linux-ext4 - Re: journal_async_commit and external journal

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Date:   Mon, 7 May 2018 22:54:36 -0600
From:   Andreas Dilger <adilger@...ger.ca>
To:     Niklas Hambüchen <mail@....me>
Cc:     Ext4 Developers List <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: journal_async_commit and external journal

On May 4, 2018, at 9:04 PM, Niklas Hambüchen <mail@....me> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> The article https://raid6.com.au/posts/fs_ext4_external_journal_caveats/
> is an often-cited source about setting up external journals.
> 
> It claims that without the `journal_async_commit` mount option ext4 with
> external journal will eventually go read-only.
> 
>> Apparently external journal can't be updated in synchronous manner so
>> sooner or later ext4 switches to read-only mode following journal commit
>> error.
> 
> https://www.arm-blog.com/ext4-journal-nvram-card/ makes the same claim.
> 
>> The “journal_async_commit” is mandatory in order to use the external
>> journal. If you forget to mount the filesystem with this flag it
>> eventually become read-only and will need a diskcheck before you can
>> mount it again! This problem occurs because the external journal cannot
>> sync in synchronised mode.

This second report is just a repeat of the first one (it even links to the
earlier article).

> But the only upstream bugs I could find are records of situations where
> _with_ the option ext4 went read-only at boot or remount.
> 
> Is the issue described in these articles a known problem?

In any case, I couldn't find any reports of this causing problems on the
linux-ext4 mailing list, which is where it should be reported if anyone
has a problem with ext4 (or bugzilla.kernel.org if necessary).

If you have the time and a system to test it, you could run with this config
with journal_async_commit disabled for some time (with plenty of reboots)
and see if you find any problems.  That said, if enabling journal_async_commit
works for you, then that is the preferred option anyway, since it adds
checksums to the journal blocks (which makes for safer recovery), and is also
faster.

Cheers, Andreas

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