ext4, at least, would like to start pushing on writeback if it starts to get close to ENOSPC when reserving worst-case blocks for delalloc writes. Writing out delalloc data will convert those worst-case predictions into usually smaller actual usage, freeing up space before we hit ENOSPC based on this speculation. Thanks to Jens for the suggestion for the helper function, & the naming help. I've made the helper return status on whether writeback was started even though I don't plan to use it in the ext4 patch; it seems like it would be potentially useful to test this in some cases. Signed-off-by: Eric Sandeen <sandeen@xxxxxxxxxx> --- diff --git a/fs/fs-writeback.c b/fs/fs-writeback.c index 9d5360c..bff5f77 100644 --- a/fs/fs-writeback.c +++ b/fs/fs-writeback.c @@ -1213,6 +1213,23 @@ void writeback_inodes_sb(struct super_block *sb) EXPORT_SYMBOL(writeback_inodes_sb); /** + * writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle - start writeback if none underway + * @sb: the superblock + * + * Invoke writeback_inodes_sb if no writeback is currently underway. + * Returns 1 if writeback was started, 0 if not. + */ +int writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle(struct super_block *sb) +{ + if (!writeback_in_progress(sb->s_bdi)) { + writeback_inodes_sb(sb); + return 1; + } else + return 0; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle); + +/** * sync_inodes_sb - sync sb inode pages * @sb: the superblock * diff --git a/include/linux/writeback.h b/include/linux/writeback.h index 66ebddc..dc52482 100644 --- a/include/linux/writeback.h +++ b/include/linux/writeback.h @@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ struct writeback_control { struct bdi_writeback; int inode_wait(void *); void writeback_inodes_sb(struct super_block *); +int writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle(struct super_block *); void sync_inodes_sb(struct super_block *); void writeback_inodes_wbc(struct writeback_control *wbc); long wb_do_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, int force_wait); -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html