If the writeback code writes back an inode because it has expired we currently use the non-blockin ->write_inode path. This means any inode that is pinned is skipped. With delayed logging and a workload that has very little log traffic otherwise it is very likely that an inode that gets constantly written to is always pinned, and thus we keep refusing to write it. The VM writeback code at that point redirties it and doesn't try to write it again for another 30 seconds. This means under certain scenarious time based metadata writeback never happens. Fix this by calling into xfs_log_inode for kupdate in addition to data integrity syncs, and thus transfer the inode to the log ASAP. Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxx> Index: xfs/fs/xfs/xfs_super.c =================================================================== --- xfs.orig/fs/xfs/xfs_super.c 2011-12-14 05:33:07.193262189 -0800 +++ xfs/fs/xfs/xfs_super.c 2011-12-14 05:38:56.108038623 -0800 @@ -905,7 +884,7 @@ xfs_fs_write_inode( if (!ip->i_update_core) return 0; - if (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_ALL) { + if (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_ALL || wbc->for_kupdate) { /* * Make sure the inode has made it it into the log. Instead * of forcing it all the way to stable storage using a _______________________________________________ xfs mailing list xfs@xxxxxxxxxxx http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs