On Thu, 8 Feb 2007 10:29:45 +0100 Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed 07-02-07 12:56:59, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Wed, 7 Feb 2007 13:46:57 -0700
> > Andreas Dilger <adilger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > On Feb 06, 2007 17:35 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > On Mon, 5 Feb 2007 14:12:04 +0100
> > > > Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > Move the blocks on the temporary inode to the original inode
> > > > > > by a page.
> > > > > > 1. Read the file data from the old blocks to the page
> > > > > > 2. Move the block on the temporary inode to the original inode
> > > > > > 3. Write the file data on the page into the new blocks
> > > > > I have one thing - it's probably not good to use page cache for
> > > > > defragmentation.
> > > >
> > > > Then it is no longer online defragmentation. The issues with maintaining
> > > > correctness and coherency with ongoing VFS activity would be truly ghastly.
> > > >
> > > > If we're worried about pagecache pollution then it would be better to control
> > > > that from userspace via fadvise().
> > >
> > > It should be possible to have the online defrag tool lock the inode against
> > > any changes,
> >
> > Sounds easy when you say it fast. But how do we "lock" against, say, a
> > read pagefault? Only by writing back then removing the pagecache page then
> > reinstantiating it as a locked, not-uptodate page and then removing it from
> > pagecache afterwards prior to unlocking it. Or something.
> >
> > I don't think we want to go there.
> I though Andreas meant "any write changes" - i.e. you check that noone
> has open file descriptor for writing and block any new open for writing.
> That can be done quite easily.
> Anyway, I agree with you that userspace solution to a possible page
> cache pollution is preferable after thinking about it for a while.
> As I've been thinking about it, we could actually do the copying
> from user space. We could do something like:
> block any writes to file (as I described above)
> craft new inode with blocks allocated as we want (using preallocation,
> we should mostly have the kernel infrastructure we need)
> copy data using splice syscall
> call the kernel to switch data
>
I don't think we need to block any writes to any file or anything.
To move a page within a file:
fd = open(file);
p = mmap(fd);
the_page_was_in_core = mincore(p, offset);
munmap(p);
ioctl(fd, ..., new_block);
<kernel>
read_cache_page(inode, offset);
lock_page(page);
if (try_to_free_buffers(page)) {
<relocate the page>
set_page_dirty(page);
}
unlock_page(page);
if (the_page_was_in_core) {
sync_file_range(fd, offset SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE|
SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE|
SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER);
fadvise(fd, offset, FADV_DONTNEED);
}
completely coherent with pagecache, quite safe in the presence of mmap,
mlock, O_DIRECT, everything else. Also fully journallable in-kernel.
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