Re: [PATCH 13/16] iomap: make buffered writes work with RWF_UNCACHED

Brian Foster
2024-11-12T18:14:34Z

On Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 10:16:10AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> On 11/12/24 9:37 AM, Brian Foster wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 04:37:40PM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> >> Add iomap buffered write support for RWF_UNCACHED. If RWF_UNCACHED is
> >> set for a write, mark the folios being written with drop_writeback. Then
> >
> > s/drop_writeback/uncached/ ?
>
> Ah indeed, guess that never got changed. Thanks, will fix that in the
> commit message.
>
> > BTW, this might be getting into wonky "don't care that much" territory,
> > but something else to be aware of is that certain writes can potentially
> > change pagecache state as a side effect outside of the actual buffered
> > write itself.
> >
> > For example, xfs calls iomap_zero_range() on write extension (i.e. pos >
> > isize), which uses buffered writes and thus could populate a pagecache
> > folio without setting it uncached, even if done on behalf of an uncached
> > write.
> >
> > I've only made a first pass and could be missing some details, but IIUC
> > I _think_ this means something like writing out a stream of small,
> > sparse and file extending uncached writes could actually end up behaving
> > more like sync I/O. Again, not saying that's something we really care
> > about, just raising it in case it's worth considering or documenting..
>
> No that's useful info, I'm not really surprised that there would still
> be cases where UNCACHED goes unnoticed. In other words, I'd be surprised
> if the current patches for eg xfs/ext4 cover all the cases where new
> folios are created and should be marked as UNCACHED of IOCB_UNCACHED is
> set in the iocb.
>
> I think those can be sorted out or documented as we move forward.
> UNCACHED is really just a hint - the kernel should do its best to not
> have permanent folios for this IO, but there are certainly cases where
> it won't be honored if you're racing with regular buffered IO or mmap.
> For the case above, sounds like we could cover that, however, and
> probably should.
>

Ok. I suppose you could plumb the iocb state through the zero range call
as well, but given the description/semantics I wouldn't blame you if you
wanted to leave that for a followon improvement. Thanks for the
explanation.

Brian

> --
> Jens Axboe
>