Date:	Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:10:55 +0800
From:	Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
To:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>, Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"chris.mason@...cle.com" <chris.mason@...cle.com>,
	"akpm@...ux-foundation.org" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] Per-bdi writeback flusher threads v20

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 12:08:20AM +0800, Jan Kara wrote:
> On Mon 21-09-09 23:12:42, Wu Fengguang wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 08:42:51PM +0800, Jan Kara wrote:
> > > > >   Here is how I'd imaging the writeout logic should work:
> > > > > We would have just two lists - b_dirty and b_more_io. Both would be
> > > > > ordered by dirtied_when.
> > > > 
> > > > Andrew has a very good description for the dirty/io/more_io queues:
> > > > 
> > > > http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/2/7/5
> > > > 
> > > > | So the protocol would be:
> > > > |
> > > > | s_io: contains expired and non-expired dirty inodes, with expired ones at
> > > > | the head.  Unexpired ones (at least) are in time order.
> > > > |
> > > > | s_more_io: contains dirty expired inodes which haven't been fully written. 
> > > > | Ordering doesn't matter (unless someone goes and changes
> > > > | dirty_expire_centisecs - but as long as we don't do anything really bad in
> > > > | response to this we'll be OK).
> > > > |
> > > > | s_dirty: contains expired and non-expired dirty inodes.  The non-expired
> > > > | ones are in time-of-dirtying order.
> > > > 
> > > > Since then s_io was changed to hold only _expired_ dirty inodes at the
> > > > beginning of a full scan. It serves as a bounded set of dirty inodes.
> > > > So that when finished a full scan of it, the writeback can go on to
> > > > the next superblock, and old dirty files' writeback won't be delayed
> > > > infinitely by poring in newly dirty files.
> > > > 
> > > > It seems that the boundary could also be provided by some
> > > > older_than_this timestamp. So removal of b_io is possible
> > > > at least on this purpose.
> > > > 
> > > > >   A thread doing WB_SYNC_ALL writeback will just walk the list and cleanup
> > > > > everything (we should be resistant against livelocks because we stop at
> > > > > inode which has been dirtied after the sync has started).
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, that would mean
> > > > 
> > > > - older_than_this=now     for WB_SYNC_ALL
> > > > - older_than_this=now-30s for WB_SYNC_NONE
> > >   Exactly.
> > > 
> > > > >   A thread doing WB_SYNC_NONE writeback will start walking the list. If the
> > > > > inode has I_SYNC set, it puts it on b_more_io. Otherwise it takes I_SYNC
> > > > > and writes as much as it finds necessary from the first inode. If it
> > > > > stopped before it wrote everything, it puts the inode at the end of
> > > > > b_more_io.
> > > > 
> > > > Agreed. The current code is doing that, and it is reasonably easy to
> > > > reuse the code path for WB_SYNC_NONE/WB_SYNC_ALL?
> > >   I'm not sure we do exactly that. The I_SYNC part is fine. But looking at
> > > the code in writeback_single_inode(), we put inode at b_more_io only if
> > > wbc->for_kupdate is true and wbc->nr_to_write is <= 0. Otherwise we put the
> > > inode at the tail of dirty list.
> > 
> > Ah yes. I actually have posted a patch to unify the !for_kupdate
> > and for_kupdate cases: http://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/46399/
>   Yes, this patch is basically what I had in mind :).
> 
> > For the (wbc->nr_to_write <= 0) case, we have to delay the inode for
> > some time because it somehow cannot be written for now, hence moving
> > back it to b_dirty. Otherwise could busy loop.
>   Probably you mean wbc->nr_to_write > 0 case. With that I agree.

Ah yes!

> ...
> > > > >   kupdate style writeback stops scanning dirty list when dirtied_when is
> > > > > new enough. Then if b_more_io is nonempty, it splices it into the beginning
> > > > > of the dirty list and restarts.
> > > > 
> > > > Right.
> > >   But currently, we don't do the splicing. We just set more_io and return
> > > from writeback_inodes_wb(). Should that be changed?
> > 
> > Yes, in fact I changed that in the b_io removal patch, to do the
> > splice and retry.
>   Ah, OK. I've missed that.
> 
> > It was correct and required behavior to return to give other
> > superblocks a chance. Now with per-bdi writeback, we don't have to
> > worry about that, so it's safe to just splice and restart.
> > 
> > > > >   Other types of writeback splice b_more_io to b_dirty when b_dirty gets
> > > > > empty. pdflush style writeback writes until we drop below background dirty
> > > > > limit. Other kinds of writeback (throttled threads, writeback submitted by
> > > > > filesystem itself) write while nr_to_write > 0.
> > > > 
> > > > I'd propose to always check older_than_this. For non-kupdate sync, it
> > > > still makes sense to give some priority to expired inodes (generally
> > > > it's suboptimal to sync those dirtied-just-now inodes). That is, to
> > > > sync expired inodes first if there are any.
> > >   Well, the expired inodes are handled with priority because they are at
> > > the beginning of the list. So we write them first and only if writing them
> > > was not enough, we proceed with inodes that were dirtied later. You are
> > 
> > The list order is not enough for large files :)
> > One newly dirtied file; one 100MB expired dirty file. Current code
> > will sync only 4MB of the expired file and go on to sync the newly
> > dirty file, and _never_ return to serve the 100MB file as long as
> > there are new inodes dirtied, which is not optimal.
>   True.
> 
> > > right that we can get to later dirtied inodes even if there are still dirty
> > > data in the old ones because we just refuse to write too much from a single
> > > inode. So maybe it would be good to splice b_more_io to b_dirty already
> > > when we get to unexpired inode in b_dirty list. The good thing is it won't
> > > livelock on a few expired inodes even in the case new data are written to
> > > one of them while we work on the others - the other inodes on s_dirty list
> > > will eventually expire and from that moment on, we include them in a fair
> > > pdflush writeback.
> > 
> > Right. I modified wb_writeback() to first use 
> > 
> >         wbc.older_than_this = jiffies - msecs_to_jiffies(dirty_expire_interval * 10);
> > 
> > unconditionally, and then if no more writeback is possible, relax it
> > for !kupdate:
> > 
> >         wbc.older_than_this = jiffies;
>   I agree with this. I'd just set wbc.older_than_this each time we restart
> scanning of b_dirty list. Otherwise if there are a few large expired inodes
> which are often written (but not often enough to hit us right at the moment
> when we write pages of that inode) we would just cycle writing these inodes
> and never get to other inodes...

Good idea!

> > > > >   If we didn't write anything during the b_dirty scan, we wait until I_SYNC
> > > > > of the first inode on b_more_io gets cleared before starting the next scan.
> > > > >   Does this look reasonably complete and cover all the cases?
> > > > 
> > > > What about the congested case?
> > >   With per-bdi threads, we just have to make sure we don't busyloop when
> > > the device is congested. Just blocking is perfectly fine since the thread
> > > has nothing to do anyway.
> > 
> > Right.
> > 
> > > The question is how normal processes that are forced to do writeback
> > > or page allocation doing writeback should behave.  There probably it
> > > makes sence to bail out from the writeback and let the caller
> > > decide. That seems to be implemented by the current code just fine
> > > but you are right I forgot about it.
> > 
> > No current code is not fine for pageout and migrate path, which sets
> > nonblocking=1, could return on congestion and then busy loop. (which
> > is being discussed in another thread with Mason.)
>   Really? Looking at pageout and migrate code, we call directly ->writepage()
> function so congestion handling doesn't really matter. But I'll have a look
> at a thread with Chris Mason.

Ah yes! Sorry for the mistake: the vmscan livelock I worried won't happen.

> > > Probably, we should just splice b_more_io to b_dirty list before
> > > bailing out because of congestion...
> > 
> > I'd vote for putting back the inode to tail of b_dirty, so that it
> > will be served once congestion stops: it's not the inode's fault :)
>   I'd rather say to 'head' exactly because it's not inode's fault and so we
> want to start with the same inode next time.

Yeah, I was thinking about list head :)

Thanks,
Fengguang
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