From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list xfs); Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:21:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from waste.org (waste.org [66.93.16.53]) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.10/SuSE Linux 0.7) with ESMTP id lAN0L15g014761 for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:21:05 -0800 Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:20:31 -0600 From: Matt Mackall Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/9]: Reduce Log I/O latency Message-ID: <20071123002031.GT19691@waste.org> References: <20071122003339.GH114266761__34694.2978365861$1195691722$gmane$org@sgi.com> <20071122011214.GR114266761@sgi.com> <20071122025726.GG17536@waste.org> <20071122034106.GV114266761@sgi.com> <20071122072549.GQ19691@waste.org> <20071122103159.GW114266761@sgi.com> <20071122181029.GR19691@waste.org> <20071122222909.GY114266761@sgi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20071122222909.GY114266761@sgi.com> Sender: xfs-bounce@oss.sgi.com Errors-to: xfs-bounce@oss.sgi.com List-Id: xfs To: David Chinner Cc: Andi Kleen , xfs-oss , lkml On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 09:29:09AM +1100, David Chinner wrote: > On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 12:10:29PM -0600, Matt Mackall wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 09:31:59PM +1100, David Chinner wrote: > > [...] > > > > In other words, I/O priority is per-spindle and not per-filesystem and > > > > thus this change has consequences that leak outside the filesystem in > > > > question. That's bad. > > > > > > This has nothing to do with this patch - it's a problem with sharing > > > a single resource in a RT system between two non-deterministic > > > constructs. e.g. I can put two ext3 filesystems on the one spindle, > > > run two completely independent RT workloads on the different > > > filesystems and have one workload DOS the other due to differences > > > in priority at the spindle. > > > > Sure. And it's up to the RT system designer not to do something stupid > > like that. The problem is that your patch potentially promotes a > > non-RT I/O activity to an RT one without regard to the rest of the > > system. > > So this: > > http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=119247074517414&w=2 > > shouldn't be allowed, either? (rt kjournald for ext3) No, I think not. If a user wants to manually promote kjournald, that's fine. > > Perfectly understood. And that's fine. A system designer is allowed to > > shoot himself in the foot. > > Ok. I'll point anyone that complains at you, Matt ;) > > > I don't think there's any fundamental reason the I/O subsystem or > > filesystems can't be taught to handle priority inversion, which is > > much more acceptable and general fix. > > See my reply to Andi. I did. And I'll admit it's pretty thorny and I certainly don't know enough about XFS internals to comment further. > > If I've got XFS on filesystems A and B on the same spindle (or volume > > group?) and my real RT I/O takes place only on B, then I want log > > flushing to happen in RT on B. But -never on A-. If I can do this with > > a tunable, I'm perfectly happy. > > No, not another mount option. I'm just going to drop this one for > now... I was actually just suggesting allowing a user to do ioprio_set on the appropriate kernel threads. -- Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.