linux-kernel - Re: 2.6.36 io bring the system to its knees

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Message-ID: <20101110013255.GR2715@dastard>
Date:	Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:32:55 +1100
From:	Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>, dave b <db.pub.mail@...il.com>,
	Sanjoy Mahajan <sanjoy@...n.edu>,
	Jesper Juhl <jj@...osbits.net>,
	Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>,
	Aidar Kultayev <the.aidar@...il.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Ted Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
	Corrado Zoccolo <czoccolo@...il.com>,
	Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@...el.com>,
	Steven Barrett <damentz@...il.com>
Subject: Re: 2.6.36 io bring the system to its knees

On Sun, Nov 07, 2010 at 07:50:13AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 4:08 AM, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk> wrote:
> >
> > As already mentioned, ext3 is just not a good choice for this sort of
> > thing. Did you have atimes enabled?
> 
> At least for ext3, more important than atimes is the "data=writeback"
> setting. Especially since our atime default is sane these days (ie if
> you don't specify anything, we end up using 'relatime').
> 
> If you compile your own kernel, answer "N" to the question
> 
>   Default to 'data=ordered' in ext3?
> 
> at config time (CONFIG_EXT3_DEFAULTS_TO_ORDERED), or you can make sure
> "data=writeback" is in the fstab (but I don't think everything honors
> it for the root filesystem).

Don't forget to mention data=writeback is not the default because if
your system crashes or you lose power running in this mode it will
*CORRUPT YOUR FILESYSTEM* and you *WILL LOSE DATA*. Not to mention
the significant security issues (e.g stale data exposure) that also
occur even if the filesystem is not corrupted by the crash. IOWs,
data=writeback is the "fast but I'll eat your data" option for ext3.

So I recommend that nobody follows this path because it only leads
to worse trouble down the road.  Your best bet it to migrate away
from ext3 to a filesystem that doesn't have such inherent ordering
problems like ext4 or XFS....

Cheers,

Dave.
-- 
Dave Chinner
david@...morbit.com
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