Re: [PATCH] vfs: Add a trace point in the mark_inode_dirty function

Andrew Morton
2009-10-26T06:03:50Z

On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:53:42 -0700 Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:

> >From b894af8a33bec621dd1a4126603a3ca372bf0643 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
> Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:37:04 -0700
> Subject: [PATCH] vfs: Add a trace point in the mark_inode_dirty function
>
> PowerTOP would like to be able to show who is keeping the disk
> busy by dirtying data. The most logical spot for this is in the vfs
> in the mark_inode_dirty() function. Doing this on the block level
> is not possible because by the time the IO hits the block layer the
> guilty party can no longer be found ("kjournald" and "pdflush" are not
> useful answers to "who caused this file to be dirty).
>
> The trace point follows the same logic/style as the block_dump code
> and pretty much dumps the same data, just not to dmesg (and thus to
> /var/log/messages) but via the trace events streams.
>
> ...
>
> @@ -1071,6 +1072,8 @@ void __mark_inode_dirty(struct inode *inode, int flags)
> if ((inode->i_state & flags) == flags)
> return;
>
> + trace_dirty_inode(inode, current);
> +
> if (unlikely(block_dump))
> block_dump___mark_inode_dirty(inode);
>

Doesn't powertop also want to know who is spinning up the disk via
buffered reads, direct-io reads and direct-io writes?

That's why the block_dump hook in submit_bio() is there.