RE: Application stops due to ext4 filesytsem IO error

[Sumit Saxena <sumit.saxena@broadcom.com>]

Gentle ping..

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Sumit Saxena [mailto:sumit.saxena@broadcom.com]
>Sent: Monday, June 05, 2017 12:59 PM
>To: 'Jens Axboe'
>Cc: 'linux-block@vger.kernel.org'; 'linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org'
>Subject: Application stops due to ext4 filesytsem IO error
>
>Jens,
>
>We am observing  application stops while running ext4 filesystem IOs
along
>with target reset in parallel.
>Our suspect is this behavior can be attributed to linux block layer. See
below
>for details-
>
>Problem statement - " Application stops due to IO error from file system
>buffered IO. (Note - It is always a FS meta data read failure)"
>Issue is reproducible - "Yes. It is consistently reproducible."
>Brief about setup -
>Latest 4.11 kernel. Issue hits irrespective of whether SCSI MQ is enabled
or
>disabled. use_blk_mq=Y and use_blk_mq=N has similar issue.
>Direct attached 4 SAS/SATA drives connected to MegaRAID Invader
>controller.
>
>Reproduction steps -
>-Create ext4 FS on 4 JBODs(non RAID volumes) behind MegaRAID SAS
>controller.
>-Start Data integrity test on all four ext4 mounted partition. (Tool
should be
>configured to send Buffered FS IO).
>-Send Target Reset  (have some delay between next reset to allow some IO
>on device) on each JBOD to simulate error condition. (sg_reset -d
/dev/sdX).
>
>End result -
>Combination of target resets and FS IOs in parallel causes application
halt
>with ext4 Filesystem IO error.
>We are able to restart  application without cleaning and unmounting
>filesystem.
>Below are the error logs at the time of application stop-
>
>--------------------------
>sd 0:0:53:0: target reset called for
>scmd(ffff88003cf25148)
>sd 0:0:53:0: attempting target reset!
>scmd(ffff88003cf25148) tm_dev_handle 0xb
>sd 0:0:53:0: [sde] tag#519 BRCM Debug: request->cmd_flags: 0x80700   bio-
>>bi_flags: 0x2          bio->bi_opf: 0x3000 rq_flags 0x20e3
>..
>sd 0:0:53:0: [sde] tag#519 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 15 00 11 10 00 00 f8 00
>EXT4-fs error (device sde): __ext4_get_inode_loc:4465: inode #11018287:
>block 44040738: comm chaos: unable to read itable block
>-----------------------
>
>We debug further to understand what is happening above LLD. See below-
>
>During target reset,  there may be IO coming from target with CHECK
>CONDITION with below sense information-.
>Sense Key : Aborted Command [current]
>Add. Sense: No additional sense information
>
>Such Aborted command should be retried by SML/Block layer. This happens
>from SML expect for FS Meta data read.
>From driver level debug, we found IOs with REQ_FAILFAST_DEV bit set in
>scmd->request->cmd_flags are not retried by SML and that is also as
>expected.
>
>Below is the code in scsi_error.c(function- scsi_noretry_cmd) which
causes
>IOs with REQ_FAILFAST_DEV enabled not getting retried bit completed back
>to upper layer-
>--------
>/*
>     * assume caller has checked sense and determined
>     * the check condition was retryable.
>     */
>    if (scmd->request->cmd_flags & REQ_FAILFAST_DEV ||
>        scmd->request->cmd_type == REQ_TYPE_BLOCK_PC)
>        return 1;
>    else
>        return 0;
>--------
>
>IO which causes application to stop has REQ_FAILFAST_DEV enabled inside
>"scmd->request->cmd_flags". We noticed that this bit will be set for
>filesystem Read ahead meta data IOs. In order to confirm the same, we
>mounted with option inode_readahead_blks=0 to disable ext4's inode table
>readahead algorithm and did not observe the issue. Issue does not hit
with
>DIRECT IOs but only with cached/buffered IOs.
>
>2. From driver level debug prints, we also noticed - There are many IO
>failures with REQ_FAILFAST_DEV handled gracefully by filesystem.
>Application level failure happens only If IO has RQF_MIXED_MERGE set.
>If IO merging is disabled through sysfs parameter for SCSI device in
question-
>nomerges set to 2, we are not seeing the issue.
>
>3. We added few prints in driver to dump "scmd->request->cmd_flags" and
>"scmd->request->rq_flags" for IOs completed with CHECK CONDITION and
>culprit IOs has all these bits- REQ_FAILFAST_DEV and REQ_RAHEAD bit set
in
>"scmd->request->cmd_flags" and RQF_MIXED_MERGE bit set in "scmd-
>>request->rq_flags". Also it's not necessarily true that all IOs with
these
>three bits set will cause issue but whenever issue hits, these three bits
are
>set for IO causing failure.
>
>
>In summary,
>FS mechanism of using READ AHEAD for meta data works fine (in case of IO
>failure) if there is no mix/merge at block layer.
>FS mechanism of using READ AHEAD for meta data has some corner case
>which is not handled properly (in case of IO failure) if  there was
mix/merge
>at block layer.
>megaraid_sas driver's behavior seems correct here. Aborted IO goes to SML
>with CHECK CONDITION settings and SML decided to fail fast IO as it was
>requested.
>
>Query -  Is this block layer (page cache) issue?  What should be the
ideal fix ?
>
>Thanks,
>Sumit