Re: nfs-backed mmap file results in 1000s of WRITEs per second

[Malahal Naineni <malahal@us.ibm.com>]

Neil Brown posted a patch couple days ago for this!

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.nfs/58473

Regards, Malahal.

Quentin Barnes [qbarnes@gmail.com] wrote:
> If two (or more) processes are doing nothing more than writing to
> the memory addresses of an mmapped shared file on an NFS mounted
> file system, it results in the kernel scribbling WRITEs to the
> server as fast as it can (1000s per second) even while no syscalls
> are going on.
> 
> The problems happens on NFS clients mounting NFSv3 or NFSv4.  I've
> reproduced this on the 3.11 kernel, and it happens as far back as
> RHEL6 (2.6.32 based), however, it is not a problem on RHEL5 (2.6.18
> based).  (All x86_64 systems.)  I didn't try anything in between.
> 
> I've created a self-contained program below that will demonstrate
> the problem (call it "t1").  Assuming /mnt has an NFS file system:
> 
>   $ t1 /mnt/mynfsfile 1    # Fork 1 writer, kernel behaves normally
>   $ t1 /mnt/mynfsfile 2    # Fork 2 writers, kernel goes crazy WRITEing
> 
> Just run "watch -d nfsstat" in another window while running the two
> writer test and watch the WRITE count explode.
> 
> I don't see anything particularly wrong with what the example code
> is doing with its use of mmap.  Is there anything undefined about
> the code that would explain this behavior, or is this a NFS bug
> that's really lived this long?
> 
> Quentin
> 
> 
> 
> #include <sys/stat.h>
> #include <sys/mman.h>
> #include <sys/stat.h>
> #include <sys/wait.h>
> #include <errno.h>
> #include <fcntl.h>
> #include <stdio.h>
> #include <stdlib.h>
> #include <signal.h>
> #include <string.h>
> #include <unistd.h>
> 
> int
> kill_children()
> {
> 	int		cnt = 0;
> 	siginfo_t	infop;
> 
> 	signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN);
> 	kill(0, SIGINT);
> 	while (waitid(P_ALL, 0, &infop, WEXITED) != -1) ++cnt;
> 
> 	return cnt;
> }
> 
> void
> sighandler(int sig)
> {
> 	printf("Cleaning up all children.\n");
> 	int cnt = kill_children();
> 	printf("Cleaned up %d child%s.\n", cnt, cnt == 1 ? "" : "ren");
> 
> 	exit(0);
> }
> 
> int
> do_child(volatile int *iaddr)
> {
> 	while (1) *iaddr = 1;
> }
> 
> int
> main(int argc, char **argv)
> {
> 	const char	*path;
> 	int		fd;
> 	ssize_t		wlen;
> 	int		*ip;
> 	int		fork_count = 1;
> 
> 	if (argc == 1) {
> 		fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s {filename} [fork_count].\n",
> 			argv[0]);
> 		return 1;
> 	}
> 
> 	path = argv[1];
> 
> 	if (argc > 2) {
> 		int fc = atoi(argv[2]);
> 		if (fc >= 0)
> 			fork_count = fc;
> 	}
> 
> 	fd = open(path, O_CREAT|O_TRUNC|O_RDWR|O_APPEND, S_IRUSR|S_IWUSR);
> 	if (fd < 0) {
> 		fprintf(stderr, "Open of '%s' failed: %s (%d)\n",
> 			path, strerror(errno), errno);
> 		return 1;
> 	}
> 
> 	wlen = write(fd, &(int){0}, sizeof(int));
> 	if (wlen != sizeof(int)) {
> 		if (wlen < 0)
> 			fprintf(stderr, "Write of '%s' failed: %s (%d)\n",
> 				path, strerror(errno), errno);
> 		else
> 			fprintf(stderr, "Short write to '%s'\n", path);
> 		return 1;
> 	}
> 
> 	ip = (int *)mmap(NULL, sizeof(int), PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
> 			   MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
> 	if (ip == MAP_FAILED) {
> 		fprintf(stderr, "Mmap of '%s' failed: %s (%d)\n",
> 			path, strerror(errno), errno);
> 		return 1;
> 	}
> 
> 	signal(SIGINT, sighandler);
> 
> 	while (fork_count-- > 0) {
> 		switch(fork()) {
> 		case -1:
> 			fprintf(stderr, "Fork failed: %s (%d)\n",
> 				strerror(errno), errno);
> 			kill_children();
> 			return 1;
> 		case 0:   /* child  */
> 			signal(SIGINT, SIG_DFL);
> 			do_child(ip);
> 			break;
> 		default:  /* parent */
> 			break;
> 		}
> 	}
> 
> 	printf("Press ^C to terminate test.\n");
> 	pause();
> 
> 	return 0;
> }
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-nfs" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>