Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] iomap: make zero range flush conditional on unwritten mappings

Brian Foster
2024-08-29T17:29:05Z

On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 11:03:57AM -0400, Brian Foster wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 03:44:20PM -0700, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 02:19:11PM -0400, Brian Foster wrote:
> > > iomap_zero_range() flushes pagecache to mitigate consistency
> > > problems with dirty pagecache and unwritten mappings. The flush is
> > > unconditional over the entire range because checking pagecache state
> > > after mapping lookup is racy with writeback and reclaim. There are
> > > ways around this using iomap's mapping revalidation mechanism, but
> > > this is not supported by all iomap based filesystems and so is not a
> > > generic solution.
> > >
> > > There is another way around this limitation that is good enough to
> > > filter the flush for most cases in practice. If we check for dirty
> > > pagecache over the target range (instead of unconditionally flush),
> > > we can keep track of whether the range was dirty before lookup and
> > > defer the flush until/unless we see a combination of dirty cache
> > > backed by an unwritten mapping. We don't necessarily know whether
> > > the dirty cache was backed by the unwritten maping or some other
> > > (written) part of the range, but the impliciation of a false
> > > positive here is a spurious flush and thus relatively harmless.
> > >
> > > Note that we also flush for hole mappings because iomap_zero_range()
> > > is used for partial folio zeroing in some cases. For example, if a
> > > folio straddles EOF on a sub-page FSB size fs, the post-eof portion
> > > is hole-backed and dirtied/written via mapped write, and then i_size
> > > increases before writeback can occur (which otherwise zeroes the
> > > post-eof portion of the EOF folio), then the folio becomes
> > > inconsistent with disk until reclaimed. A flush in this case
> > > executes partial zeroing from writeback, and iomap knows that there
> > > is otherwise no I/O to submit for hole backed mappings.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Brian Foster <bfoster@redhat.com>
> > > ---
> > > fs/iomap/buffered-io.c | 57 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
> > > 1 file changed, 48 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
> > >
> > > diff --git a/fs/iomap/buffered-io.c b/fs/iomap/buffered-io.c
> > > index 3e846f43ff48..a6e897e6e303 100644
> > > --- a/fs/iomap/buffered-io.c
> > > +++ b/fs/iomap/buffered-io.c
> > > @@ -1393,16 +1393,47 @@ iomap_file_unshare(struct inode *inode, loff_t pos, loff_t len,
> > > }
> > > EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(iomap_file_unshare);
> > >
> > > -static loff_t iomap_zero_iter(struct iomap_iter *iter, bool *did_zero)
> > > +/*
> > > + * Flush the remaining range of the iter and mark the current mapping stale.
> > > + * This is used when zero range sees an unwritten mapping that may have had
> > > + * dirty pagecache over it.
> > > + */
> > > +static inline int iomap_zero_iter_flush_and_stale(struct iomap_iter *i)
> > > +{
> > > + struct address_space *mapping = i->inode->i_mapping;
> > > + loff_t end = i->pos + i->len - 1;
> > > +
> > > + i->iomap.flags |= IOMAP_F_STALE;
> > > + return filemap_write_and_wait_range(mapping, i->pos, end);
> > > +}
> > > +
> > > +static loff_t iomap_zero_iter(struct iomap_iter *iter, bool *did_zero,
> > > + bool *range_dirty)
> > > {
> > > const struct iomap *srcmap = iomap_iter_srcmap(iter);
> > > loff_t pos = iter->pos;
> > > loff_t length = iomap_length(iter);
> > > loff_t written = 0;
> > >
> > > - /* already zeroed? we're done. */
> > > - if (srcmap->type == IOMAP_HOLE || srcmap->type == IOMAP_UNWRITTEN)
> > > + /*
> > > + * We can skip pre-zeroed mappings so long as either the mapping was
> > > + * clean before we started or we've flushed at least once since.
> > > + * Otherwise we don't know whether the current mapping had dirty
> > > + * pagecache, so flush it now, stale the current mapping, and proceed
> > > + * from there.
> > > + *
> > > + * The hole case is intentionally included because this is (ab)used to
> > > + * handle partial folio zeroing in some cases. Hole backed post-eof
> > > + * ranges can be dirtied via mapped write and the flush triggers
> > > + * writeback time post-eof zeroing.
> > > + */
> > > + if (srcmap->type == IOMAP_HOLE || srcmap->type == IOMAP_UNWRITTEN) {
> > > + if (*range_dirty) {
> > > + *range_dirty = false;
> > > + return iomap_zero_iter_flush_and_stale(iter);
> > > + }
> > > return length;
> > > + }
> > >
> > > do {
> > > struct folio *folio;
> > > @@ -1450,19 +1481,27 @@ iomap_zero_range(struct inode *inode, loff_t pos, loff_t len, bool *did_zero,
> > > .flags = IOMAP_ZERO,
> > > };
> > > int ret;
> > > + bool range_dirty;
> > >
> > > /*
> > > * Zero range wants to skip pre-zeroed (i.e. unwritten) mappings, but
> > > * pagecache must be flushed to ensure stale data from previous
> > > - * buffered writes is not exposed.
> > > + * buffered writes is not exposed. A flush is only required for certain
> > > + * types of mappings, but checking pagecache after mapping lookup is
> > > + * racy with writeback and reclaim.
> > > + *
> > > + * Therefore, check the entire range first and pass along whether any
> > > + * part of it is dirty. If so and an underlying mapping warrants it,
> > > + * flush the cache at that point. This trades off the occasional false
> > > + * positive (and spurious flush, if the dirty data and mapping don't
> > > + * happen to overlap) for simplicity in handling a relatively uncommon
> > > + * situation.
> > > */
> > > - ret = filemap_write_and_wait_range(inode->i_mapping,
> > > - pos, pos + len - 1);
> > > - if (ret)
> > > - return ret;
> > > + range_dirty = filemap_range_needs_writeback(inode->i_mapping,
> > > + pos, pos + len - 1);
> > >
> > > while ((ret = iomap_iter(&iter, ops)) > 0)
> > > - iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter(&iter, did_zero);
> > > + iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter(&iter, did_zero, &range_dirty);
> >
> > Style nit: Could we do this flush-and-stale from the loop body instead
> > of passing pointers around? e.g.
> >
>
> So FWIW, I had multiple other variations of this that used an
> IOMAP_DIRTY_CACHE flag on the iomap to track dirty pagecache for
> arbitrary operations. The flag could be set and cleared at the
> appropriate points as expected (for ops that care).
>
> To me, that's how I'd prefer to avoid just passing a pointer, but I
> intentionally factored that out to avoid using a flag for something that
> (for now) could be simplified to a local variable. OTOH, it is something
> that might be useful for the iomap seek data/hole implementations down
> the road.
>
> I've played with that a bit, but also have been trying to avoid getting
> too much into that rabbit hole for zero range. My thought was I'd
> reintroduce it and replace the range_dirty thing if/when it proved
> useful for multiple operations.
>
> > static inline bool iomap_zero_need_flush(const struct iomap_iter *i)
> > {
> > const struct iomap *srcmap = iomap_iter_srcmap(iter);
> >
> > return srcmap->type == IOMAP_HOLE ||
> > srcmap->type == IOMAP_UNWRITTEN;
> > }
>
> The factoring looks mostly reasonable, but a couple things bug me that
> I'd like to see if we can resolve..
>
> One is that this doesn't really indicate whether a flush is needed,
> because the dirty cache state is a critical part of that logic. I
> suppose we could rename it (to what?), but it also seems a little odd to
> have a helper just for mapping type checks.
>
> >
> > static inline int iomap_zero_iter_flush(struct iomap_iter *i)
> > {
> > struct address_space *mapping = i->inode->i_mapping;
> > loff_t end = i->pos + i->len - 1;
> >
> > i->iomap.flags |= IOMAP_F_STALE;
> > return filemap_write_and_wait_range(mapping, i->pos, end);
> > }
> >
> > and then:
> >
> > range_dirty = filemap_range_needs_writeback(...);
> >
> > while ((ret = iomap_iter(&iter, ops)) > 0) {
> > if (range_dirty && iomap_zero_need_flush(&iter)) {
> > /*
> > * Zero range wants to skip pre-zeroed (i.e.
> > * unwritten) mappings, but...
> > */
> > range_dirty = false;
> > iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter_flush(&iter);
> > } else {
> > iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter(&iter, did_zero);
> > }
>
> The other is that the optimization logic is now split across multiple
> functions. I.e., iomap_zero_iter() has a landmine if ever called without
> doing the flush_and_stale() part first (a consideration if
> truncate_page() were ever open coded, for example).
>
> I wonder if a compromise might be to factor out the whole optimization
> into a separate helper rather than just the flush part (first via a prep
> patch), then the higher level loop ends up looking almost the same:
>
> while ((ret = iomap_iter(&iter, ops)) > 0) {
> /* special handling for already zeroed mappings */
> if (srcmap->type == IOMAP_HOLE || srcmap->type == IOMAP_UNWRITTEN)
> iter.processed = iomap_zero_mapping_iter(&iter, &range_dirty);
> else
> iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter(&iter, did_zero);
> }
>
> That doesn't avoid passing the range_dirty pointer, but we just end up
> passing that instead of did_zero. Also as noted above, it could still be
> made to go away if the range_dirty check gets pushed down into the
> iomap_iter() path for more general use.
>

FWIW, here's another variation of iomap_zero_range() that seems a bit
closer to yours:

range_dirty = filemap_range_needs_writeback(inode->i_mapping,
pos, pos + len - 1);

while ((ret = iomap_iter(&iter, ops)) > 0) {
const struct iomap *srcmap = iomap_iter_srcmap(&iter);

if (srcmap->type == IOMAP_HOLE || srcmap->type == IOMAP_UNWRITTEN) {
iter.processed = iomap_length(&iter);
if (range_dirty) {
range_dirty = false;
iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter_flush_and_stale(&iter);
}
continue;
}

iter.processed = iomap_zero_iter(&iter, did_zero);
}

This avoids passing around range_dirty, but keeps the optimization logic
together. Hm?

Brian

> Anyways those are just my thoughts. I'm of the mind that whatever
> factoring we do here may have to change if Dave's batched folio
> lookup/iteration idea pans out for fs' with validation support, so at
> the end of the day I'll change this to look exactly like you wrote it if
> it means the zeroing problem gets fixed. Thoughts or preference?
>
> Brian
>
> > }
> >
> > The logic looks correct and sensible. :)
> >
> > --D
> >
> > > return ret;
> > > }
> > > EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(iomap_zero_range);
> > > --
> > > 2.45.0
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>