Re: [ext4 io hang] buffered write io hang in balance_dirty_pages

Baokun Li
2023-04-27T11:57:57Z

On 2023/4/27 18:01, Ming Lei wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 02:36:51PM +0800, Baokun Li wrote:
>> On 2023/4/27 12:50, Ming Lei wrote:
>>> Hello Matthew,
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 04:58:36AM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 10:20:28AM +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
>>>>> Hello Guys,
>>>>>
>>>>> I got one report in which buffered write IO hangs in balance_dirty_pages,
>>>>> after one nvme block device is unplugged physically, then umount can't
>>>>> succeed.
>>>> That's a feature, not a bug ... the dd should continue indefinitely?
>>> Can you explain what the feature is? And not see such 'issue' or 'feature'
>>> on xfs.
>>>
>>> The device has been gone, so IMO it is reasonable to see FS buffered write IO
>>> failed. Actually dmesg has shown that 'EXT4-fs (nvme0n1): Remounting
>>> filesystem read-only'. Seems these things may confuse user.
>>
>> The reason for this difference is that ext4 and xfs handle errors
>> differently.
>>
>> ext4 remounts the filesystem as read-only or even just continues, vfs_write
>> does not check for these.
> vfs_write may not find anything wrong, but ext4 remount could see that
> disk is gone, which might happen during or after remount, however.
>
>> xfs shuts down the filesystem, so it returns a failure at
>> xfs_file_write_iter when it finds an error.
>>
>>
>> ``` ext4
>> ksys_write
>>  vfs_write
>>   ext4_file_write_iter
>>    ext4_buffered_write_iter
>>     ext4_write_checks
>>      file_modified
>>       file_modified_flags
>>        __file_update_time
>>         inode_update_time
>>          generic_update_time
>>           __mark_inode_dirty
>>            ext4_dirty_inode ---> 2. void func, No propagating errors out
>>             __ext4_journal_start_sb
>>              ext4_journal_check_start ---> 1. Error found, remount-ro
>>     generic_perform_write ---> 3. No error sensed, continue
>>      balance_dirty_pages_ratelimited
>>       balance_dirty_pages_ratelimited_flags
>>        balance_dirty_pages
>>         // 4. Sleeping waiting for dirty pages to be freed
>>         __set_current_state(TASK_KILLABLE)
>>         io_schedule_timeout(pause);
>> ```
>>
>> ``` xfs
>> ksys_write
>>  vfs_write
>>   xfs_file_write_iter
>>    if (xfs_is_shutdown(ip->i_mount))
>>      return -EIO;    ---> dd fail
>> ```
> Thanks for the info which is really helpful for me to understand the
> problem.
>
>>>> balance_dirty_pages() is sleeping in KILLABLE state, so kill -9 of
>>>> the dd process should succeed.
>>> Yeah, dd can be killed, however it may be any application(s), :-)
>>>
>>> Fortunately it won't cause trouble during reboot/power off, given
>>> userspace will be killed at that time.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Ming
>>>
>> Don't worry about that, we always set the current thread to TASK_KILLABLE
>>
>> while waiting in balance_dirty_pages().
> I have another concern, if 'dd' isn't killed, dirty pages won't be cleaned, and
> these (big amount)memory becomes not usable, and typical scenario could be USB HDD
> unplugged.
>
>
> thanks,
> Ming
Yes, it is unreasonable to continue writing data with the previously
opened fd after
the file system becomes read-only, resulting in dirty page accumulation.

I provided a patch in another reply.
Could you help test if it can solve your problem?
If it can indeed solve your problem, I will officially send it to the
email list.

--
With Best Regards,
Baokun Li
.