<feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
<title>linux-toradex.git/fs/ext4/fsync.c, branch v3.10.2</title>
<subtitle>Linux kernel for Apalis and Colibri modules</subtitle>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/'/>
<entry>
<title>ext4/jbd2: don't wait (forever) for stale tid caused by wraparound</title>
<updated>2013-04-04T02:02:52+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Theodore Ts'o</name>
<email>tytso@mit.edu</email>
</author>
<published>2013-04-04T02:02:52+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=d76a3a77113db020d9bb1e894822869410450bd9'/>
<id>d76a3a77113db020d9bb1e894822869410450bd9</id>
<content type='text'>
In the case where an inode has a very stale transaction id (tid) in
i_datasync_tid or i_sync_tid, it's possible that after a very large
(2**31) number of transactions, that the tid number space might wrap,
causing tid_geq()'s calculations to fail.

Commit deeeaf13 "jbd2: fix fsync() tid wraparound bug", later modified
by commit e7b04ac0 "jbd2: don't wake kjournald unnecessarily",
attempted to fix this problem, but it only avoided kjournald spinning
forever by fixing the logic in jbd2_log_start_commit().

Unfortunately, in the codepaths in fs/ext4/fsync.c and fs/ext4/inode.c
that might call jbd2_log_start_commit() with a stale tid, those
functions will subsequently call jbd2_log_wait_commit() with the same
stale tid, and then wait for a very long time.  To fix this, we
replace the calls to jbd2_log_start_commit() and
jbd2_log_wait_commit() with a call to a new function,
jbd2_complete_transaction(), which will correctly handle stale tid's.

As a bonus, jbd2_complete_transaction() will avoid locking
j_state_lock for writing unless a commit needs to be started.  This
should have a small (but probably not measurable) improvement for
ext4's scalability.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reported-by: Ben Hutchings &lt;ben@decadent.org.uk&gt;
Reported-by: George Barnett &lt;gbarnett@atlassian.com&gt;
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org


</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
In the case where an inode has a very stale transaction id (tid) in
i_datasync_tid or i_sync_tid, it's possible that after a very large
(2**31) number of transactions, that the tid number space might wrap,
causing tid_geq()'s calculations to fail.

Commit deeeaf13 "jbd2: fix fsync() tid wraparound bug", later modified
by commit e7b04ac0 "jbd2: don't wake kjournald unnecessarily",
attempted to fix this problem, but it only avoided kjournald spinning
forever by fixing the logic in jbd2_log_start_commit().

Unfortunately, in the codepaths in fs/ext4/fsync.c and fs/ext4/inode.c
that might call jbd2_log_start_commit() with a stale tid, those
functions will subsequently call jbd2_log_wait_commit() with the same
stale tid, and then wait for a very long time.  To fix this, we
replace the calls to jbd2_log_start_commit() and
jbd2_log_wait_commit() with a call to a new function,
jbd2_complete_transaction(), which will correctly handle stale tid's.

As a bonus, jbd2_complete_transaction() will avoid locking
j_state_lock for writing unless a commit needs to be started.  This
should have a small (but probably not measurable) improvement for
ext4's scalability.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reported-by: Ben Hutchings &lt;ben@decadent.org.uk&gt;
Reported-by: George Barnett &lt;gbarnett@atlassian.com&gt;
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org


</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: fix an incorrect comment about i_mutex</title>
<updated>2012-12-25T18:31:52+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Andy Lutomirski</name>
<email>luto@amacapital.net</email>
</author>
<published>2012-12-25T18:31:52+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=ad96f7115593e962dd22a0519021eafaba56f5e3'/>
<id>ad96f7115593e962dd22a0519021eafaba56f5e3</id>
<content type='text'>
i_mutex is not held when -&gt;sync_file is called.

Reviewed-by: Jan Kara &lt;jack@suse.cz&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski &lt;luto@amacapital.net&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
i_mutex is not held when -&gt;sync_file is called.

Reviewed-by: Jan Kara &lt;jack@suse.cz&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski &lt;luto@amacapital.net&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: use sync_inode_metadata() when syncing inode metadata</title>
<updated>2012-12-10T19:06:03+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Guo Chao</name>
<email>yan@linux.vnet.ibm.com</email>
</author>
<published>2012-12-10T19:06:03+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=64744e03c6871e5e4678478bab1b8c3ba6cca395'/>
<id>64744e03c6871e5e4678478bab1b8c3ba6cca395</id>
<content type='text'>
We have a dedicated interface to sync inode metadata.  Use it to
simplify ext4's code some.

Signed-off-by: Guo Chao &lt;yan@linux.vnet.ibm.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reviewed-by: Lukas Czerner &lt;lczerner@redhat.com&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
We have a dedicated interface to sync inode metadata.  Use it to
simplify ext4's code some.

Signed-off-by: Guo Chao &lt;yan@linux.vnet.ibm.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reviewed-by: Lukas Czerner &lt;lczerner@redhat.com&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: fix ext4_flush_completed_IO wait semantics</title>
<updated>2012-10-05T15:31:55+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Dmitry Monakhov</name>
<email>dmonakhov@openvz.org</email>
</author>
<published>2012-10-05T15:31:55+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=c278531d39f3158bfee93dc67da0b77e09776de2'/>
<id>c278531d39f3158bfee93dc67da0b77e09776de2</id>
<content type='text'>
BUG #1) All places where we call ext4_flush_completed_IO are broken
    because buffered io and DIO/AIO goes through three stages
    1) submitted io,
    2) completed io (in i_completed_io_list) conversion pended
    3) finished  io (conversion done)
    And by calling ext4_flush_completed_IO we will flush only
    requests which were in (2) stage, which is wrong because:
     1) punch_hole and truncate _must_ wait for all outstanding unwritten io
      regardless to it's state.
     2) fsync and nolock_dio_read should also wait because there is
        a time window between end_page_writeback() and ext4_add_complete_io()
        As result integrity fsync is broken in case of buffered write
        to fallocated region:
        fsync                                      blkdev_completion
	 -&gt;filemap_write_and_wait_range
                                                   -&gt;ext4_end_bio
                                                     -&gt;end_page_writeback
          &lt;-- filemap_write_and_wait_range return
	 -&gt;ext4_flush_completed_IO
   	 sees empty i_completed_io_list but pended
   	 conversion still exist
                                                     -&gt;ext4_add_complete_io

BUG #2) Race window becomes wider due to the 'ext4: completed_io
locking cleanup V4' patch series

This patch make following changes:
1) ext4_flush_completed_io() now first try to flush completed io and when
   wait for any outstanding unwritten io via ext4_unwritten_wait()
2) Rename function to more appropriate name.
3) Assert that all callers of ext4_flush_unwritten_io should hold i_mutex to
   prevent endless wait

Signed-off-by: Dmitry Monakhov &lt;dmonakhov@openvz.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara &lt;jack@suse.cz&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
BUG #1) All places where we call ext4_flush_completed_IO are broken
    because buffered io and DIO/AIO goes through three stages
    1) submitted io,
    2) completed io (in i_completed_io_list) conversion pended
    3) finished  io (conversion done)
    And by calling ext4_flush_completed_IO we will flush only
    requests which were in (2) stage, which is wrong because:
     1) punch_hole and truncate _must_ wait for all outstanding unwritten io
      regardless to it's state.
     2) fsync and nolock_dio_read should also wait because there is
        a time window between end_page_writeback() and ext4_add_complete_io()
        As result integrity fsync is broken in case of buffered write
        to fallocated region:
        fsync                                      blkdev_completion
	 -&gt;filemap_write_and_wait_range
                                                   -&gt;ext4_end_bio
                                                     -&gt;end_page_writeback
          &lt;-- filemap_write_and_wait_range return
	 -&gt;ext4_flush_completed_IO
   	 sees empty i_completed_io_list but pended
   	 conversion still exist
                                                     -&gt;ext4_add_complete_io

BUG #2) Race window becomes wider due to the 'ext4: completed_io
locking cleanup V4' patch series

This patch make following changes:
1) ext4_flush_completed_io() now first try to flush completed io and when
   wait for any outstanding unwritten io via ext4_unwritten_wait()
2) Rename function to more appropriate name.
3) Assert that all callers of ext4_flush_unwritten_io should hold i_mutex to
   prevent endless wait

Signed-off-by: Dmitry Monakhov &lt;dmonakhov@openvz.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara &lt;jack@suse.cz&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: completed_io locking cleanup</title>
<updated>2012-09-29T04:14:55+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Dmitry Monakhov</name>
<email>dmonakhov@openvz.org</email>
</author>
<published>2012-09-29T04:14:55+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=28a535f9a0df060569dcc786e5bc2e1de43d7dc7'/>
<id>28a535f9a0df060569dcc786e5bc2e1de43d7dc7</id>
<content type='text'>
Current unwritten extent conversion state-machine is very fuzzy.
- For unknown reason it performs conversion under i_mutex. What for?
  My diagnosis:
  We already protect extent tree with i_data_sem, truncate and punch_hole
  should wait for DIO, so the only data we have to protect is end_io-&gt;flags
  modification, but only flush_completed_IO and end_io_work modified this
  flags and we can serialize them via i_completed_io_lock.

  Currently all these games with mutex_trylock result in the following deadlock
   truncate:                          kworker:
    ext4_setattr                       ext4_end_io_work
    mutex_lock(i_mutex)
    inode_dio_wait(inode)  -&gt;BLOCK
                             DEADLOCK&lt;- mutex_trylock()
                                        inode_dio_done()
  #TEST_CASE1_BEGIN
  MNT=/mnt_scrach
  unlink $MNT/file
  fallocate -l $((1024*1024*1024)) $MNT/file
  aio-stress -I 100000 -O -s 100m -n -t 1 -c 10 -o 2 -o 3 $MNT/file
  sleep 2
  truncate -s 0 $MNT/file
  #TEST_CASE1_END

Or use 286's xfstests https://github.com/dmonakhov/xfstests/blob/devel/286

This patch makes state machine simple and clean:

(1) xxx_end_io schedule final extent conversion simply by calling
    ext4_add_complete_io(), which append it to ei-&gt;i_completed_io_list
    NOTE1: because of (2A) work should be queued only if
    -&gt;i_completed_io_list was empty, otherwise the work is scheduled already.

(2) ext4_flush_completed_IO is responsible for handling all pending
    end_io from ei-&gt;i_completed_io_list
    Flushing sequence consists of following stages:
    A) LOCKED: Atomically drain completed_io_list to local_list
    B) Perform extents conversion
    C) LOCKED: move converted io's to to_free list for final deletion
       	     This logic depends on context which we was called from.
    D) Final end_io context destruction
    NOTE1: i_mutex is no longer required because end_io-&gt;flags modification
    is protected by ei-&gt;ext4_complete_io_lock

Full list of changes:
- Move all completion end_io related routines to page-io.c in order to improve
  logic locality
- Move open coded logic from various xx_end_xx routines to ext4_add_complete_io()
- remove EXT4_IO_END_FSYNC
- Improve SMP scalability by removing useless i_mutex which does not
  protect io-&gt;flags anymore.
- Reduce lock contention on i_completed_io_lock by optimizing list walk.
- Rename ext4_end_io_nolock to end4_end_io and make it static
- Check flush completion status to ext4_ext_punch_hole(). Because it is
  not good idea to punch blocks from corrupted inode.

Changes since V3 (in request to Jan's comments):
  Fall back to active flush_completed_IO() approach in order to prevent
  performance issues with nolocked DIO reads.
Changes since V2:
  Fix use-after-free caused by race truncate vs end_io_work

Signed-off-by: Dmitry Monakhov &lt;dmonakhov@openvz.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Current unwritten extent conversion state-machine is very fuzzy.
- For unknown reason it performs conversion under i_mutex. What for?
  My diagnosis:
  We already protect extent tree with i_data_sem, truncate and punch_hole
  should wait for DIO, so the only data we have to protect is end_io-&gt;flags
  modification, but only flush_completed_IO and end_io_work modified this
  flags and we can serialize them via i_completed_io_lock.

  Currently all these games with mutex_trylock result in the following deadlock
   truncate:                          kworker:
    ext4_setattr                       ext4_end_io_work
    mutex_lock(i_mutex)
    inode_dio_wait(inode)  -&gt;BLOCK
                             DEADLOCK&lt;- mutex_trylock()
                                        inode_dio_done()
  #TEST_CASE1_BEGIN
  MNT=/mnt_scrach
  unlink $MNT/file
  fallocate -l $((1024*1024*1024)) $MNT/file
  aio-stress -I 100000 -O -s 100m -n -t 1 -c 10 -o 2 -o 3 $MNT/file
  sleep 2
  truncate -s 0 $MNT/file
  #TEST_CASE1_END

Or use 286's xfstests https://github.com/dmonakhov/xfstests/blob/devel/286

This patch makes state machine simple and clean:

(1) xxx_end_io schedule final extent conversion simply by calling
    ext4_add_complete_io(), which append it to ei-&gt;i_completed_io_list
    NOTE1: because of (2A) work should be queued only if
    -&gt;i_completed_io_list was empty, otherwise the work is scheduled already.

(2) ext4_flush_completed_IO is responsible for handling all pending
    end_io from ei-&gt;i_completed_io_list
    Flushing sequence consists of following stages:
    A) LOCKED: Atomically drain completed_io_list to local_list
    B) Perform extents conversion
    C) LOCKED: move converted io's to to_free list for final deletion
       	     This logic depends on context which we was called from.
    D) Final end_io context destruction
    NOTE1: i_mutex is no longer required because end_io-&gt;flags modification
    is protected by ei-&gt;ext4_complete_io_lock

Full list of changes:
- Move all completion end_io related routines to page-io.c in order to improve
  logic locality
- Move open coded logic from various xx_end_xx routines to ext4_add_complete_io()
- remove EXT4_IO_END_FSYNC
- Improve SMP scalability by removing useless i_mutex which does not
  protect io-&gt;flags anymore.
- Reduce lock contention on i_completed_io_lock by optimizing list walk.
- Rename ext4_end_io_nolock to end4_end_io and make it static
- Check flush completion status to ext4_ext_punch_hole(). Because it is
  not good idea to punch blocks from corrupted inode.

Changes since V3 (in request to Jan's comments):
  Fall back to active flush_completed_IO() approach in order to prevent
  performance issues with nolocked DIO reads.
Changes since V2:
  Fix use-after-free caused by race truncate vs end_io_work

Signed-off-by: Dmitry Monakhov &lt;dmonakhov@openvz.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: check return value of blkdev_issue_flush()</title>
<updated>2012-08-17T13:58:17+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Theodore Ts'o</name>
<email>tytso@mit.edu</email>
</author>
<published>2012-08-17T13:58:17+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=a4a39040e9dacb5fa28b7ee7f842237ee534e7bf'/>
<id>a4a39040e9dacb5fa28b7ee7f842237ee534e7bf</id>
<content type='text'>
    
blkdev_issue_flush() can fail; make sure the error gets properly
propagated.
    
This is a port of the equivalent ext3 patch from commit 44f4f729e7a1.
    
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
    
blkdev_issue_flush() can fail; make sure the error gets properly
propagated.
    
This is a port of the equivalent ext3 patch from commit 44f4f729e7a1.
    
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>vfs: switch i_dentry/d_alias to hlist</title>
<updated>2012-07-14T12:32:55+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Al Viro</name>
<email>viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk</email>
</author>
<published>2012-06-09T17:51:19+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=b3d9b7a3c752dc4b6976a4ff7b8298887a5b734d'/>
<id>b3d9b7a3c752dc4b6976a4ff7b8298887a5b734d</id>
<content type='text'>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro &lt;viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro &lt;viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: get rid of open-coded d_find_any_alias()</title>
<updated>2012-07-14T12:32:54+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Al Viro</name>
<email>viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk</email>
</author>
<published>2012-06-09T17:19:12+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=9f713878f22e0b2d34d62df0ca55f65166375634'/>
<id>9f713878f22e0b2d34d62df0ca55f65166375634</id>
<content type='text'>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro &lt;viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro &lt;viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: fix race between sync and completed io work</title>
<updated>2012-03-05T15:29:52+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Jeff Moyer</name>
<email>jmoyer@redhat.com</email>
</author>
<published>2012-03-05T15:29:52+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=491caa43639abcffaa645fbab372a7ef4ce2975c'/>
<id>491caa43639abcffaa645fbab372a7ef4ce2975c</id>
<content type='text'>
The following command line will leave the aio-stress process unkillable
on an ext4 file system (in my case, mounted on /mnt/test):

aio-stress -t 20 -s 10 -O -S -o 2 -I 1000 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.20 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.19 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.18 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.17 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.16 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.15 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.14 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.13 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.12 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.11 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.10 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.9 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.8 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.7 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.6 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.5 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.4 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.3 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.2

This is using the aio-stress program from the xfstests test suite.
That particular command line tells aio-stress to do random writes to
20 files from 20 threads (one thread per file).  The files are NOT
preallocated, so you will get writes to random offsets within the
file, thus creating holes and extending i_size.  It also opens the
file with O_DIRECT and O_SYNC.

On to the problem.  When an I/O requires unwritten extent conversion,
it is queued onto the completed_io_list for the ext4 inode.  Two code
paths will pull work items from this list.  The first is the
ext4_end_io_work routine, and the second is ext4_flush_completed_IO,
which is called via the fsync path (and O_SYNC handling, as well).
There are two issues I've found in these code paths.  First, if the
fsync path beats the work routine to a particular I/O, the work
routine will free the io_end structure!  It does not take into account
the fact that the io_end may still be in use by the fsync path.  I've
fixed this issue by adding yet another IO_END flag, indicating that
the io_end is being processed by the fsync path.

The second problem is that the work routine will make an assignment to
io-&gt;flag outside of the lock.  I have witnessed this result in a hang
at umount.  Moving the flag setting inside the lock resolved that
problem.

The problem was introduced by commit b82e384c7b ("ext4: optimize
locking for end_io extent conversion"), which first appeared in 3.2.
As such, the fix should be backported to that release (probably along
with the unwritten extent conversion race fix).

Signed-off-by: Jeff Moyer &lt;jmoyer@redhat.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
CC: stable@kernel.org

</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
The following command line will leave the aio-stress process unkillable
on an ext4 file system (in my case, mounted on /mnt/test):

aio-stress -t 20 -s 10 -O -S -o 2 -I 1000 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.20 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.19 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.18 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.17 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.16 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.15 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.14 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.13 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.12 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.11 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.10 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.9 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.8 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.7 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.6 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.5 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.4 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.3 /mnt/test/aiostress.3561.4.2

This is using the aio-stress program from the xfstests test suite.
That particular command line tells aio-stress to do random writes to
20 files from 20 threads (one thread per file).  The files are NOT
preallocated, so you will get writes to random offsets within the
file, thus creating holes and extending i_size.  It also opens the
file with O_DIRECT and O_SYNC.

On to the problem.  When an I/O requires unwritten extent conversion,
it is queued onto the completed_io_list for the ext4 inode.  Two code
paths will pull work items from this list.  The first is the
ext4_end_io_work routine, and the second is ext4_flush_completed_IO,
which is called via the fsync path (and O_SYNC handling, as well).
There are two issues I've found in these code paths.  First, if the
fsync path beats the work routine to a particular I/O, the work
routine will free the io_end structure!  It does not take into account
the fact that the io_end may still be in use by the fsync path.  I've
fixed this issue by adding yet another IO_END flag, indicating that
the io_end is being processed by the fsync path.

The second problem is that the work routine will make an assignment to
io-&gt;flag outside of the lock.  I have witnessed this result in a hang
at umount.  Moving the flag setting inside the lock resolved that
problem.

The problem was introduced by commit b82e384c7b ("ext4: optimize
locking for end_io extent conversion"), which first appeared in 3.2.
As such, the fix should be backported to that release (probably along
with the unwritten extent conversion race fix).

Signed-off-by: Jeff Moyer &lt;jmoyer@redhat.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
CC: stable@kernel.org

</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>ext4: optimize locking for end_io extent conversion</title>
<updated>2011-10-31T14:56:32+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Theodore Ts'o</name>
<email>tytso@mit.edu</email>
</author>
<published>2011-10-31T14:56:32+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.toradex.cn/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?id=b82e384c7bb9a19036b4daf58fa216df7cd48aa0'/>
<id>b82e384c7bb9a19036b4daf58fa216df7cd48aa0</id>
<content type='text'>
Now that we are doing the locking correctly, we need to grab the
i_completed_io_lock() twice per end_io.  We can clean this up by
removing the structure from the i_complted_io_list, and use this as
the locking mechanism to prevent ext4_flush_completed_IO() racing
against ext4_end_io_work(), instead of clearing the
EXT4_IO_END_UNWRITTEN in io-&gt;flag.

In addition, if the ext4_convert_unwritten_extents() returns an error,
we no longer keep the end_io structure on the linked list.  This
doesn't help, because it tends to lock up the file system and wedges
the system.  That's one way to call attention to the problem, but it
doesn't help the overall robustness of the system.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Now that we are doing the locking correctly, we need to grab the
i_completed_io_lock() twice per end_io.  We can clean this up by
removing the structure from the i_complted_io_list, and use this as
the locking mechanism to prevent ext4_flush_completed_IO() racing
against ext4_end_io_work(), instead of clearing the
EXT4_IO_END_UNWRITTEN in io-&gt;flag.

In addition, if the ext4_convert_unwritten_extents() returns an error,
we no longer keep the end_io structure on the linked list.  This
doesn't help, because it tends to lock up the file system and wedges
the system.  That's one way to call attention to the problem, but it
doesn't help the overall robustness of the system.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
