The patch titled Preserve the dirty bit in init_page_buffers has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is preserve-the-dirty-bit-in-init_page_buffers.patch *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** See http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/added-to-mm.txt to find out what to do about this ------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Preserve the dirty bit in init_page_buffers From: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx The problem: When we are trying to free buffers try_to_free_buffers will look at ramdisk pages with clean buffer heads and remove the dirty bit from the page. Resulting in ramdisk pages with data that get removed from the page cache. Ouch! Buffer heads appear on ramdisk pages when a filesystem calls getblk, which through a series of function calls eventually calls init_page_buffers. So to fix the mismatch between buffer head state and page state this patch modifies init_page_buffers to transfer the dirty bit from the page to the buffer heads like we currently do for the uptodate bit. Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- fs/buffer.c | 3 +++ 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+) diff -puN fs/buffer.c~preserve-the-dirty-bit-in-init_page_buffers fs/buffer.c --- a/fs/buffer.c~preserve-the-dirty-bit-in-init_page_buffers +++ a/fs/buffer.c @@ -972,6 +972,7 @@ init_page_buffers(struct page *page, str struct buffer_head *head = page_buffers(page); struct buffer_head *bh = head; int uptodate = PageUptodate(page); + int dirty = PageDirty(page); do { if (!buffer_mapped(bh)) { @@ -980,6 +981,8 @@ init_page_buffers(struct page *page, str bh->b_blocknr = block; if (uptodate) set_buffer_uptodate(bh); + if (dirty) + set_buffer_dirty(bh); set_buffer_mapped(bh); } block++; _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx are freezer-close-potential-race-between-refrigerator-and-thaw_tasks.patch freezer-fix-vfork-problem.patch freezer-take-kernel_execve-into-consideration.patch freezer-fix-kthread_create-vs-freezer-theoretical-race.patch freezer-fix-pf_nofreeze-vs-freezeable-race.patch freezer-move-frozen_process-to-kernel-power-processc.patch dvb_en_50221-convert-to-kthread-api.patch fix-i-oat-for-kexec.patch pci-disable-msi-by-default-on-systems-with-serverworks-ht1000-chips.patch x86_64-build-and-use-gdt-on-copied-compressed-kernel.patch i386-efi-fix-proc-iomem-type-for-kexec-tools.patch clone-flag-clone_parent_tidptr-leaves-invalid-results-in-memory.patch preserve-the-dirty-bit-in-init_page_buffers.patch rd-mark-ramdisk-buffer-heads-dirty-in-ramdisk_set_page_dirty.patch rd-simplify-by-using-the-same-helper-functions-in-libfs.patch - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html