[RFC v5 PATCH 0/9] xfs: automatic relogging experiment

Brian Foster
2020-02-27T13:43:26Z

Hi all,

Here's a v5 RFC of the automatic item relogging experiment. Firstly,
note that this is still a POC and experimental code with various quirks.
Some are documented in the code, others might not be (such as abusing
the AIL lock, etc.). The primary purpose of this series is still to
express and review a fundamental design. Based on discussion on the last
version, there is specific focus towards addressing log reservation and
pre-item locking deadlock vectors. While the code is still quite hacky,
I believe this design addresses both of those fundamental issues.
Further details on the design and approach are documented in the
individual commit logs.

In addition, the final few patches introduce buffer relogging capability
and test infrastructure, which currently has no use case other than to
demonstrate development flexibility and the ability to support arbitrary
log items in the future, if ever desired. If this approach is taken
forward, the current use cases are still centered around intent items
such as the quotaoff use case and extent freeing use case defined by
online repair of free space trees.

On somewhat of a tangent, another intent oriented use case idea crossed
my mind recently related to the long standing writeback stale data
exposure problem (i.e. if we crash after a delalloc extent is converted
but before writeback fully completes on the extent). The obvious
approach of using unwritten extents has been rebuffed due to performance
concerns over extent conversion. I wonder if we had the ability to log a
"writeback pending" intent on some reasonable level of granularity (i.e.
something between a block and extent), whether we could use that to
allow log recovery to zero (or convert) such extents in the event of a
crash. This is a whole separate design discussion, however, as it
involves tracking outstanding writeback, etc. In this context it simply
serves as a prospective use case for relogging, as such intents would
otherwise risk similar log subsystem deadlocks as the quotaoff use case.

Thoughts, reviews, flames appreciated.

Brian

rfcv5:
- More fleshed out design to prevent log reservation deadlock and
locking problems.
- Split out core patches between pre-reservation management, relog item
state management and relog mechanism.
- Added experimental buffer relogging capability.
rfcv4: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs/20191205175037.52529-1-bfoster@redhat.com/
- AIL based approach.
rfcv3: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs/20191125185523.47556-1-bfoster@redhat.com/
- CIL based approach.
rfcv2: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs/20191122181927.32870-1-bfoster@redhat.com/
- Different approach based on workqueue and transaction rolling.
rfc: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs/20191024172850.7698-1-bfoster@redhat.com/

Brian Foster (9):
xfs: set t_task at wait time instead of alloc time
xfs: introduce ->tr_relog transaction
xfs: automatic relogging reservation management
xfs: automatic relogging item management
xfs: automatic log item relog mechanism
xfs: automatically relog the quotaoff start intent
xfs: buffer relogging support prototype
xfs: create an error tag for random relog reservation
xfs: relog random buffers based on errortag

fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_errortag.h | 4 +-
fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_shared.h | 1 +
fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_trans_resv.c | 24 +++-
fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_trans_resv.h | 1 +
fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c | 5 +
fs/xfs/xfs_dquot_item.c | 7 ++
fs/xfs/xfs_error.c | 3 +
fs/xfs/xfs_log.c | 2 +-
fs/xfs/xfs_qm_syscalls.c | 12 +-
fs/xfs/xfs_trace.h | 3 +
fs/xfs/xfs_trans.c | 79 +++++++++++-
fs/xfs/xfs_trans.h | 13 +-
fs/xfs/xfs_trans_ail.c | 216 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
fs/xfs/xfs_trans_buf.c | 35 ++++++
fs/xfs/xfs_trans_priv.h | 6 +
15 files changed, 399 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

--
2.21.1