Date:	Tue, 6 Jan 2009 08:34:18 +0100
From:	Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>
To:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH, RFC] Use WRITE_SYNC in __block_write_full_page() if WBC_SYNC_ALL

On Mon, Jan 05 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 08:38:20PM +0100, Jens Axboe wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 05 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > So long-term, I suspect the hueristic which makes sense is that in the
> > > case where there is an fsync() in progress, any writes which take
> > > place as a result of that fsync (which includes the journal records as
> > > well as ordered writes that are being forced out as a result of
> > > data=ordered and which block the fsync from returning), should get a
> > > hint which propagates down to the block layer that these writes *are*
> > > synchronous in that someone is waiting for them to complete.  They
> > 
> > If someone is waiting for them, they are by definition sync!
> 
> Surely.  :-)
> 
> Andrew's argument is that someone *shouldn't* be waiting for them ---
> and he's right, although in the case of fsync() in particular, there's
> nothing we can do; there will be a userspace application waiting by
> definition.
> 
> The bigger problem right now is until we split up the meaning of
> "unplug the I/O queue" with "mark the I/O as synchronous", right now
> the way data ordered mode works is all of the data blocks get pushed
> out in 4k chunks.  So in the worst case, if the user has just written
> some 200 megabytes of vmlinuz and kernel modules, and then calls
> fsync(), the block I/O layer might get flooded with some 50,000+ 4k
> writes, and if they are all BIO_RW_SYNC, they might not get coalesced
> properly, and the result would be badness.  One could argue that

The flag doesn't mean "don't merge", it merely starts device queuing
right away instead of waiting for the unplug. So there will be merging
going on, especially for cases like the above where you push lots and
lots of IO. For that particular case, there should be essentially zero
difference in performance, just the few initial ios may be smaller. So
usually it's not going to be a big difference in IO behaviour.

So I'd be more worried about the case of smallish files and lots of
fsync(), since that'll be a lot more randomized writes.

> journal layer should do doing a better job of coalescing the write
> requests, but historically the block layer has done this for us, so
> why add duplicate functionality at the journalling layer?

I agree, we've always done this coalescing in the block layer, so no
point in changing that now.

> In any case, that's why I'm really not convinced we can afford to use
> BIO_RW_SYNC until we separate out the queue unplug functionality.
> Maybe what makes sence is to have two flags, BIO_RW_UNPLUG and
> BIO_RW_SYNCIO, and then make BIO_RW_SYNC be defined to be
> (BIO_RW_UNPLUG|BIO_RW_SYNCIO)?

Yep, that's exactly what I'll do!

> > > shouldn't necessarily be prioritized ahead of other reads (unless they
> > > are readahead operations that couldn't be combined with reads that
> > > *are* synchronous that someone is waiting for completion), but they
> > > should be prioritized ahead of asynchronous writes.
> > 
> > And that is *exactly* what flagging the write as sync will do...
> 
> Great, so once we separate out the queue unplug request, I think this
> should be exactly what we need.

Should fit nicely then.

-- 
Jens Axboe

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