Re: XFS issue under 2.6.25.13 kernel

Sławomir Nowakowski
2008-08-25T11:07:11Z

2008/8/23 Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 12:03:40PM +0200, Sławomir Nowakowski wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> We have a problem with implementing xfs file system for Linux. The problem
>> appears after mounting xfs file system on 2.6.25.13 kernel that is created on
>> 2.6.17.13 kernel.
>>
>> File system is created on logical volume in the following way:
>>
>> lvcreate -L 4G volume1 -n test
>> mkfs.xfs /dev/volume1/test
>> mount /dev/volume1/test /mnt/x
>>
>> After mounting it on 2.6.17.13 kernel "df -B 1" output looks like this:
>>
>> /dev/volume1/test 4284481536 147456 4284334080 1% /mnt/x
>>
>> but in case of 2.6.25.13 kernel:
>>
>> /dev/volume1/test 4284481536 4489216 4279992320 1% /mnt/x
>>
>> The same happens in case of 2.6.26.3 kernel.
>
> Yeah, we reserved 4MB of space for unreserved delayed metadata
> allocations to allow transactions to succeed when at ENOSPC. That
> reservation is accounted as 'used space' to prevent it being used by
> data.
>

Thank you for information.

>> As it is shown after mounting the volume in newer kernel size of file system
>> is visible smaller. The problem appears when on this volume exists one big
>> file, occupying all available space. After trying to mount it under newer
>> kernel, the file is cut because available free space is smaller.
>
> What is on disk will not change - the reservation is purely an
> in-memory construct. i.e. if the file already exists then it
> won't change on upgrade. Can you show how the file changes just
> by booting a different kernel (e.g. ls -l output, md5sums, etc).
>

For tests we have used two kernels: 2.6.17.13 and 2.6.25.13
We have created following partition map:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 123 987966 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 124 155 257040 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 156 778 5004247+ 83 Linux

Next under kernel 2.6.17.1e we have created XFS partition onto sda3:

# mkfs.xfs /dev/sda3

and have mounted it:

# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/z

Next we have created some files:
-one big file called "bigfile" and size of 5109497856 bytes
-two small text files called: "file1" and "file2"

At this stage it looked as follows:

root@localhost:~# ls -la /mnt/z; df
total 4989773
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 44 Aug 25 09:35 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 1024 Aug 25 08:30 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5109497856 Aug 25 08:33 bigfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15132 May 30 15:04 file1
-rw------- 1 root root 7537 Aug 7 15:32 file2

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 4993984 4989916 4068 100% /mnt/z

Then we have run system with 2.6.25.13 kernel and checked how it looks:

root@localhost:~# ls -la /mnt/z; df
total 4989773
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 44 Aug 25 09:35 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 1024 Aug 25 08:30 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5109497856 Aug 25 08:33 bigfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15132 May 30 15:04 file1
-rw------- 1 root root 7537 Aug 7 15:32 file2

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 4993984 4993984 0 100% /mnt/z

As it shown in case of 2.6.25.13 kernel system reports no free space,
but under 2.6.17.13 kernel there is 4068kB of free space.

At this stage when editing file file1 with i.e. mcedit and trying to
write changes, the system cuts this file to 0 bytes!

The same situation does not happen when we use:

cat file2 >> file1

In this case the system connects two files properly.

>> Is it known issue and/or does solution or workaround exists?
>
> $ sudo xfs_io -x -c 'resblks 0' <file in filesystem>
>
> will remove the reservation. This means your filesystem can shutdown
> or lose data at ENOSPC in certain circumstances....

A question: does using the command:

$ sudo xfs_io -x -c 'resblks 0' <file in filesystem>

for 2.6.25.13 kernel gives higher risk of losing data then in case of
2.6.17.13 kernel.

>
> Cheers,
>
> Dave.
> --
> Dave Chinner
> david@fromorbit.com
>

Thank you very much for your help

Roland
nailman23@gmail.com