Re: [PATCH][FAT] FAT dirent scan with hin take #3

Machida, Hiroyuki
2005-09-01T05:51:03Z

OGAWA Hirofumi wrote:
> "Machida, Hiroyuki" <machida@sm.sony.co.jp> writes:
>
>
>>Right, it looks like TLB, which holds cache "Physical addres"
>>correponding to "Logical address". In this case, PID and file name
>>to be looked up, perform role of "Logical address".
>
>
> But, there is the big difference between hint table and TLB. TLB is
> just the cache, and TLB hit is perfectly good, because kernel is
> flushing the wrong values.
>
> But this hint table is just collecting the recent access, it's not
> cache, and it's not tracking the process's access at all. So, since
> the hint value is really random, the hint value may be bad.
>
> I worry bad cases of this.
>
>
> Umm... How about tracking the access pattern of process? If that
> seems randomly access, just give up tracking and return no hint. And,
> probably, I think it would be easy to improve the behavior later.
>
> What do you think?

Sounds interesting...

Once concern about global URL in general, it tends to be occupied
by specific pattern, like accesses from one process or to on dir.
It prevents to realize locality.

I think it's better to have limitations like;
entries for same process would be limited to 2/3
entries for same dir would be limited to 1/3

> e.g.
>
> #define FAT_LOOKUP_HINT_MAX 16
>
> /* this data per task */
> struct fat_lookup_hint {
> struct list_head lru;
> pid_t pid;
> struct super_block *sb;
> struct inode *dir;
> loff_t last_pos;
> /* int state;*/
> };

Does this mean for each process recording last recent 16
accesses to FAT file system ? If true, pid would be eliminated.

I guess it's better to record nr_slots for this entry.

As implementation issue, if number of entires is small enough,
we can use an array, not a list.

> static void fat_lkup_hint_inval(struct super_block *, struct inode *);
> static loff_t fat_lkup_hint_get(struct super_block *, struct inode *);
> static void fat_lkup_hint_add(struct super_block *, struct inode *, loff_t);
> static int fat_lkup_hint_init(void);

I think super_block can be retrieved from inode, any other intention do
you have?

In addtion, we can do follwoing to check the exact match case;

0. Record hash value of file name in struct fat_lookup_hint

1. Check hash value to find exact match case,
1-1. If matched entry is found, check if file name and
file name retieved from dirent corresponding
1-2. We found the entry

2. Get hint value, if there seem to have locality
2-1. Check locality of access pattern for this PID and this
DIR.
2-2. If we relize access locality, return hit value so that
it covers a potential working set.
2-3. Use hint value as start position of dirscan.

--
Hiroyuki Machida