linux/mm
Fengguang Wu 8bc3be2751 writeback: speed up writeback of big dirty files
After making dirty a 100M file, the normal behavior is to start the
writeback for all data after 30s delays.  But sometimes the following
happens instead:

	- after 30s:    ~4M
	- after 5s:     ~4M
	- after 5s:     all remaining 92M

Some analyze shows that the internal io dispatch queues goes like this:

		s_io            s_more_io
		-------------------------
	1)	100M,1K         0
	2)	1K              96M
	3)	0               96M
1) initial state with a 100M file and a 1K file

2) 4M written, nr_to_write <= 0, so write more

3) 1K written, nr_to_write > 0, no more writes(BUG)

nr_to_write > 0 in (3) fools the upper layer to think that data have all
been written out.  The big dirty file is actually still sitting in
s_more_io.  We cannot simply splice s_more_io back to s_io as soon as s_io
becomes empty, and let the loop in generic_sync_sb_inodes() continue: this
may starve newly expired inodes in s_dirty.  It is also not an option to
draw inodes from both s_more_io and s_dirty, an let the loop go on: this
might lead to live locks, and might also starve other superblocks in sync
time(well kupdate may still starve some superblocks, that's another bug).

We have to return when a full scan of s_io completes.  So nr_to_write > 0
does not necessarily mean that "all data are written".  This patch
introduces a flag writeback_control.more_io to indicate that more io should
be done.  With it the big dirty file no longer has to wait for the next
kupdate invokation 5s later.

In sync_sb_inodes() we only set more_io on super_blocks we actually
visited.  This avoids the interaction between two pdflush deamons.

Also in __sync_single_inode() we don't blindly keep requeuing the io if the
filesystem cannot progress.  Failing to do so may lead to 100% iowait.

Tested-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Fengguang Wu <wfg@mail.ustc.edu.cn>
Cc: Michael Rubin <mrubin@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
..
allocpercpu.c Slab allocators: Replace explicit zeroing with __GFP_ZERO 2007-07-17 10:23:02 -07:00
backing-dev.c mm/backing-dev.c: fix percpu_counter_destroy call bug in bdi_init 2007-12-05 09:21:18 -08:00
bootmem.c [PATCH] remove EXPORT_UNUSED_SYMBOL'ed symbols 2006-12-07 08:39:44 -08:00
bounce.c block: Initial support for data-less (or empty) barrier support 2007-10-16 11:03:56 +02:00
fadvise.c check ADVICE of fadvise64_64 even if get_xip_page is given 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
filemap_xip.c Pagecache zeroing: zero_user_segment, zero_user_segments and zero_user 2008-02-05 09:44:13 -08:00
filemap.c mm: remove fastcall from mm/ 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
fremap.c sys_remap_file_pages: fix ->vm_file accounting 2008-02-05 09:44:07 -08:00
highmem.c mm: remove fastcall from mm/ 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
hugetlb.c mm: fix PageUptodate data race 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
internal.h set_page_refcounted() VM_BUG_ON fix 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
Kconfig sh: Bump number of quicklists for SH-5. 2008-01-28 13:18:55 +09:00
madvise.c speed up madvise_need_mmap_write() usage 2007-07-16 09:05:36 -07:00
Makefile maps4: make page monitoring /proc file optional 2008-02-05 09:44:17 -08:00
memory_hotplug.c Page allocator: clean up pcp draining functions 2008-02-05 09:44:17 -08:00
memory.c mm: fix PageUptodate data race 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
mempolicy.c Migration: find correct vma in new_vma_page() 2007-11-14 18:45:38 -08:00
mempool.c spelling fixes: mm/ 2007-10-20 01:27:18 +02:00
migrate.c page migraton: handle orphaned pages 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
mincore.c [PATCH] mincore: vma crossing fix 2007-02-15 09:57:03 -08:00
mlock.c do not limit locked memory when RLIMIT_MEMLOCK is RLIM_INFINITY 2007-07-16 09:05:37 -07:00
mmap.c arch_rebalance_pgtables call 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
mmzone.c [PATCH] remove EXPORT_UNUSED_SYMBOL'ed symbols 2006-12-07 08:39:44 -08:00
mprotect.c fix mprotect vma_wants_writenotify prot 2007-10-23 08:32:06 -07:00
mremap.c sparse pointer use of zero as null 2007-10-18 14:37:31 -07:00
msync.c Detach sched.h from mm.h 2007-05-21 09:18:19 -07:00
nommu.c vmalloc: add const to void* parameters 2008-02-05 09:44:14 -08:00
oom_kill.c sched: sched_rt_entity 2008-01-25 21:08:27 +01:00
page_alloc.c Include count of pagecache pages in show_mem() output 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
page_io.c mm: fix PageUptodate data race 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
page_isolation.c memory hotremove: unset migrate type "ISOLATE" after removal 2007-11-14 18:45:38 -08:00
page-writeback.c writeback: speed up writeback of big dirty files 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
pagewalk.c maps4: introduce a generic page walker 2008-02-05 09:44:16 -08:00
pdflush.c Freezer: make kernel threads nonfreezable by default 2007-07-17 10:23:02 -07:00
prio_tree.c spelling fixes: mm/ 2007-10-20 01:27:18 +02:00
quicklist.c quicklists: Only consider memory that can be used with GFP_KERNEL 2008-01-14 08:52:22 -08:00
readahead.c mm: bdi init hooks 2007-10-17 08:42:45 -07:00
rmap.c mm: don't waste swap on locked pages 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
shmem_acl.c [PATCH] Fix typos in mm/shmem_acl.c 2006-10-11 11:14:23 -07:00
shmem.c tmpfs: fix shmem_swaplist races 2008-02-05 09:44:16 -08:00
slab.c cpu-hotplug: replace per-subsystem mutexes with get_online_cpus() 2008-01-25 21:08:02 +01:00
slob.c Avoid double memclear() in SLOB/SLUB 2007-12-09 10:17:52 -08:00
slub.c SLUB: Do not upset lockdep 2008-02-04 10:56:02 -08:00
sparse-vmemmap.c memory hotplug fix: fix section mismatch in vmammap_allock_block() 2007-11-29 09:24:54 -08:00
sparse.c mm: fix section mismatch warning in sparse.c 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
swap_state.c mm: fix PageUptodate data race 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
swap.c mm: remove fastcall from mm/ 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
swapfile.c tmpfs: open a window in shmem_unuse_inode 2008-02-05 09:44:15 -08:00
thrash.c Bug in mm/thrash.c function grab_swap_token() 2007-05-11 08:29:32 -07:00
tiny-shmem.c Remove unused code from mm/tiny-shmem.c 2008-02-05 09:44:17 -08:00
truncate.c page migraton: handle orphaned pages 2008-02-05 09:44:19 -08:00
util.c fix mm/util.c:krealloc() 2007-11-14 18:45:41 -08:00
vmalloc.c mm: don't allow ioremapping of ranges larger than vmalloc space 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00
vmscan.c spelling fixes: mm/ 2007-10-20 01:27:18 +02:00
vmstat.c vmstat: remove prefetch 2008-02-05 09:44:18 -08:00