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  1. 15 Sep, 2018 1 commit
  3. 30 May, 2018 1 commit
    • shidao.ytt's avatar
      mm/fadvise: discard partial page if endbyte is also EOF · a8b21508
      shidao.ytt authored 
      [ Upstream commit a7ab400d ]

During our recent testing with fadvise(FADV_DONTNEED), we find that if
given offset/length is not page-aligned, the last page will not be
discarded.  The tool we use is vmtouch (https://hoytech.com/vmtouch/),
we map a 10KB-sized file into memory and then try to run this tool to
evict the whole file mapping, but the last single page always remains
staying in the memory:

$./vmtouch -e test_10K
           Files: 1
     Directories: 0
   Evicted Pages: 3 (12K)
         Elapsed: 2.1e-05 seconds

$./vmtouch test_10K
           Files: 1
     Directories: 0
  Resident Pages: 1/3  4K/12K  33.3%
         Elapsed: 5.5e-05 seconds

However when we test with an older kernel, say 3.10, this problem is
gone.  So we wonder if this is a regression:

$./vmtouch -e test_10K
           Files: 1
     Directories: 0
   Evicted Pages: 3 (12K)
         Elapsed: 8.2e-05 seconds

$./vmtouch test_10K
           Files: 1
     Directories: 0
  Resident Pages: 0/3  0/12K  0%  <-- partial page also discarded
         Elapsed: 5e-05 seconds

After digging a little bit into this problem, we find it seems not a
regression.  Not discarding partial page is likely to be on purpose
according to commit 441c228f ("mm: fadvise: document the
fadvise(FADV_DONTNEED) behaviour for partial pages") written by Mel
Gorman.  He explained why partial pages should be preserved instead of
being discarded when using fadvise(FADV_DONTNEED).

However, the interesting part is that the actual code did NOT work as
the same as it was described, the partial page was still discarded
anyway, due to a calculation mistake of `end_index' passed to
invalidate_mapping_pages().  This mistake has not been fixed until
recently, that's why we fail to reproduce our problem in old kernels.
The fix is done in commit 18aba41c ("mm/fadvise.c: do not discard
partial pages with POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED") by Oleg Drokin.

Back to the original testing, our problem becomes that there is a
special case that, if the page-unaligned `endbyte' is also the end of
file, it is not necessary at all to preserve the last partial page, as
we all know no one else will use the rest of it.  It should be safe
enough if we just discard the whole page.  So we add an EOF check in
this patch.

We also find a poosbile real world issue in mainline kernel.  Assume
such scenario: A userspace backup application want to backup a huge
amount of small files (<4k) at once, the developer might (I guess) want
to use fadvise(FADV_DONTNEED) to save memory.  However, FADV_DONTNEED
won't really happen since the only page mapped is a partial page, and
kernel will preserve it.  Our patch also fixes this problem, since we
know the endbyte is EOF, so we discard it.

Here is a simple reproducer to reproduce and verify each scenario we
described above:

  test_fadvise.c
  ==============================
  #include <sys/mman.h>
  #include <sys/stat.h>
  #include <fcntl.h>
  #include <stdlib.h>
  #include <string.h>
  #include <stdio.h>
  #include <unistd.h>

  int main(int argc, char **argv)
  {
  	int i, fd, ret, len;
  	struct stat buf;
  	void *addr;
  	unsigned char *vec;
  	char *strbuf;
  	ssize_t pagesize = getpagesize();
  	ssize_t filesize;

  	fd = open(argv[1], O_RDWR|O_CREAT, S_IRUSR|S_IWUSR);
  	if (fd < 0)
  		return -1;
  	filesize = strtoul(argv[2], NULL, 10);

  	strbuf = malloc(filesize);
  	memset(strbuf, 42, filesize);
  	write(fd, strbuf, filesize);
  	free(strbuf);
  	fsync(fd);

  	len = (filesize + pagesize - 1) / pagesize;
  	printf("length of pages: %d\n", len);

  	addr = mmap(NULL, filesize, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
  	if (addr == MAP_FAILED)
  		return -1;

  	ret = posix_fadvise(fd, 0, filesize, POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED);
  	if (ret < 0)
  		return -1;

  	vec = malloc(len);
  	ret = mincore(addr, filesize, (void *)vec);
  	if (ret < 0)
  		return -1;

  	for (i = 0; i < len; i++)
  		printf("pages[%d]: %x\n", i, vec[i] & 0x1);

  	free(vec);
  	close(fd);

  	return 0;
  }
  ==============================

Test 1: running on kernel with commit 18aba41c reverted:

  [root@caspar ~]# uname -r
  4.15.0-rc6.revert+
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise file1 1024
  length of pages: 1
  pages[0]: 0    # <-- partial page discarded
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise file2 8192
  length of pages: 2
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise file3 10240
  length of pages: 3
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  pages[2]: 0    # <-- partial page discarded

Test 2: running on mainline kernel:

  [root@caspar ~]# uname -r
  4.15.0-rc6+
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test1 1024
  length of pages: 1
  pages[0]: 1    # <-- partial and the only page not discarded
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test2 8192
  length of pages: 2
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test3 10240
  length of pages: 3
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  pages[2]: 1    # <-- partial page not discarded

Test 3: running on kernel with this patch:

  [root@caspar ~]# uname -r
  4.15.0-rc6.patched+
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test1 1024
  length of pages: 1
  pages[0]: 0    # <-- partial page and EOF, discarded
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test2 8192
  length of pages: 2
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  [root@caspar ~]# ./test_fadvise test3 10240
  length of pages: 3
  pages[0]: 0
  pages[1]: 0
  pages[2]: 0    # <-- partial page and EOF, discarded

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: tweak code comment]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/5222da9ee20e1695eaabb69f631f200d6e6b8876.1515132470.git.jinli.zjl@alibaba-inc.com

Signed-off-by: default avatarshidao.ytt <shidao.ytt@alibaba-inc.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarCaspar Zhang <jinli.zjl@alibaba-inc.com>
Reviewed-by: default avatarOliver Yang <zhiche.yy@alibaba-inc.com>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarSasha Levin <alexander.levin@microsoft.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
      a8b21508
  5. 09 Jun, 2016 1 commit
  7. 04 Apr, 2016 1 commit
    • Kirill A. Shutemov's avatar
      mm, fs: get rid of PAGE_CACHE_* and page_cache_{get,release} macros · 09cbfeaf
      Kirill A. Shutemov authored 
      PAGE_CACHE_{SIZE,SHIFT,MASK,ALIGN} macros were introduced *long* time
ago with promise that one day it will be possible to implement page
cache with bigger chunks than PAGE_SIZE.

This promise never materialized.  And unlikely will.

We have many places where PAGE_CACHE_SIZE assumed to be equal to
PAGE_SIZE.  And it's constant source of confusion on whether
PAGE_CACHE_* or PAGE_* constant should be used in a particular case,
especially on the border between fs and mm.

Global switching to PAGE_CACHE_SIZE != PAGE_SIZE would cause to much
breakage to be doable.

Let's stop pretending that pages in page cache are special.  They are
not.

The changes are pretty straight-forward:

 - <foo> << (PAGE_CACHE_SHIFT - PAGE_SHIFT) -> <foo>;

 - <foo> >> (PAGE_CACHE_SHIFT - PAGE_SHIFT) -> <foo>;

 - PAGE_CACHE_{SIZE,SHIFT,MASK,ALIGN} -> PAGE_{SIZE,SHIFT,MASK,ALIGN};

 - page_cache_get() -> get_page();

 - page_cache_release() -> put_page();

This patc...
      09cbfeaf
  9. 02 Jun, 2015 1 commit
    • Tejun Heo's avatar
      writeback: implement and use inode_congested() · 703c2708
      Tejun Heo authored 
      
In several places, bdi_congested() and its wrappers are used to
determine whether more IOs should be issued.  With cgroup writeback
support, this question can't be answered solely based on the bdi
(backing_dev_info).  It's dependent on whether the filesystem and bdi
support cgroup writeback and the blkcg the inode is associated with.

This patch implements inode_congested() and its wrappers which take
@inode and determines the congestion state considering cgroup
writeback.  The new functions replace bdi_*congested() calls in places
where the query is about specific inode and task.

There are several filesystem users which also fit this criteria but
they should be updated when each filesystem implements cgroup
writeback support.

v2: Now that a given inode is associated with only one wb, congestion
    state can be determined independent from the asking task.  Drop
    @task.  Spotted by Vivek.  Also, converted to take @inode instead
    of @mapping and renamed to inode_congested().
Signed-off-by: default avatarTejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>
      703c2708
  11. 17 Feb, 2015 1 commit
    • Matthew Wilcox's avatar
      vfs: remove get_xip_mem · e748dcd0
      Matthew Wilcox authored 
      
All callers of get_xip_mem() are now gone.  Remove checks for it,
initialisers of it, documentation of it and the only implementation of it.
 Also remove mm/filemap_xip.c as it is now empty.  Also remove
documentation of the long-gone get_xip_page().
Signed-off-by: default avatarMatthew Wilcox <matthew.r.wilcox@intel.com>
Cc: Andreas Dilger <andreas.dilger@intel.com>
Cc: Boaz Harrosh <boaz@plexistor.com>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Ross Zwisler <ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      e748dcd0
  13. 20 Jan, 2015 1 commit
  15. 13 Dec, 2014 1 commit
  17. 04 Mar, 2013 1 commit
  19. 24 Feb, 2013 1 commit
    • Mel Gorman's avatar
      mm/fadvise.c: drain all pagevecs if POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED fails to discard all pages · 67d46b29
      Mel Gorman authored 
      
Rob van der Heij reported the following (paraphrased) on private mail.

	The scenario is that I want to avoid backups to fill up the page
	cache and purge stuff that is more likely to be used again (this is
	with s390x Linux on z/VM, so I don't give it as much memory that
	we don't care anymore). So I have something with LD_PRELOAD that
	intercepts the close() call (from tar, in this case) and issues
	a posix_fadvise() just before closing the file.

	This mostly works, except for small files (less than 14 pages)
	that remains in page cache after the face.

Unfortunately Rob has not had a chance to test this exact patch but the
test program below should be reproducing the problem he described.

The issue is the per-cpu pagevecs for LRU additions.  If the pages are
added by one CPU but fadvise() is called on another then the pages
remain resident as the invalidate_mapping_pages() only drains the local
pagevecs via its call to pagevec_release().  The user-visible effect is
that a program that uses fadvise() properly is not obeyed.

A possible fix for this is to put the necessary smarts into
invalidate_mapping_pages() to globally drain the LRU pagevecs if a
pagevec page could not be discarded.  The downside with this is that an
inode cache shrink would send a global IPI and memory pressure
potentially causing global IPI storms is very undesirable.

Instead, this patch adds a check during fadvise(POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED) to
check if invalidate_mapping_pages() discarded all the requested pages.
If a subset of pages are discarded it drains the LRU pagevecs and tries
again.  If the second attempt fails, it assumes it is due to the pages
being mapped, locked or dirty and does not care.  With this patch, an
application using fadvise() correctly will be obeyed but there is a
downside that a malicious application can force the kernel to send
global IPIs and increase overhead.

If accepted, I would like this to be considered as a -stable candidate.
It's not an urgent issue but it's a system call that is not working as
advertised which is weak.

The following test program demonstrates the problem.  It should never
report that pages are still resident but will without this patch.  It
assumes that CPU 0 and 1 exist.

int main() {
	int fd;
	int pagesize = getpagesize();
	ssize_t written = 0, expected;
	char *buf;
	unsigned char *vec;
	int resident, i;
	cpu_set_t set;

	/* Prepare a buffer for writing */
	expected = FILESIZE_PAGES * pagesize;
	buf = malloc(expected + 1);
	if (buf == NULL) {
		printf("ENOMEM\n");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}
	buf[expected] = 0;
	memset(buf, 'a', expected);

	/* Prepare the mincore vec */
	vec = malloc(FILESIZE_PAGES);
	if (vec == NULL) {
		printf("ENOMEM\n");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	/* Bind ourselves to CPU 0 */
	CPU_ZERO(&set);
	CPU_SET(0, &set);
	if (sched_setaffinity(getpid(), sizeof(set), &set) == -1) {
		perror("sched_setaffinity");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	/* open file, unlink and write buffer */
	fd = open("fadvise-test-file", O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_RDWR);
	if (fd == -1) {
		perror("open");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}
	unlink("fadvise-test-file");
	while (written < expected) {
		ssize_t this_write;
		this_write = write(fd, buf + written, expected - written);

		if (this_write == -1) {
			perror("write");
			exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
		}

		written += this_write;
	}
	free(buf);

	/*
	 * Force ourselves to another CPU. If fadvise only flushes the local
	 * CPUs pagevecs then the fadvise will fail to discard all file pages
	 */
	CPU_ZERO(&set);
	CPU_SET(1, &set);
	if (sched_setaffinity(getpid(), sizeof(set), &set) == -1) {
		perror("sched_setaffinity");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	/* sync and fadvise to discard the page cache */
	fsync(fd);
	if (posix_fadvise(fd, 0, expected, POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED) == -1) {
		perror("posix_fadvise");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	/* map the file and use mincore to see which parts of it are resident */
	buf = mmap(NULL, expected, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
	if (buf == NULL) {
		perror("mmap");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}
	if (mincore(buf, expected, vec) == -1) {
		perror("mincore");
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	/* Check residency */
	for (i = 0, resident = 0; i < FILESIZE_PAGES; i++) {
		if (vec[i])
			resident++;
	}
	if (resident != 0) {
		printf("Nr unexpected pages resident: %d\n", resident);
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	munmap(buf, expected);
	close(fd);
	free(vec);
	exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
Signed-off-by: default avatarMel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Reported-by: default avatarRob van der Heij <rvdheij@gmail.com>
Tested-by: default avatarRob van der Heij <rvdheij@gmail.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      67d46b29
  21. 23 Feb, 2013 1 commit
  23. 27 Sep, 2012 2 commits
  25. 01 Aug, 2012 1 commit
  27. 11 Jan, 2012 1 commit
  29. 06 Mar, 2010 1 commit
    • Wu Fengguang's avatar
      readahead: introduce FMODE_RANDOM for POSIX_FADV_RANDOM · 0141450f
      Wu Fengguang authored 
      This fixes inefficient page-by-page reads on POSIX_FADV_RANDOM.

POSIX_FADV_RANDOM used to set ra_pages=0, which leads to poor performance:
a 16K read will be carried out in 4 _sync_ 1-page reads.

In other places, ra_pages==0 means
- it's ramfs/tmpfs/hugetlbfs/sysfs/configfs
- some IO error happened
where multi-page read IO won't help or should be avoided.

POSIX_FADV_RANDOM actually want a different semantics: to disable the
*heuristic* readahead algorithm, and to use a dumb one which faithfully
submit read IO for whatever application requests.

So introduce a flag FMODE_RANDOM for POSIX_FADV_RANDOM.

Note that the random hint is not likely to help random reads performance
noticeably.  And it may be too permissive on huge request size (its IO
size is not limited by read_ahead_kb).

In Quentin's report (http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/12/24/145

), the overall
(NFS read) performance of the application increased by 313%!
Tested-by: default avatarQuentin Barnes <qbarnes+nfs@yahoo-inc.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarWu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
Cc: Steven Whitehouse <swhiteho@redhat.com>
Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Cc: Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>
Cc: <stable@kernel.org>			[2.6.33.x]
Cc: <qbarnes+nfs@yahoo-inc.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      0141450f
  31. 17 Jun, 2009 1 commit
  33. 14 Jan, 2009 1 commit
    • Heiko Carstens's avatar
      [CVE-2009-0029] System call wrapper special cases · 6673e0c3
      Heiko Carstens authored 
      
System calls with an unsigned long long argument can't be converted with
the standard wrappers since that would include a cast to long, which in
turn means that we would lose the upper 32 bit on 32 bit architectures.
Also semctl can't use the standard wrapper since it has a 'union'
parameter.

So we handle them as special case and add some extra wrappers instead.
Signed-off-by: default avatarHeiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
      6673e0c3
  35. 16 Oct, 2008 1 commit
  37. 28 Apr, 2008 1 commit
  39. 05 Feb, 2008 1 commit
    • Masatake YAMATO's avatar
      check ADVICE of fadvise64_64 even if get_xip_page is given · b5beb1ca
      Masatake YAMATO authored 
      
I've written some test programs in ltp project.  During writing I met an
problem which I cannot solve in user land.  So I wrote a patch for linux
kernel.  Please, include this patch if acceptable.

The test program tests the 4th parameter of fadvise64_64:

    long sys_fadvise64_64(int fd, loff_t offset, loff_t len, int advice);

My test case calls fadvise64_64 with invalid advice value and checks errno is
set to EINVAL.  About the advice parameter man page says:

    ...
    Permissible values for advice include:

	   POSIX_FADV_NORMAL
                  ...
	   POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL
                  ...
	   POSIX_FADV_RANDOM
		  ...
	   POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE
                  ...
	   POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED
                  ...
	   POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED
		  ...
    ERRORS
           ...
	   EINVAL An invalid value was specified for advice.

However, I got a bug report that the system call invocations
in my test case returned 0 unexpectedly.

I've inspected the kernel code:

    asmlinkage long sys_fadvise64_64(int fd, loff_t offset, loff_t len, int advice)
    {
	    struct file *file = fget(fd);
	    struct address_space *mapping;
	    struct backing_dev_info *bdi;
	    loff_t endbyte;			/* inclusive */
	    pgoff_t start_index;
	    pgoff_t end_index;
	    unsigned long nrpages;
	    int ret = 0;

	    if (!file)
		    return -EBADF;

	    if (S_ISFIFO(file->f_path.dentry->d_inode->i_mode)) {
		    ret = -ESPIPE;
		    goto out;
	    }

	    mapping = file->f_mapping;
	    if (!mapping || len < 0) {
		    ret = -EINVAL;
		    goto out;
	    }

	    if (mapping->a_ops->get_xip_page)
		    /* no bad return value, but ignore advice */
		    goto out;
    ...
    out:
	    fput(file);
	    return ret;
    }

I found the advice parameter is just ignored in the case
mapping->a_ops->get_xip_page is given. This behavior is different from
what is written on the man page. Is this o.k.?

get_xip_page is given if CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XIP is true.
Anyway I cannot find the easy way to detect get_xip_page
field is given or CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XIP is true from the
user space.

I propose the following patch which checks the advice parameter
even if get_xip_page is given.
Signed-off-by: default avatarMasatake YAMATO <yamato@redhat.com>
Acked-by: default avatarCarsten Otte <cotte@de.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      b5beb1ca
  41. 08 Dec, 2006 1 commit
  43. 06 Aug, 2006 1 commit
    • Andrew Morton's avatar
      [PATCH] fadvise() make POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE a no-op · 60c371bc
      Andrew Morton authored 
      
The POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE hint means "the application will use this range of the
file a single time".  It seems to be intended that the implementation will use
this hint to perform drop-behind of that part of the file when the application
gets around to reading or writing it.

However for reasons which aren't obvious (or sane?) I mapped
POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE onto POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED.  ie: it does readahead.

That's daft.  So for now, make POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE a no-op.

This is a non-back-compatible change.  If someone was using POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE
to perform readahead, they lose.  The likelihood is low.

If/when we later implement POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE things will get interesting - to
do it fully we'll need to maintain file offset/length ranges and peform all
sorts of complex tricks, and managing the lifetime of those ranges' data
structures will be interesting..

A sensible implementation would probably ignore the file range and would
simply mark the entire file as needing some form of drop-behind treatment.

Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
      60c371bc
  45. 10 Jul, 2006 1 commit
  47. 31 Mar, 2006 1 commit
    • Andrew Morton's avatar
      [PATCH] sys_sync_file_range() · f79e2abb
      Andrew Morton authored 
      Remove the recently-added LINUX_FADV_ASYNC_WRITE and LINUX_FADV_WRITE_WAIT
fadvise() additions, do it in a new sys_sync_file_range() syscall instead.
Reasons:

- It's more flexible.  Things which would require two or three syscalls with
  fadvise() can be done in a single syscall.

- Using fadvise() in this manner is something not covered by POSIX.

The patch wires up the syscall for x86.

The sycall is implemented in the new fs/sync.c.  The intention is that we can
move sys_fsync(), sys_fdatasync() and perhaps sys_sync() into there later.

Documentation for the syscall is in fs/sync.c.

A test app (sync_file_range.c) is in
http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/ext3-tools.tar.gz

.

The available-to-GPL-modules do_sync_file_range() is for knfsd: "A COMMIT can
say NFS_DATA_SYNC or NFS_FILE_SYNC.  I can skip the ->fsync call for
NFS_DATA_SYNC which is hopefully the more common."

Note: the `async' writeout mode SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE will turn synchronous if
the queue is congested.  This is trivial to fix: add a new flag bit, set
wbc->nonblocking.  But I'm not sure that we want to expose implementation
details down to that level.

Note: it's notable that we can sync an fd which wasn't opened for writing.
Same with fsync() and fdatasync()).

Note: the code takes some care to handle attempts to sync file contents
outside the 16TB offset on 32-bit machines.  It makes such attempts appear to
succeed, for best 32-bit/64-bit compatibility.  Perhaps it should make such
requests fail...

Cc: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>
Cc: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@cse.unsw.edu.au>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
      f79e2abb
  49. 24 Mar, 2006 1 commit
    • Andrew Morton's avatar
      [PATCH] fadvise(): write commands · ebcf28e1
      Andrew Morton authored 
      
Add two new linux-specific fadvise extensions():

LINUX_FADV_ASYNC_WRITE: start async writeout of any dirty pages between file
offsets `offset' and `offset+len'.  Any pages which are currently under
writeout are skipped, whether or not they are dirty.

LINUX_FADV_WRITE_WAIT: wait upon writeout of any dirty pages between file
offsets `offset' and `offset+len'.

By combining these two operations the application may do several things:

LINUX_FADV_ASYNC_WRITE: push some or all of the dirty pages at the disk.

LINUX_FADV_WRITE_WAIT, LINUX_FADV_ASYNC_WRITE: push all of the currently dirty
pages at the disk.

LINUX_FADV_WRITE_WAIT, LINUX_FADV_ASYNC_WRITE, LINUX_FADV_WRITE_WAIT: push all
of the currently dirty pages at the disk, wait until they have been written.

It should be noted that none of these operations write out the file's
metadata.  So unless the application is strictly performing overwrites of
already-instantiated disk blocks, there are no guarantees here that the data
will be available after a crash.

To complete this suite of operations I guess we should have a "sync file
metadata only" operation.  This gives applications access to all the building
blocks needed for all sorts of sync operations.  But sync-metadata doesn't fit
well with the fadvise() interface.  Probably it should be a new syscall:
sys_fmetadatasync().

The patch also diddles with the meaning of `endbyte' in sys_fadvise64_64().
It is made to represent that last affected byte in the file (ie: it is
inclusive).  Generally, all these byterange and pagerange functions are
inclusive so we can easily represent EOF with -1.

As Ulrich notes, these two functions are somewhat abusive of the fadvise()
concept, which appears to be "set the future policy for this fd".

But these commands are a perfect fit with the fadvise() impementation, and
several of the existing fadvise() commands are synchronous and don't affect
future policy either.   I think we can live with the slight incongruity.

Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
      ebcf28e1
  51. 09 Jan, 2006 1 commit
  53. 24 Jun, 2005 1 commit
  55. 16 Apr, 2005 1 commit
    • Linus Torvalds's avatar
      Linux-2.6.12-rc2 · 1da177e4
      Linus Torvalds authored 
      Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.

Let it rip!
      1da177e4