115bb53>] __mark_inode_dirty+0x170/0x1d0
                      inode_wb_list_lock          10702          [<ffffffff8115afef>] writeback_single_inode+0x16d/0x20a
                      ------------------
                      inode_wb_list_lock              2          [<ffffffff81165da5>] bdev_inode_switch_bdi+0x29/0x85
                      inode_wb_list_lock             19          [<ffffffff8115bd0b>] inode_wb_list_del+0x22/0x49
                      inode_wb_list_lock           5550          [<ffffffff8115bb53>] __mark_inode_dirty+0x170/0x1d0
                      inode_wb_list_lock           8511          [<ffffffff8115b4ad>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x10f/0x157

2.6.39-rc3 + patch:
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock:         11383          11657           0.14         151.69       40429.51          90825         527918           0.11         145.90      556843.37
                ------------------------
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock             10          [<ffffffff8115b189>] inode_wb_list_del+0x5f/0x86
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock           1493          [<ffffffff8115b1ed>] writeback_inodes_wb+0x3d/0x150
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock           3652          [<ffffffff8115a8e9>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x123/0x16f
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock           1412          [<ffffffff8115a38e>] writeback_single_inode+0x17f/0x223
                ------------------------
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock              3          [<ffffffff8110b5af>] bdi_lock_two+0x46/0x4b
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock              6          [<ffffffff8115b189>] inode_wb_list_del+0x5f/0x86
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock           2061          [<ffffffff8115af97>] __mark_inode_dirty+0x173/0x1cf
                &(&wb->list_lock)->rlock           2629          [<ffffffff8115a8e9>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x123/0x16f

hughd@google.com: fix recursive lock when bdi_lock_two() is called with new the same as old
akpm@linux-foundation.org: cleanup bdev_inode_switch_bdi() comment

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-06-08 08:25:21 +08:00
Gustavo F. Padovan
345227d705 backing-dev: Kill set but not used var in bdi_debug_stats_show()
Signed-off-by: Gustavo F. Padovan <padovan@profusion.mobi>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-05-20 21:23:37 +02:00
Lucas De Marchi
25985edced Fix common misspellings
Fixes generated by 'codespell' and manually reviewed.

Signed-off-by: Lucas De Marchi <lucas.demarchi@profusion.mobi>
2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
Linus Torvalds
d39dd11c3e Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6:
  fs: simplify iget & friends
  fs: pull inode->i_lock up out of writeback_single_inode
  fs: rename inode_lock to inode_hash_lock
  fs: move i_wb_list out from under inode_lock
  fs: move i_sb_list out from under inode_lock
  fs: remove inode_lock from iput_final and prune_icache
  fs: Lock the inode LRU list separately
  fs: factor inode disposal
  fs: protect inode->i_state with inode->i_lock
  autofs4: Do not potentially dereference NULL pointer returned by fget() in autofs_dev_ioctl_setpipefd()
  autofs4 - remove autofs4_lock
  autofs4 - fix d_manage() return on rcu-walk
  autofs4 - fix autofs4_expire_indirect() traversal
  autofs4 - fix dentry leak in autofs4_expire_direct()
  autofs4 - reinstate last used update on access
  vfs - check non-mountpoint dentry might block in __follow_mount_rcu()
2011-03-24 19:01:30 -07:00
Dave Chinner
a66979abad fs: move i_wb_list out from under inode_lock
Protect the inode writeback list with a new global lock
inode_wb_list_lock and use it to protect the list manipulations and
traversals. This lock replaces the inode_lock as the inodes on the
list can be validity checked while holding the inode->i_lock and
hence the inode_lock is no longer needed to protect the list.

Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2011-03-24 21:17:51 -04:00
Jens Axboe
95f28604a6 fs: assign sb->s_bdi to default_backing_dev_info if the bdi is going away
We don't have proper reference counting for this yet, so we run into
cases where the device is pulled and we OOPS on flushing the fs data.
This happens even though the dirty inodes have already been
migrated to the default_backing_dev_info.

Reported-by: Torsten Hilbrich <torsten.hilbrich@secunet.com>
Tested-by: Torsten Hilbrich <torsten.hilbrich@secunet.com>
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-03-17 11:13:12 +01:00
Jens Axboe
7eaceaccab block: remove per-queue plugging
Code has been converted over to the new explicit on-stack plugging,
and delay users have been converted to use the new API for that.
So lets kill off the old plugging along with aops->sync_page().

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2011-03-10 08:52:07 +01:00
Linus Torvalds
426e1f5cec Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6: (52 commits)
  split invalidate_inodes()
  fs: skip I_FREEING inodes in writeback_sb_inodes
  fs: fold invalidate_list into invalidate_inodes
  fs: do not drop inode_lock in dispose_list
  fs: inode split IO and LRU lists
  fs: switch bdev inode bdi's correctly
  fs: fix buffer invalidation in invalidate_list
  fsnotify: use dget_parent
  smbfs: use dget_parent
  exportfs: use dget_parent
  fs: use RCU read side protection in d_validate
  fs: clean up dentry lru modification
  fs: split __shrink_dcache_sb
  fs: improve DCACHE_REFERENCED usage
  fs: use percpu counter for nr_dentry and nr_dentry_unused
  fs: simplify __d_free
  fs: take dcache_lock inside __d_path
  fs: do not assign default i_ino in new_inode
  fs: introduce a per-cpu last_ino allocator
  new helper: ihold()
  ...
2010-10-26 17:58:44 -07:00
Peter Zijlstra
766f916419 kernel: remove PF_FLUSHER
PF_FLUSHER is only ever set, not tested, remove it.

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-10-26 16:52:15 -07:00
Mel Gorman
0e093d9976 writeback: do not sleep on the congestion queue if there are no congested BDIs or if significant congestion is not being encountered in the current zone
If congestion_wait() is called with no BDI congested, the caller will
sleep for the full timeout and this may be an unnecessary sleep.  This
patch adds a wait_iff_congested() that checks congestion and only sleeps
if a BDI is congested else, it calls cond_resched() to ensure the caller
is not hogging the CPU longer than its quota but otherwise will not sleep.

This is aimed at reducing some of the major desktop stalls reported during
IO.  For example, while kswapd is operating, it calls congestion_wait()
but it could just have been reclaiming clean page cache pages with no
congestion.  Without this patch, it would sleep for a full timeout but
after this patch, it'll just call schedule() if it has been on the CPU too
long.  Similar logic applies to direct reclaimers that are not making
enough progress.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-10-26 16:52:07 -07:00
Mel Gorman
52bb919866 writeback: account for time spent congestion_waited
There is strong evidence to indicate a lot of time is being spent in
congestion_wait(), some of it unnecessarily.  This patch adds a tracepoint
for congestion_wait to record when congestion_wait() was called, how long
the timeout was for and how long it actually slept.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-10-26 16:52:07 -07:00
Nick Piggin
7ccf19a804 fs: inode split IO and LRU lists
The use of the same inode list structure (inode->i_list) for two
different list constructs with different lifecycles and purposes
makes it impossible to separate the locking of the different
operations. Therefore, to enable the separation of the locking of
the writeback and reclaim lists, split the inode->i_list into two
separate lists dedicated to their specific tracking functions.

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2010-10-25 21:26:15 -04:00
Jan Kara
976e48f8a5 bdi: Initialize noop_backing_dev_info properly
Properly initialize this backing dev info so that writeback code does not
barf when getting to it e.g. via sb->s_bdi.

Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-09-22 09:48:47 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
6628bc74f1 writeback: do not lose wakeup events when forking bdi threads
This patch fixes the following issue:

INFO: task mount.nfs4:1120 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
mount.nfs4    D 00000000fffc6a21     0  1120   1119 0x00000000
 ffff880235643948 0000000000000046 ffffffff00000000 ffffffff00000000
 ffff880235643fd8 ffff880235314760 00000000001d44c0 ffff880235643fd8
 00000000001d44c0 00000000001d44c0 00000000001d44c0 00000000001d44c0
Call Trace:
 [<ffffffff813bc747>] schedule_timeout+0x34/0xf1
 [<ffffffff813bc530>] ? wait_for_common+0x3f/0x130
 [<ffffffff8106b50b>] ? trace_hardirqs_on+0xd/0xf
 [<ffffffff813bc5c3>] wait_for_common+0xd2/0x130
 [<ffffffff8104159c>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0xf
 [<ffffffff813beaa0>] ? _raw_spin_unlock+0x26/0x2a
 [<ffffffff813bc6bb>] wait_for_completion+0x18/0x1a
 [<ffffffff81101a03>] sync_inodes_sb+0xca/0x1bc
 [<ffffffff811056a6>] __sync_filesystem+0x47/0x7e
 [<ffffffff81105798>] sync_filesystem+0x47/0x4b
 [<ffffffff810e7ffd>] generic_shutdown_super+0x22/0xd2
 [<ffffffff810e80f8>] kill_anon_super+0x11/0x4f
 [<ffffffffa00d06d7>] nfs4_kill_super+0x3f/0x72 [nfs]
 [<ffffffff810e7b68>] deactivate_locked_super+0x21/0x41
 [<ffffffff810e7fd6>] deactivate_super+0x40/0x45
 [<ffffffff810fc66c>] mntput_no_expire+0xb8/0xed
 [<ffffffff810fc73b>] release_mounts+0x9a/0xb0
 [<ffffffff810fc7bb>] put_mnt_ns+0x6a/0x7b
 [<ffffffffa00d0fb2>] nfs_follow_remote_path+0x19a/0x296 [nfs]
 [<ffffffffa00d11ca>] nfs4_try_mount+0x75/0xaf [nfs]
 [<ffffffffa00d1790>] nfs4_get_sb+0x276/0x2ff [nfs]
 [<ffffffff810e7dba>] vfs_kern_mount+0xb8/0x196
 [<ffffffff810e7ef6>] do_kern_mount+0x48/0xe8
 [<ffffffff810fdf68>] do_mount+0x771/0x7e8
 [<ffffffff810fe062>] sys_mount+0x83/0xbd
 [<ffffffff810089c2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

The reason of this hang was a race condition: when the flusher thread is
forking a bdi thread, we use 'kthread_run()', so we run it _before_ we make it
visible in 'bdi->wb.task'. The bdi thread runs, does all works, and goes sleep.
'bdi->wb.task' is still NULL. And this is a dangerous time window.

If at this time someone queues a work for this bdi, he does not see the bdi
thread and wakes up the forker thread instead! But the forker has already
forked this bdi thread, but just did not make it visible yet!

The result is that we lose the wake up event for this bdi thread and the NFS4
code waits forever.

To fix the problem, we should use 'ktrhead_create()' for creating bdi threads,
then make them visible in 'bdi->wb.task', and only after this wake them up.
This is exactly what this patch does.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-27 09:16:18 +02:00
Wu Fengguang
16c4042f08 writeback: avoid unnecessary calculation of bdi dirty thresholds
Split get_dirty_limits() into global_dirty_limits()+bdi_dirty_limit(), so
that the latter can be avoided when under global dirty background
threshold (which is the normal state for most systems).

Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-08-12 08:43:29 -07:00
Jens Axboe
6bf05d03ea writeback: fix bad _bh spinlock nesting
Fix a bug where a lock is _bh nested within another _bh lock,
but forgets to use the _bh variant for unlock.

Further more, it's not necessary to test _bh locks, the inner lock
can just use spin_lock(). So fix up the bug by making that change.

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:57 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
c284de61db writeback: cleanup bdi_register
This patch makes sure we first initialize everything and set the BDI_registered
flag, and only after this we add the bdi to 'bdi_list'. Current code adds the
bdi to the list too early, and as a result I the

WARN(!test_bit(BDI_registered, &bdi->state)

in bdi forker is triggered. Also, it is in general good practice to make things
visible only when they are fully initialized.

Also, this patch does few micro clean-ups:
1. Removes the 'exit' label which does not do anything, just returns. This
   allows to get rid of few braces and 'ret' variable and make the code smaller.
2. If 'kthread_run()' fails, remove the error code it returns, not hard-coded
   '-ENOMEM'. Theoretically, some day 'kthread_run()' can return something
   else. Also, in case of failure it is not necessary to set 'bdi->wb.task' to
   NULL.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:57 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
603320239f writeback: add new tracepoints
Add 2 new trace points to the periodic write-back wake up case, just like we do
in the 'bdi_queue_work()' function. Namely, introduce:

1. trace_writeback_wake_thread(bdi)
2. trace_writeback_wake_forker_thread(bdi)

The first event is triggered every time we wake up a bdi thread to start
periodic background write-out. The second event is triggered only when the bdi
thread does not exist and should be created by the forker thread.

This patch was suggested by Dave Chinner and Christoph Hellwig.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
b5048a6cb5 writeback: remove unnecessary init_timer call
The 'setup_timer()' function also calls 'init_timer()', so the extra
'init_timer()' call is not needed. Indeed, 'setup_timer()' is basically
'init_timer()' plus callback function and data pointers initialization.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
6467716a37 writeback: optimize periodic bdi thread wakeups
Whe the first inode for a bdi is marked dirty, we wake up the bdi thread which
should take care of the periodic background write-out. However, the write-out
will actually start only 'dirty_writeback_interval' centisecs later, so we can
delay the wake-up.

This change was requested by Nick Piggin who pointed out that if we delay the
wake-up, we weed out 2 unnecessary contex switches, which matters because
'__mark_inode_dirty()' is a hot-path function.

This patch introduces a new function - 'bdi_wakeup_thread_delayed()', which
sets up a timer to wake-up the bdi thread and returns. So the wake-up is
delayed.

We also delete the timer in bdi threads just before writing-back. And
synchronously delete it when unregistering bdi. At the unregister point the bdi
does not have any users, so no one can arm it again.

Since now we take 'bdi->wb_lock' in the timer, which can execute in softirq
context, we have to use 'spin_lock_bh()' for 'bdi->wb_lock'. This patch makes
this change as well.

This patch also moves the 'bdi_wb_init()' function down in the file to avoid
forward-declaration of 'bdi_wakeup_thread_delayed()'.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
253c34e9b1 writeback: prevent unnecessary bdi threads wakeups
Finally, we can get rid of unnecessary wake-ups in bdi threads, which are very
bad for battery-driven devices.

There are two types of activities bdi threads do:
1. process bdi works from the 'bdi->work_list'
2. periodic write-back

So there are 2 sources of wake-up events for bdi threads:

1. 'bdi_queue_work()' - submits bdi works
2. '__mark_inode_dirty()' - adds dirty I/O to bdi's

The former already has bdi wake-up code. The latter does not, and this patch
adds it.

'__mark_inode_dirty()' is hot-path function, but this patch adds another
'spin_lock(&bdi->wb_lock)' there. However, it is taken only in rare cases when
the bdi has no dirty inodes. So adding this spinlock should be fine and should
not affect performance.

This patch makes sure bdi threads and the forker thread do not wake-up if there
is nothing to do. The forker thread will nevertheless wake up at least every
5 min. to check whether it has to kill a bdi thread. This can also be optimized,
but is not worth it.

This patch also tidies up the warning about unregistered bid, and turns it from
an ugly crocodile to a simple 'WARN()' statement.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
fff5b85aa4 writeback: move bdi threads exiting logic to the forker thread
Currently, bdi threads can decide to exit if there were no useful activities
for 5 minutes. However, this causes nasty races: we can easily oops in the
'bdi_queue_work()' if the bdi thread decides to exit while we are waking it up.

And even if we do not oops, but the bdi tread exits immediately after we wake
it up, we'd lose the wake-up event and have an unnecessary delay (up to 5 secs)
in the bdi work processing.

This patch makes the forker thread to be the central place which not only
creates bdi threads, but also kills them if they were inactive long enough.
This better design-wise.

Another reason why this change was done is to prepare for the further changes
which will prevent the bdi threads from waking up every 5 sec and wasting
power. Indeed, when the task does not wake up periodically anymore, it won't be
able to exit either.

This patch also moves the the 'wake_up_bit()' call from the bdi thread to the
forker thread as well. So now the forker thread sets the BDI_pending bit, then
forks the task or kills it, then clears the bit and wakes up the waiting
process.

The only process which may wain on the bit is 'bdi_wb_shutdown()'. This
function was changed as well - now it first removes the bdi from the
'bdi_list', then waits on the 'BDI_pending' bit. Once it wakes up, it is
guaranteed that the forker thread won't race with it, because the bdi is not
visible. Note, the forker thread sets the 'BDI_pending' bit under the
'bdi->wb_lock' which is essential for proper serialization.

And additionally, when we change 'bdi->wb.task', we now take the
'bdi->work_lock', to make sure that we do not lose wake-ups which we otherwise
would when raced with, say, 'bdi_queue_work()'.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
adf3924070 writeback: restructure bdi forker loop a little
This patch re-structures the bdi forker a little:
1. Add 'bdi_cap_flush_forker(bdi)' condition check to the bdi loop. The reason
   for this is that the forker thread can start _before_ the 'BDI_registered'
   flag is set (see 'bdi_register()'), so the WARN() statement will fire for
   the default bdi. I observed this warning at boot-up.

2. Introduce an enum 'action' and use "switch" statement in the outer loop.
   This is a preparation to the further patch which will teach the forker
   thread killing bdi threads, so we'll have another case in the "switch"
   statement. This change was suggested by Christoph Hellwig.

This patch is just a small step towards the coming change where the forker
thread will kill the bdi threads. It should simplify reviewing the following
changes, which would otherwise be larger.

This patch also amends comments a little.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00
Artem Bityutskiy
78c40cb658 writeback: do not remove bdi from bdi_list
The forker thread removes bdis from 'bdi_list' before forking the bdi thread.
But this is wrong for at least 2 reasons.

Reason #1: if we temporary remove a bdi from the list, we may miss works which
           would otherwise be given to us.

Reason #2: this is racy; indeed, 'bdi_wb_shutdown()' expects that bdis are
           always in the 'bdi_list' (see 'bdi_remove_from_list()'), and when
           it races with the forker thread, it can shut down the bdi thread
           at the same time as the forker creates it.

This patch makes sure the forker thread never removes bdis from 'bdi_list'
(which was suggested by Christoph Hellwig).

In order to make sure that we do not race with 'bdi_wb_shutdown()', we have to
hold the 'bdi_lock' while walking the 'bdi_list' and setting the 'BDI_pending'
flag.

NOTE! The error path is interesting. Currently, when we fail to create a bdi
thread, we move the bdi to the tail of 'bdi_list'. But if we never remove the
bdi from the list, we cannot move it to the tail either, because then we can
mess up the RCU readers which walk the list. And also, we'll have the race
described above in "Reason #2".

But I not think that adding to the tail is any important so I just do not do
that.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
2010-08-07 18:53:56 +02:00