On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:43:45 +0800
Barry Kauler <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 12/7/11, Thomas Himmelmann <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Unionfs 2.5.10 don't work stable on kernel 3.0 and 3.1 for me.
> 
> 2.5.10 is rock-solid with a 3.0.7 kernel for me.
> 
> There is something that I found out about the Linux kernel, that might
> affect the stability of Unionfs...
> 
> A little while ago, we found that one of these config option makes
> operation unreliable:
> 
> CONFIG_SCHED_SMT
> SMT scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision making
> when dealing with Intel Pentium 4 chips with HyperThreading at a cost
> of slightly increased overhead in some places. If unsure say N here.
> 
> CONFIG_SCHED_MC
> Multi-core scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision
> making when dealing with multi-core CPU chips at a cost of slightly
> increased overhead in some places. If unsure say N here.
> 
> We were getting mysterious errors when using the 'cp' command. When
> copying a complete directory hierarchy, some files/directories were
> sometimes completely missing from the destination. There were no error
> messages. This has nothing to do with Unionfs (these errors were
> occurring in ext2/3 partitions outside of any layer filesystem), I am
> describing a fundamental flakyness of the kernel, not just the 3.x,
> earlier too.
> 
> I discovered that turning off CONFIG_SCHED_SMT and CONFIG_SCHED_MC
> fixed it. It is probably only one of those that is the culprit though,
> probably CONFIG_SCHED_MC, but I never verified that.
> 
> So, my kernel has:
> 
> CONFIG_SMP=y
> # CONFIG_SCHED_SMT is not set
> # CONFIG_SCHED_MC is not set
> 
> I recommend, configure your kernel the same, then see if you still get
> the problems with Unionfs 2.5.10.

If those fixed your problems, then it means locking
is borked. I.e not a scheduler problem. What kind of device driver?
Could be bad disk controller driver. Did you report it to distro or kernel
mailing list?
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