While testing my patch "fscrypt: don't evict dirty inodes after removing key"
(https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200305084138.653498-1-ebigg...@kernel.org), I've
run into an issue where even after the filesystem is sync'ed and no files are
in-use, inodes can remain dirty if the filesystem is mounted with -o lazytime.
Thus, my patch causes some inodes to not be evicted when they should be.

(lazytime is the default on f2fs, but ext4 supports it too.)

This is caused by the following code in __writeback_single_inode() that
redirties the inode if its access time is dirty:

        if (dirty & I_DIRTY_TIME)
                mark_inode_dirty_sync(inode);
        /* Don't write the inode if only I_DIRTY_PAGES was set */
        if (dirty & ~I_DIRTY_PAGES) {
                int err = write_inode(inode, wbc);
                if (ret == 0)
                        ret = err;
        }
        trace_writeback_single_inode(inode, wbc, nr_to_write);
        return ret;

Here's a reproducer in the kvm-xfstests test appliance which demonstrates the
problem using sync(), without fscrypt involved at all:

        sysctl vm.dirty_expire_centisecs=500
        umount /vdc
        mkfs.ext4 -F /dev/vdc
        mount /vdc -o lazytime
        echo contents > /vdc/file
        sync
        ino=$(stat -c %i /vdc/file)
        echo 1 | tee 
/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/writeback/writeback_{single_inode_start,mark_inode_dirty,lazytime}/enable
        echo "ino == $ino" | tee 
/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/writeback/writeback_{single_inode_start,mark_inode_dirty,lazytime}/filter
        echo > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace
        cat /vdc/file > /dev/null
        sync
        cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe

The tracing shows that the inode for /vdc/file is written during the sync at
7.28s.  But then, still during the sync, it's immediately re-dirtied.  It then
gets written again later in the background, after the sync.

             cat-286   [001] ...1     7.279433: writeback_mark_inode_dirty: bdi 
254:32: ino=12 state= flags=I_DIRTY_TIME
    kworker/u8:0-8     [003] ...1     7.282647: writeback_single_inode_start: 
bdi 254:32: ino=12 state=I_SYNC|I_DIRTY_TIME|I_DIRTY_TIME_EXPIRED 
dirtied_when=4294879420 age=0 index=1 to_write=9223372036854775807 wrote=0 
cgroup_ino=1
    kworker/u8:0-8     [003] ...2     7.282660: writeback_lazytime: dev 254,32 
ino 12 dirtied 4294879420 state I_SYNC|I_DIRTY_TIME|I_DIRTY_TIME_EXPIRED mode 
0100644
    kworker/u8:0-8     [003] ...1     7.283204: writeback_mark_inode_dirty: bdi 
254:32: ino=12 state=I_SYNC flags=I_DIRTY_SYNC
    kworker/u8:0-8     [003] ...1    12.412079: writeback_single_inode_start: 
bdi 254:32: ino=12 state=I_DIRTY_SYNC|I_SYNC dirtied_when=4294879421 age=5 
index=1 to_write=13312 wrote=0 cgroup_ino=1

Is this behavior intentional at all?  It seems like a bug; it seems the inode
should be written just once, during the sync.  

- Eric


_______________________________________________
Linux-f2fs-devel mailing list
Linux-f2fs-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-f2fs-devel

Reply via email to