On Sat, May 06, 2017 at 07:41:10PM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: > On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:55:56PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote: > > On Wed 26-04-17 11:12:06, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: > > > On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 10:04:26AM +1000, Dave Chinner wrote: > > > > On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 10:25:03AM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: > > > > > I checked with Jan Kara and he believes the current code is correct but that > > > > > its the comment that that may be misleading. As per Jan the race is between > > > > > getting an inode reclaimed and grabbing it. Ie, XFS frees the inodes by RCU. > > > > > However it doesn't actually *reuse* the inode until RCU period passes > > > > > (unlike inodes allocated from slab with SLAB_RCU can be). So it can happen > > > > > > > > ..... I initially tried using SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU which meant the > > > > RCU grace period did not prevent reallocation of inodes that had > > > > been freed. Hence this check was (once) necessary to prevent the > > > > reclaim index going whacky on a reallocated inode. > > > > > > Alright this helps, but why does *having* the RCU grace period prevent > > > such type of race ? I can see it helping but removing completely such > > > a race as a possibility ? > > > > Well, if the inode is freed only after RCU period expires and we are doing > > xfs_reclaim_inode_grab() under rcu_read_lock - which we are - then this > > surely prevents us from seeing inode reallocated. What are you missing? > > Right, OK fair, its just simple RCU by definition. > > > > Also, just so I understand I am following, this then implicates our > > > reclaim rate is directly linked to the RCU grace period ? > > > > Yes, as for any RCU-freed object... > > Right.. I see, this is also by definition. > > But also by definition the RCU grace period should be long that "any readers > accessing the item being deleted have since dropped their references". What > are the implications if during xfs reclaim this is not true *often* ? Not sure > what types of situations could implicate this, perhaps a full rsync without > first suspending work and heavy IO ? Lets call these contended xfs inodes. > Could in theory we not reach: > > ∑ contended xfs inodes > free xfs inodes > > If this situation is dire, what counter measures are / should be in place for > it ? If this is all expected and gravy then I suspect there is no issue and > the non-determinism of the above is fair game. Lets also recall that: ==== Just as with spinlocks, RCU readers are not permitted to block, switch to user-mode execution, or enter the idle loop. Therefore, as soon as a CPU is seen passing through any of these three states, we know that that CPU has exited any previous RCU read-side critical sections. So, if we remove an item from a linked list, and then wait until all CPUs have switched context, executed in user mode, or executed in the idle loop, we can safely free up that item. ==== So any "contended xfs inodes" should also be really busying out the CPU, and if we only have X CPUs, well that gives us an upper limit before we busy the hell out ? Luis -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-xfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
