Re: [PATCH 1/2] writeback: avoid double-writing the inode on a lazytime expiration

Darrick J. Wong
2020-03-25T15:48:48Z

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 11:21:13AM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 02:20:57AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
> > >
> > > - if (dirty & I_DIRTY_TIME)
> > > - mark_inode_dirty_sync(inode);
> > > + /* This was a lazytime expiration; we need to tell the file system */
> > > + if (dirty & I_DIRTY_TIME_EXPIRED && inode->i_sb->s_op->dirty_inode)
> > > + inode->i_sb->s_op->dirty_inode(inode, I_DIRTY_SYNC);
> >
> > I think this needs a very clear comment explaining why we don't go
> > through __mark_inode_dirty.
>
> I can take the explanation which is in the git commit description and
> move it into the comment.
>
> > But as said before I'd rather have a new lazytime_expired operation that
> > makes it very clear what is happening. We currenly have 4 file systems
> > (ext4, f2fs, ubifs and xfs) that support lazytime, so this won't really
> > be a major churn.
>
> Again, I believe patch #2 does what you want; if it doesn't can you
> explain why passing I_DIRTY_TIME_EXPIRED to s_op->dirty_inode() isn't
> "a new lazytime expired operation that makes very clear what is
> happening"?
>
> I separated out patch #1 and patch #2 because patch #1 preserves
> current behavior, and patch #2 modifies XFS code, which I don't want
> to push Linus without an XFS reviewed-by.
>
> N.b. None of the other file systems required a change for patch #2,
> so if you want, we can have the XFS tree carry patch #2, and/or
> combine that with whatever other simplifying changes that you want.
> Or I can combine patch #1 and patch #2, with an XFS Reviewed-by, and
> send it through the ext4 tree.
>
> What's your pleasure?

TBH while I'm pretty sure this does actually maintain more or less the
same behavior on xfs, I prefer Christoph's explicit ->lazytime_expired
approach[1] over squinting at bitflag manipulations.

(It also took me a while to realize that this patch duo even existed, as
it was kinda buried in its parent thread...)

--D

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/20200325122825.1086872-1-hch@lst.de/T/#t

>
> - Ted
>