[PATCHv6 0/5] ext4: stop using write_supers and s_dirt

[Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@gmail.com>]

This patch-set makes ext4 file-system stop using the VFS '->write_supers()'
call-back and the '->s_dirt' superblock field because I plan to remove them
once all users are gone.

What we do in this patch-set is we notice that ext4 does not really needed the
'write_super()' functionality and we can remove it. Instead, we simply mark the
superblock buffer as dirty directly, rather than postponing this till the next
'sync_supers()' kernel thread wake-up. Most of the ext4 changes were done or
suggested by Jan Kara - thanks Jan!

In v6 I stop using 'ext4_commit_super()' in '__ext4_handle_dirty_super()' and
add the fifth patch which removes the 'now' argument from
'__ext4_handle_dirty_super()'.

Tested with xfstests (both journalled and non-journalled ext4 modes).

fs/ext4/ext4.h      |    9 ---------
fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c |    8 +++-----
fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.h |    7 ++-----
fs/ext4/file.c      |   14 +++++++++++++-
fs/ext4/ialloc.c    |    2 --
fs/ext4/inode.c     |    2 +-
fs/ext4/mballoc.c   |    2 --
fs/ext4/namei.c     |    4 ++--
fs/ext4/resize.c    |    2 +-
fs/ext4/super.c     |   12 +-----------
10 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 39 deletions(-)

Reminder
========

The goal is to get rid of the 'sync_supers()' kernel thread. This kernel thread
wakes up every 5 seconds (by default) and calls '->write_super()' for all
mounted file-systems. And the bad thing is that this is done even if all the
superblocks are clean. Moreover, many file-systems do not even need this and
they do not even register the '->write_super()' method at all (e.g., btrfs).

So 'sync_supers()' mostly just generates useless wake-ups and wastes power.
I am trying to make all file-systems independent of '->write_super()' and plan
to remove 'sync_supers()' and '->write_super()' completely once there are no
more users.

Overall status
==============

1.  ext4: patches submitted,
    https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/10/195
2.  exofs: patch submitted,
    https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/4/211
3.  sysv: patches submitted,
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/3/250
4.  udf: patch submitted, sits in Jan Kara's tree:
    https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/4/233
    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jack/linux-fs for_testing
5.  affs: patches submitted, sit in Al Viro's tree:
    https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/6/400
    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs for-next
6.  hfs: patches submitted, sit Andrew Morton's tree
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/12/82
7.  hfsplus: patches submitted, sit in Andrew Morton's tree:
    https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/13/195
8.  ext2:     done, see commit f72cf5e223a28d3b3ea7dc9e40464fd534e359e8
9.  vfat:     done, see commit 78491189ddb6d84d4a4abae992ed891a236d0263
10. jffs2:    done, see commit 208b14e507c00ff7f108e1a388dd3d8cc805a443
11. reiserfs: done, see commit 033369d1af1264abc23bea2e174aa47cdd212f6f

TODO: ufs

Thanks,
Artem.