linux-kernel - Re: [patch resend v4] update ctime and mtime for mmaped write

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Date:	Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:47:00 -0700
From:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	linux@...izon.com
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org, miklos@...redi.hu
Subject: Re: [patch resend v4] update ctime and mtime for mmaped write

On 27 Mar 2007 16:09:33 -0400
linux@...izon.com wrote:

> What part of "The msync() function writes all modified data to
> permanent storage locations [...] For mappings to files, the msync()
> function ensures that all write operations are completed as defined
> for synchronised I/O data integrity completion." suggests that it's not
> supposed to do disk I/O?  How is that uselessly vague?
> 

Because for MS_ASYNC, "msync() shall return immediately once all the write
operations are initiated or queued for servicing".

ie: the writes can complete one millisecond or one week later.  We chose 30
seconds.

And this is not completely fatuous - before 2.6.17, MAP_SHARED pages could
float about in memory in a dirty state for arbitrarily long periods -
potentially for the entire application lifetime.  It was quite reasonable
for our MS_ASYNC implementation to do what it did: tell the VM about the
dirtiness of these pages so they get written back soon.

Post-2.6.17 we preserved that behaviour.
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