On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 10:37:18 +1000
Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Dave Chinner <dchinner@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> If a filesystem writes more than one page in ->writepage, write_cache_pages
> fails to notice this and continues to attempt writeback when wbc->nr_to_write
> has gone negative - this trace was captured from XFS:
>
>
> wbc_writeback_start: towrt=1024
> wbc_writepage: towrt=1024
> wbc_writepage: towrt=0
> wbc_writepage: towrt=-1
> wbc_writepage: towrt=-5
> wbc_writepage: towrt=-21
> wbc_writepage: towrt=-85
>
> This has adverse effects on filesystem writeback behaviour. write_cache_pages()
> needs to terminate after a certain number of pages are written, not after a
> certain number of calls to ->writepage are made. This is a regression
> introduced by 17bc6c30cf6bfffd816bdc53682dd46fc34a2cf4 ("vfs: Add
> no_nrwrite_index_update writeback control flag"), but cannot be reverted
> directly due to subsequent bug fixes that have gone in on top of it.
Might be needed in -stable. Unfortunately the most important piece of
information which is needed to make that decision was cunningly hidden
from us behind the vague-to-the-point-of-uselessness term "adverse
effects".
_what_ "adverse effects"??
--
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
