Re: Make sm-notify faster if there are no servers to notify

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Nov 9, 2008, at Nov 9, 2008, 7:55 PM, J. Bruce Fields wrote:
On Sun, Nov 09, 2008 at 07:52:59PM -0500, Chuck Lever wrote:
On Nov 9, 2008, at Nov 9, 2008, 2:25 PM, J. Bruce Fields wrote:
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 05:11:45PM -0400, bfields wrote:
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 04:30:32PM -0400, Chuck Lever wrote:
I assume sync() is required because this logic performs a rename
as well
as a simple write?

I think an fsync() on the containing directory (together with an
fsync()
of the file itself) would do the job if you wanted to avoid the
globaly
sync().  I don't think ext3 is capable of doing anything finer-
grained
than a whole-filesystem sync, though, so this doesn't help many
people
in practice right now.

In any case, the rename adds an extra level of safety by ensuring the
nsm state is updated atomically, so we shouldn't get rid of it.

Anyway, I think the nsm state updating shouldn't matter if you
don't
even have any peers to notify.

It probably does matter.

When a system is initially installed, it likely does not have a
state
file in /var/lib/nfs.  This may be harmless if it's not present;
rpc.statd probably does the right thing in this case.

The "right thing" in that case would be, I guess, to create a state
file
with "0" in it.  It doesn't do that.  So this patch *does* break
stuff.
Oops!

So should we revert it and do something else, or patch statd to
create
a new state file if necessary?

It looks like this still needs to be fixed? I think it would be good enough just to teach rpc.nfsd to create the file if it doesn't exist.
			^^^^^^^^

(Err, sorry, note I meant rpc.statd, not rpc.nfsd.)

--b.

Meh.  I'd rather manage the state file in one place, rather than have
multiple user space entities fiddle with it.

Acknowledged. My comments below still stand, I think. More testing! Yay!

I think we should find out exactly what breaks when sm-notify quits
early.  Steve hasn't found a problem with the patch already in nfs-
utils, but the corner cases here are really narrow.

Without a lot of testing (which we currently don't have the resources
for), I don't feel 100% positive about sm-notify quitting early.  My
preferred solution would involve working around the sync(2) call instead
(ie fixing sm-notify so we don't need it, or somehow doing it in the
background so it doesn't hold up the boot-up process). I think we will end up waiting until this actually bites someone, but chances are it will
be a long wait.


In any event, I will keep this in mind (along with the idea of allowing only client or server peers to be notified of a reboot) as I audit this code for IPv6 support.

--
Chuck Lever
chuck[dot]lever[at]oracle[dot]com
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-nfs" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

[Index of Archives]     [Linux Filesystem Development]     [Linux USB Development]     [Linux Media Development]     [Video for Linux]     [Linux NILFS]     [Linux Audio Users]     [Yosemite Info]     [Linux SCSI]

  Powered by Linux