Re: [Ext2-devel] [UPDATE] Directory index for ext2

Andreas Dilger
2001-05-31T22:44:28Z

Daniel writes:
> On Thursday 31 May 2001 21:44, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> > I think Al's idea of doing the validation once on the initial
> > read is a good one.
>
> I'm doing that in the current patch, for leaf blocks, look at
> ext2_bread. For index blocks, ext2_bread needs help to know that a
> block is supposed to be an index block. Add a parameter?

I think we should just get rid of the misconception that ext2_bread()
is a block read function. It is only used by directory functions.
Instead we should have separate ext2_bread_leaf(), ext2_bread_root(),
ext2_bread_node() which do the appropriate validation for each type
of block.

In ext2_bread_dir() if we really think directory block prealloc is a win
(in addition to the existing in-memory contiguous block prealloc), we
may as well do it each time we split a leaf block, and make them valid
in-use leaf blocks instead of just wasting space on disk (i.e. each split
block has the hash space split into 1/N of the existing space, and we
distribute existing entries across all N blocks).

This way we don't have to split the each directory block so many times.
For indexed directories this is (probably) a net win because we avoid
N extra block splits (i.e. extra copying of leaf blocks), and make the
leaf search space smaller. On non-indexed ext2 it would be a net loss
because we would still have to read and search each directory block,
even if they are empty.

> It's normal for it to start by putting all the entries into the first
> two blocks, but after those are split it should be pretty uniform
> across the resulting 4, and so on. Can you confirm it's unbalanced?

I don't think that is what I was seeing, because the hash block numbers
were not "->1" and "->2" (which would be the case right after a split),
but rather 30's, 40's, etc.

> > Running mongo has shown up another bug, I see, but haven't had a
> > chance to look into yet. It involves not being able to delete files
> > from an indexed directory:
> >
> > rm: cannot remove `/mnt/tmp/testdir1-0-0/d0/d1/d2/d3/509.r':
> > Input/output error
> >
> > This is after the files had been renamed (.r suffix). Do we re-hash
> > directory entries if the file is renamed? If not, then that would
> > explain this problem. It _looks_ like we do the right thing, but the
> > mongo testing wipes out the filesystem after each test, and the above
> > message is from a logfile only.
>
> The rename creates the new entry via ext2_add_entry so the hash must be
> correct. Time to get out the bug swatter. I'll get mongo and try it.

One other point of information. In the test I was running, it was
always the file "509.r" which had the I/O error (new filesystem each
test run, btw, and no IDE errors in the log).

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto,
\ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?"
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert