On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:19:16 -0400 Mingming Cao <cmm@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 18:22 -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:09:40 -0400 Mingming Cao <cmm@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 16:30 -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:37:04 -0400
> > > > Mingming Cao <cmm@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > This patch converts the 32-bit i_version in the generic inode to a 64-bit
> > > > > i_version field.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > That's obvious from the patch. But what was the reason for making this
> > > > (unrelated to ext4) change?
> > > >
> > >
> > > The need is came from NFSv4
> > >
> > > On Fri, 2007-05-25 at 18:25 +0200, Jean noel Cordenner wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > This is an update of the i_version patch.
> > > > The i_version field is a 64bit counter that is set on every inode
> > > > creation and that is incremented every time the inode data is modified
> > > > (similarly to the "ctime" time-stamp).
> > > > The aim is to fulfill a NFSv4 requirement for rfc3530:
> > > > "5.5. Mandatory Attributes - Definitions
> > > > Name # DataType Access Description
> > > > ___________________________________________________________________
> > > > change 3 uint64 READ A value created by the
> > > > server that the client can use to determine if file
> > > > data, directory contents or attributes of the object
> > > > have been modified. The servermay return the object's
> > > > time_metadata attribute for this attribute's value but
> > > > only if the filesystem object can not be updated more
> > > > frequently than the resolution of time_metadata.
> > > > "
> > > >
> > >
> > > > Please update the changelog for this.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Is above description clear to you?
> > >
> >
> > Yes, thanks. It doesn't actually tell us why we want to implement
> > this attribute and it doesn't tell us what the implications of failing
> > to do so are, but I guess we can take that on trust from the NFS guys.
> >
> > But I suspect the ext4 implementation doesn't actually do this. afaict we
> > won't update i_version for file overwrites (especially if s_time_gran can
> > indeed be 1,000,000,000) and of course for MAP_SHARED modifications. What
> > would be the implications of this?
> >
>
> In the case of overwrite (file date updated), I assume the ctime/mtime
> is being updated and the inode is being dirtied, so the version number
> is being updated.
>
> vfs_write()->..
> ->__generic_file_aio_write_nolock()
> ->file_update_time()
> ->mark_inode_dirty_sync()
> ->__mark_inode_dirty(I_DIRTY_SYNC)
> ->ext4_dirty_inode()
> ->ext4_mark_inode_dirty()
That assumes an mtime update for every write(). OK, so two writes in a
single nanosecond won't be happening. But in that case why is this code:
static inline struct timespec ext4_current_time(struct inode *inode)
{
return (inode->i_sb->s_time_gran < NSEC_PER_SEC) ?
current_fs_time(inode->i_sb) : CURRENT_TIME_SEC;
}
checking (s_time_gran < NSEC_PER_SEC) ??
Overall it is a bit unpleasing to rely upon mtime updates for a correct NFS
server implementation: if we were to later decrease s_time_gran (as we
might do, for performance reasons), the NFS server implementation starts
reporting incorrect information.
> > And how does the NFS server know that the filesystem implements i_version?
> > Will a zero-value of i_version have special significance, telling the
> > server to not send this attribute, perhaps?
>
> Bruce raised up this question a few days back when he reviewed this
> patch, I think the solution is add a superblock flag for fs support
> inode versioning, probably at VFS layer?
That would work.
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