linux-ext4 - Re: [PATCH 8/8] Revert "ext4: fix wrong gfp type under transaction"

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Date:   Tue, 17 Jan 2017 18:29:25 +0100
From:   Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:     Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>, djwong@...nel.org,
        Chris Mason <clm@...com>, David Sterba <dsterba@...e.cz>,
        ceph-devel@...r.kernel.org, cluster-devel@...hat.com,
        linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org, logfs@...fs.org,
        linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-btrfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org,
        reiserfs-devel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-ntfs-dev@...ts.sourceforge.net,
        linux-f2fs-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net,
        linux-afs@...ts.infradead.org, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 8/8] Revert "ext4: fix wrong gfp type under transaction"

On Tue 17-01-17 17:16:19, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > But before going to play with that I am really wondering whether we need
> > > all this with no journal at all. AFAIU what Jack told me it is the
> > > journal lock(s) which is the biggest problem from the reclaim recursion
> > > point of view. What would cause a deadlock in no journal mode?
> > 
> > We still have the original problem for why we need GFP_NOFS even in
> > ext2.  If we are in a writeback path, and we need to allocate memory,
> > we don't want to recurse back into the file system's writeback path.
> 
> But we do not enter the writeback path from the direct reclaim. Or do
> you mean something other than pageout()'s mapping->a_ops->writepage?
> There is only try_to_release_page where we get back to the filesystems
> but I do not see any NOFS protection in ext4_releasepage.

Maybe to expand a bit: These days, direct reclaim can call ->releasepage()
callback, ->evict_inode() callback (and only for inodes with i_nlink > 0),
shrinkers. That's it. So the recursion possibilities are rather more limited
than they used to be several years ago and we likely do not need as much
GFP_NOFS protection as we used to.

								Honza
-- 
Jan Kara <jack@...e.com>
SUSE Labs, CR
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