Re: [PATCH 1/6] nfsd: filecache: remove race handling.

Chuck Lever
2025-02-13T15:02:46Z

[ responding to both Neil and Dave ... ]

On 2/12/25 5:16 PM, NeilBrown wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Feb 2025, Dave Chinner wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 07, 2025 at 04:15:11PM +1100, NeilBrown wrote:
>>> The race that this code tries to protect against is not interesting.
>>> The code is problematic as we access the "nf" after we have given our
>>> reference to the lru system. While that take 2+ seconds to free things
>>> it is still poor form.
>>>
>>> The only interesting race I can find would be with
>>> nfsd_file_close_inode_sync();
>>> This is the only place that really doesn't want the file to stay on the
>>> LRU when unhashed (which is the direct consequence of the race).
>>>
>>> However for the race to happen, some other thread must own a reference
>>> to a file and be putting in while nfsd_file_close_inode_sync() is trying
>>> to close all files for an inode. If this is possible, that other thread
>>> could simply call nfsd_file_put() a little bit later and the result
>>> would be the same: not all files are closed when
>>> nfsd_file_close_inode_sync() completes.
>>>
>>> If this was really a problem, we would need to wait in close_inode_sync
>>> for the other references to be dropped. We probably don't want to do
>>> that.
>>>
>>> So it is best to simply remove this code.
>>>
>>> Reviewed-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>
>>> Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
>>> ---
>>> fs/nfsd/filecache.c | 16 +++-------------
>>> 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/fs/nfsd/filecache.c b/fs/nfsd/filecache.c
>>> index a1cdba42c4fa..b13255bcbb96 100644
>>> --- a/fs/nfsd/filecache.c
>>> +++ b/fs/nfsd/filecache.c
>>> @@ -371,20 +371,10 @@ nfsd_file_put(struct nfsd_file *nf)
>>>
>>> /* Try to add it to the LRU. If that fails, decrement. */
>>> if (nfsd_file_lru_add(nf)) {
>>> - /* If it's still hashed, we're done */
>>> - if (test_bit(NFSD_FILE_HASHED, &nf->nf_flags)) {
>>> - nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette();
>>> - return;
>>> - }
>>> -
>>> - /*
>>> - * We're racing with unhashing, so try to remove it from
>>> - * the LRU. If removal fails, then someone else already
>>> - * has our reference.
>>> - */
>>> - if (!nfsd_file_lru_remove(nf))
>>> - return;
>>> + nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette();
>>> + return;
>>
>> Why do we need to start the background gc on demand?

This call is an original feature of the filecache -- I'm guessing it
was done to ensure that a final put closes the file quickly. But over
time, the filecache has grown explicit code that handles that, so I
think it is likely this call is no longer needed.

>> When the nfsd
>> subsystem is under load it is going to be calling
>> nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette() all the time. However, gc is almost
>> always going to be queued/running already.
>>
>> i.e. the above code results in adding the overhead of an atomic
>> NFSD_FILE_CACHE_UP bit check and then a call to queue_delayed_work()
>> on an already queued item. This will disables interrupts, make an
>> atomic bit check that sees the work is queued, re-enable interrupts
>> and return.
>
> I don't think we really need the NFSD_FILE_CACHE_UP test - if we have a
> file to put, then the cache must be up.

I can change 1/6 to remove the call to nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette().
Then these questions become moot.

> And we could use delayed_work_pending() to avoid the irq disable.
> That is still one atomic bit test though.
>
>>
>> IMO, there is no need to do this unnecessary work on every object
>> that is added to the LRU. Changing the gc worker to always run
>> every 2s and check if it has work to do like so:
>>
>> static void
>> nfsd_file_gc_worker(struct work_struct *work)
>> {
>> - nfsd_file_gc();
>> - if (list_lru_count(&nfsd_file_lru))
>> - nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette();
>> + if (list_lru_count(&nfsd_file_lru))
>> + nfsd_file_gc();
>> + nfsd_file_schedule_laundrette();
>> }
>>
>> means that nfsd_file_gc() will be run the same way and have the same
>> behaviour as the current code. When the system it idle, it does a
>> list_lru_count() check every 2 seconds and goes back to sleep.
>> That's going to be pretty much unnoticable on most machines that run
>> NFS servers.

I can add a patch to this series that makes this swap.

> When serving a v4 only load we don't need the timer at all... Maybe
> that doesn't matter.
>
> I would rather use a timer instead of a delayed work as the task doesn't
> require sleeping, and we have a pool of nfsd threads to do any work that
> might be needed. So a timer that checks if work is needed then sets a
> flag and wakes an nfsd would be even lower impact that a delayed work
> which needs to wake a wq thread every time even if there is nothing to
> do.

Moving the laundrette work to nfsd threads seems sensible, but let's
leave that for another patch series.

--
Chuck Lever