[PATCH] writeback correctness and efficiency changes

This is a performance and correctness fix against the writeback paths.

The writeback code has competing requirements.  Sometimes it is used
for "memory cleansing": kupdate, bdflush, writer throttling, page
allocator writeback, etc.  And sometimes this same code is used for
data integrity pruposes: fsync, msync, fdatasync, sync, umount, various
other kernel-internal uses.

The problem is: how to handle a dirty buffer or page which is currently
under writeback.

For memory cleansing, we just want to skip that buffer/page and go onto
the next one.  But for sync, we must wait on the old writeback and then
start new writeback.

mpage_writepages() is current correct for cleansing, but incorrect for
sync.  block_write_full_page() is currently correct for sync, but
inefficient for cleansing.

The fix is fairly simple.

- In mpage_writepages(), don't skip the page is it's a sync
operation.

- In block_write_full_page(), skip the buffer if it is a sync
operation.  And return -EAGAIN to tell the caller that the writeout
didn't work out.  The caller must then set the page dirty again and
move it onto mapping->dirty_pages.

This is an extension of the writepage API: writepage can now return
EAGAIN.  There are only three callers, and they have been updated.

fail_writepage() and ext3_writepage() were actually doing this by
hand.  They have been changed to return -EAGAIN.  NTFS will want to
be able to return -EAGAIN from its writepage as well.

- A sticky question is: how to tell the writeout code which mode it
is operating in?  Cleansing or sync?

It's such a tiny code change that I didn't have the heart to go and
propagate a `mode' argument down every instance of writepages() and
writepage() in the kernel.  So I passed it in via current->flags.

Incidentally, the occurrence of a locked-and-dirty buffer in
block_write_full_page() is fairly rare: normally the collision avoidance
happens at the address_space level, via PageWriteback.  But some
mappings (blockdevs, ext3 files, etc) have their dirty buffers written
out via submit_bh().  It is these buffers which can stall
block_write_full_page().

This wart will be pretty intrusive to fix.  ext3 needs to become fully
page-based (ugh.  It's a block-based journalling filesystem, and pages
are unnatural).  blockdev mappings are still written out by buffers
because that's how filesystems use them.  Putting _all_ metadata
(indirects, inodes, superblocks, etc) into standalone address_spaces
would fix that up.

- filemap_fdatawrite() sets PF_SYNC.  So filemap_fdatawrite() is the
kernel function which will start writeback against a mapping for
"data integrity" purposes, whereas the unexported, internal-only
do_writepages() is the writeback function which is used for memory
cleansing.  This difference is the reason why I didn't consolidate
those functions ages ago...

- Lots of code paths had a bogus extra call to filemap_fdatawait(),
which I previously added in a moment of weak-headedness.  They have
all been removed.

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index e46b8b84cad4..e8251036b026 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -405,6 +405,7 @@ do { if (atomic_dec_and_test(&(tsk)->usage)) __put_task_struct(tsk); } while(0)
 #define PF_FREEZE	0x00010000	/* this task should be frozen for suspend */
 #define PF_IOTHREAD	0x00020000	/* this thread is needed for doing I/O to swap */
 #define PF_FROZEN	0x00040000	/* frozen for system suspend */
+#define PF_SYNC		0x00080000	/* performing fsync(), etc */
 
 /*
  * Ptrace flags
diff --git a/include/linux/writeback.h b/include/linux/writeback.h
index 7b1ae2718f3e..5de884cd6a7c 100644
--- a/include/linux/writeback.h
+++ b/include/linux/writeback.h
@@ -72,4 +72,13 @@ extern int nr_pdflush_threads;	/* Global so it can be exported to sysctl
 				   read-only. */
 
 
+/*
+ * Tell the writeback paths that they are being called for a "data integrity"
+ * operation such as fsync().
+ */
+static inline int called_for_sync(void)
+{
+	return current->flags & PF_SYNC;
+}
+
 #endif		/* WRITEBACK_H */