From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Peter Zijlstra Subject: Re: writeout stalls in current -git Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:01:22 +0100 Message-ID: <1194375682.6289.88.camel@twins> References: <393903856.06449@ustc.edu.cn> <64bb37e0711011120i63cdfe3ci18995d57b6649a8@mail.gmail.com> <64bb37e0711011200n228e708eg255640388f83da22@mail.gmail.com> <1193998532.27652.343.camel@twins> <64bb37e0711021222q7d12c825mc62d433c4fe19e8@mail.gmail.com> <20071102204258.GR995458@sgi.com> <64bb37e0711040319l5de285c3xea64474540a51b6e@mail.gmail.com> <20071105014510.GU66820511@sgi.com> <64bb37e0711051027v49869699s9593ea54713b15ff@mail.gmail.com> <20071106042527.GT995458@sgi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Torsten Kaiser , Fengguang Wu , Maxim Levitsky , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, xfs@oss.sgi.com To: David Chinner Return-path: Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:34825 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753330AbXKFTBa (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Nov 2007 14:01:30 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20071106042527.GT995458@sgi.com> Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 15:25 +1100, David Chinner wrote: > I'm struggling to understand what possible changed in XFS or writeback that > would lead to stalls like this, esp. as you appear to be removing files when > the stalls occur. Just a crazy idea,.. Could there be a set_page_dirty() that doesn't have balance_dirty_pages() call near? For example modifying meta data in unlink? Such a situation could lead to an excess of dirty pages and the next call to balance_dirty_pages() would appear to stall, as it would desperately try to get below the limit again.