Re: [PATCH v7 11/15] fs: Optimization for concurrent file time updates.

Stefan Roesch
2022-06-02T21:06:44Z

On 6/2/22 1:59 AM, Jan Kara wrote:
> On Wed 01-06-22 14:01:37, Stefan Roesch wrote:
>> This introduces the S_PENDING_TIME flag. If an async buffered write
>> needs to update the time, it cannot be processed in the fast path of
>> io-uring. When a time update is pending this flag is set for async
>> buffered writes. Other concurrent async buffered writes for the same
>> file do not need to wait while this time update is pending.
>>
>> This reduces the number of async buffered writes that need to get punted
>> to the io-workers in io-uring.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Stefan Roesch <shr@fb.com>
>
> Thinking about this, there is a snag with this S_PENDING_TIME scheme. It
> can happen that we report write as completed to userspace before timestamps
> are actually updated. So following stat(2) can still return old time stamp
> which might confuse some userspace application. It might be even nastier
> with i_version which is used by NFS and can thus cause data consistency
> issues for NFS.
>

Thanks for catching this, I removed this patch from the patch series.

> Honza
>
>> ---
>> fs/inode.c | 11 +++++++++--
>> include/linux/fs.h | 3 +++
>> 2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/fs/inode.c b/fs/inode.c
>> index 4503bed063e7..7185d860d423 100644
>> --- a/fs/inode.c
>> +++ b/fs/inode.c
>> @@ -2150,10 +2150,17 @@ static int file_modified_flags(struct file *file, int flags)
>> ret = inode_needs_update_time(inode, &now);
>> if (ret <= 0)
>> return ret;
>> - if (flags & IOCB_NOWAIT)
>> + if (flags & IOCB_NOWAIT) {
>> + if (IS_PENDING_TIME(inode))
>> + return 0;
>> +
>> + inode_set_flags(inode, S_PENDING_TIME, S_PENDING_TIME);
>> return -EAGAIN;
>> + }
>>
>> - return __file_update_time(file, &now, ret);
>> + ret = __file_update_time(file, &now, ret);
>> + inode_set_flags(inode, 0, S_PENDING_TIME);
>> + return ret;
>> }
>>
>> /**
>> diff --git a/include/linux/fs.h b/include/linux/fs.h
>> index 553e57ec3efa..15f9a7beba55 100644
>> --- a/include/linux/fs.h
>> +++ b/include/linux/fs.h
>> @@ -2151,6 +2151,8 @@ struct super_operations {
>> #define S_CASEFOLD (1 << 15) /* Casefolded file */
>> #define S_VERITY (1 << 16) /* Verity file (using fs/verity/) */
>> #define S_KERNEL_FILE (1 << 17) /* File is in use by the kernel (eg. fs/cachefiles) */
>> +#define S_PENDING_TIME (1 << 18) /* File update time is pending */
>> +
>>
>> /*
>> * Note that nosuid etc flags are inode-specific: setting some file-system
>> @@ -2193,6 +2195,7 @@ static inline bool sb_rdonly(const struct super_block *sb) { return sb->s_flags
>> #define IS_ENCRYPTED(inode) ((inode)->i_flags & S_ENCRYPTED)
>> #define IS_CASEFOLDED(inode) ((inode)->i_flags & S_CASEFOLD)
>> #define IS_VERITY(inode) ((inode)->i_flags & S_VERITY)
>> +#define IS_PENDING_TIME(inode) ((inode)->i_flags & S_PENDING_TIME)
>>
>> #define IS_WHITEOUT(inode) (S_ISCHR(inode->i_mode) && \
>> (inode)->i_rdev == WHITEOUT_DEV)
>> --
>> 2.30.2
>>