linux-kernel - Re: bcache on XFS: metadata I/O (dirent I/O?) not getting cached at all?

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Date:   Thu, 7 Feb 2019 16:16:48 +0800
From:   Coly Li <colyli@...e.de>
To:     Nix <nix@...eri.org.uk>
Cc:     linux-bcache@...r.kernel.org, linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
        Andre Noll <maan@...bingen.mpg.de>
Subject: Re: bcache on XFS: metadata I/O (dirent I/O?) not getting cached at
 all?

On 2019/2/7 6:11 上午, Nix wrote:
> So I just upgraded to 4.20 and revived my long-turned-off bcache now
> that the metadata corruption leading to mount failure on dirty close may
> have been identified (applying Tang Junhui's patch to do so)... and I
> spotted something a bit disturbing. It appears that XFS directory and
> metadata I/O is going more or less entirely uncached.
> 
> Here's some bcache stats before and after a git status of a *huge*
> uncached tree (Chromium) on my no-writeback readaround cache. It takes
> many minutes and pounds the disk with massively seeky metadata I/O in
> the process:
> 
> Before:
> 
> stats_total/bypassed: 48.3G
> stats_total/cache_bypass_hits: 7942
> stats_total/cache_bypass_misses: 861045
> stats_total/cache_hit_ratio: 3
> stats_total/cache_hits: 16286
> stats_total/cache_miss_collisions: 25
> stats_total/cache_misses: 411575
> stats_total/cache_readaheads: 0
> 
> After:
> stats_total/bypassed: 49.3G
> stats_total/cache_bypass_hits: 7942
> stats_total/cache_bypass_misses: 1154887
> stats_total/cache_hit_ratio: 3
> stats_total/cache_hits: 16291
> stats_total/cache_miss_collisions: 25
> stats_total/cache_misses: 411625
> stats_total/cache_readaheads: 0
> 
> Huge increase in bypassed reads, essentially no new cached reads. This
> is... basically the optimum case for bcache, and it's not caching it!
> 
> From my reading of xfs_dir2_leaf_readbuf(), it looks like essentially
> all directory reads in XFS appear to bcache as a single non-readahead
> followed by a pile of readahead I/O: bcache bypasses readahead bios, so
> all directory reads (or perhaps all directory reads larger than a single
> block) are going to be bypassed out of hand.
> 
> This seems... suboptimal, but so does filling up the cache with
> read-ahead blocks (particularly for non-metadata) that are never used.
> Anyone got any ideas, 'cos I'm currently at a loss: XFS doesn't appear
> to let us distinguish between "read-ahead just in case but almost
> certain to be accessed" (like directory blocks) and "read ahead on the
> offchance because someone did a single-block file read and what the hell
> let's suck in a bunch more".
> 
> As it is, this seems to render bcache more or less useless with XFS,
> since bcache's primary raison d'etre is precisely to cache seeky stuff
> like metadata. :(
> 
Hi Nix,

Could you please to try whether the attached patch makes things better ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

-- 

Coly Li

View attachment "0001-bcache-use-REQ_META-REQ_PRIO-to-indicate-bio-for-met.patch" of type "text/plain" (2704 bytes)