linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] fs: Make write(2) interruptible by a fatal signal

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Message-ID: <20111201122425.GA16274@localhost>
Date:	Thu, 1 Dec 2011 20:24:25 +0800
From:	Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
To:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>, Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] fs: Make write(2) interruptible by a fatal signal

Hi,

How are we going to do with this patch?

> This patch makes write interruptible by SIGKILL.

Let me try to summarize the objective impacts of (not) merging this
patch, and would like to hear more opinions from experienced users.

- w/o patch

BEHAVIOR:
write(2) insists to complete even when the user really wants to stop it.

IMPACT:
It could be annoying to experience slow responses to "kill -9" when
it's a large write to a slow device, for example,

        dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/nokia/zero bs=100M

- w/ patch

BEHAVIOR:
write(2) aborts quickly with possible partial write on SIGKILL

IMPACT:
The partial write might lead to data corruption somewhere, sometime
(the possibility is low but real) and bring trouble to some users.

Thanks,
Fengguang
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