Re: [RFC 2/3] ext2: Convert ext2 regular file buffered I/O to use iomap

[Ritesh Harjani (IBM) <ritesh.list@gmail.com>]

Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> writes:

> On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 11:26:15AM +0530, Ritesh Harjani wrote:
>> > instantly spot anything that relies on them - you are just a lot more
>> > likely to hit an -ENOSPC from ->map_blocks now.
>> 
>> Which is also true with existing code no? If the block reservation is
>> not done at the write fault, writeback is likely to fail due to ENOSPC?
>
> Yes. Not saying you should change this, I just want to make sure the
> iomap code handles this fine.  I think it does, but I'd rather be sure.
>

Sure. I can write a fstest to test the behavior. 

>> Sure, make sense. Thanks!
>> I can try and check if the the wrapper helps.
>
> Let's wait until we have a few more conversions.
>

Sure.

>> > Did yo run into issues in using the iomap based aops for the other uses
>> > of ext2_aops, or are just trying to address the users one at a time?
>> 
>> There are problems for e.g. for dir type in ext2. It uses the pagecache
>> for dir. It uses buffer_heads and attaches them to folio->private.
>>     ...it uses block_write_begin/block_write_end() calls.
>>     Look for ext4_make_empty() -> ext4_prepare_chunk ->
>>     block_write_begin(). 
>> Now during sync/writeback of the dirty pages (ext4_handle_dirsync()), we
>> might take a iomap writeback path (if using ext2_file_aops for dir)
>> which sees folio->private assuming it is "struct iomap_folio_state".
>> And bad things will happen... 
>
> Oh, indeed, bufferheads again.
>
>> Now we don't have an equivalent APIs in iomap for
>> block_write_begin()/end() which the users can call for. Hence, Jan
>> suggested to lets first convert ext2 regular file path to iomap as an RFC.
>
> Yes, no problem.  But maybe worth documenting in the commit log.

Sure, I will update the commit log.

-ritesh