Disable look-ahead for loop file. Loopback files normally contain filesystems, in which case there are already proper look-aheads in the upper layer, more look-aheads on the loopback file only ruins the read-ahead hit rate. Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton --- linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2.orig/drivers/block/loop.c +++ linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2/drivers/block/loop.c @@ -755,6 +755,12 @@ static int loop_set_fd(struct loop_devic mapping = file->f_mapping; inode = mapping->host; + /* Instruct the readahead code to skip look-ahead on loop file. + * The upper layer should already do proper look-ahead, + * one more look-ahead here only ruins the cache hit rate. + */ + file->f_ra.flags |= RA_FLAG_LOOP; + if (!(file->f_mode & FMODE_WRITE)) lo_flags |= LO_FLAGS_READ_ONLY; --- linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2.orig/include/linux/fs.h +++ linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2/include/linux/fs.h @@ -741,6 +741,7 @@ struct file_ra_state { #define RA_FLAG_MISS (1UL<<31) /* a cache miss occured against this file */ #define RA_FLAG_INCACHE (1UL<<30) /* file is already in cache */ #define RA_FLAG_MMAP (1UL<<29) /* mmap page access */ +#define RA_FLAG_LOOP (1UL<<28) /* loopback file */ struct file { /* --- linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2.orig/mm/readahead.c +++ linux-2.6.19-rc5-mm2/mm/readahead.c @@ -985,6 +985,10 @@ static int ra_submit(struct file_ra_stat ra->lookahead_index = eof; } + /* Disable look-ahead for loopback file. */ + if (ra->flags & RA_FLAG_LOOP) + ra->lookahead_index = ra->readahead_index; + /* Take down the current read-ahead aging value. */ ra->age = nr_scanned_pages_node(numa_node_id()); -- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/