Re: [PATCH-v4 6/7] ext4: add support for a lazytime mount option

Dave Chinner
2014-11-26T22:48:48Z

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 05:23:56AM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> Add an optimization for the MS_LAZYTIME mount option so that we will
> opportunistically write out any inodes with the I_DIRTY_TIME flag set
> in a particular inode table block when we need to update some inode in
> that inode table block anyway.
>
> Also add some temporary code so that we can set the lazytime mount
> option without needing a modified /sbin/mount program which can set
> MS_LAZYTIME. We can eventually make this go away once util-linux has
> added support.
>
> Google-Bug-Id: 18297052
>
> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
> ---
> fs/ext4/inode.c | 49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
> fs/ext4/super.c | 9 +++++++++
> include/trace/events/ext4.h | 30 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 3 files changed, 85 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/ext4/inode.c b/fs/ext4/inode.c
> index 5653fa4..8308c82 100644
> --- a/fs/ext4/inode.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/inode.c
> @@ -4140,6 +4140,51 @@ static int ext4_inode_blocks_set(handle_t *handle,
> }
>
> /*
> + * Opportunistically update the other time fields for other inodes in
> + * the same inode table block.
> + */
> +static void ext4_update_other_inodes_time(struct super_block *sb,
> + unsigned long orig_ino, char *buf)
> +{
> + struct ext4_inode_info *ei;
> + struct ext4_inode *raw_inode;
> + unsigned long ino;
> + struct inode *inode;
> + int i, inodes_per_block = EXT4_SB(sb)->s_inodes_per_block;
> + int inode_size = EXT4_INODE_SIZE(sb);
> +
> + ino = orig_ino & ~(inodes_per_block - 1);
> + for (i = 0; i < inodes_per_block; i++, ino++, buf += inode_size) {
> + if (ino == orig_ino)
> + continue;
> + inode = find_active_inode_nowait(sb, ino);
> + if (!inode ||
> + (inode->i_state & I_DIRTY_TIME) == 0 ||
> + !spin_trylock(&inode->i_lock)) {
> + iput(inode);
> + continue;
> + }
> + inode->i_state &= ~I_DIRTY_TIME;
> + inode->i_ts_dirty_day = 0;
> + spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
> + inode_requeue_dirtytime(inode);
> +
> + ei = EXT4_I(inode);
> + raw_inode = (struct ext4_inode *) buf;
> +
> + spin_lock(&ei->i_raw_lock);
> + EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_ctime, inode, raw_inode);
> + EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_mtime, inode, raw_inode);
> + EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_atime, inode, raw_inode);
> + ext4_inode_csum_set(inode, raw_inode, ei);
> + spin_unlock(&ei->i_raw_lock);
> + trace_ext4_other_inode_update_time(inode, orig_ino);
> + iput(inode);
> + }
> +}

Am I right in that this now does unlogged timestamp updates of
inodes? What happens when that buffer gets overwritten by log
recover after a crash? The timestamp updates get lost?

FYI, XFS has had all sorts of nasty log recovery corner cases
caused by log recovery overwriting non-logged inode updates like
this. In the past few years we've removed every single non-logged
inode update "optimisation" so that all changes (including timestamps)
are transactional so inode state on disk not matching what log
recovery wrote to disk for all the other inode metadata...

Optimistic unlogged inode updates are a slippery slope, and history
tells me that it doesn't lead to a nice place....

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com