All of lore.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: jlayton@kernel.org
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>, Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>,
	tytso@mit.edu, axboe@kernel.dk, mawilcox@microsoft.com,
	ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com, corbet@lwn.net,
	Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>, Josef Bacik <jbacik@fb.com>,
	David Sterba <dsterba@suse.com>,
	"Darrick J . Wong" <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Cc: Carlos Maiolino <cmaiolino@redhat.com>,
	Eryu Guan <eguan@redhat.com>, David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
	Liu Bo <bo.li.liu@oracle.com>,
	linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org, linux-block@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v8 12/18] Documentation: flesh out the section in vfs.txt on storing and reporting writeback errors
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2017 09:19:48 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170629131954.28733-13-jlayton@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170629131954.28733-1-jlayton@kernel.org>

From: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>

Let's try to make this extra clear for fs authors.

Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt | 43 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
index f42b90687d40..1366043b3942 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
@@ -576,7 +576,42 @@ should clear PG_Dirty and set PG_Writeback.  It can be actually
 written at any point after PG_Dirty is clear.  Once it is known to be
 safe, PG_Writeback is cleared.
 
-Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure...
+Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure to direct the
+operations.  This gives the the writepage and writepages operations some
+information about the nature of and reason for the writeback request,
+and the constraints under which it is being done.  It is also used to
+return information back to the caller about the result of a writepage or
+writepages request.
+
+Handling errors during writeback
+--------------------------------
+Most applications that utilize the pagecache will periodically call
+fsync to ensure that data written has made it to the backing store.
+When there is an error during writeback, they expect that error to be
+reported when fsync is called.  After an error has been reported on one
+fsync, subsequent fsync calls on the same file descriptor should return
+0, unless further writeback errors have occurred since the previous
+fsync.
+
+Ideally, the kernel would report an error only on file descriptions on
+which writes were done that subsequently failed to be written back.  The
+generic pagecache infrastructure does not track the file descriptions
+that have dirtied each individual page however, so determining which
+file descriptors should get back an error is not possible.
+
+Instead, the generic writeback error tracking infrastructure in the
+kernel settles for reporting errors to fsync on all file descriptions
+that were open at the time that the error occurred.  In a situation with
+multiple writers, all of them will get back an error on a subsequent fsync,
+even if all of the writes done through that particular file descriptor
+succeeded (or even if there were no writes on that file descriptor at all).
+
+Filesystems that wish to use this infrastructure should call
+mapping_set_error to record the error in the address_space when it
+occurs.  Then, at the end of their fsync operation, they should call
+file_check_and_advance_wb_err to ensure that the struct file's error
+cursor has advanced to the correct point in the stream of errors emitted
+by the backing device(s).
 
 struct address_space_operations
 -------------------------------
@@ -804,7 +839,8 @@ struct address_space_operations {
 The File Object
 ===============
 
-A file object represents a file opened by a process.
+A file object represents a file opened by a process. This is also known
+as an "open file description" in POSIX parlance.
 
 
 struct file_operations
@@ -887,7 +923,8 @@ otherwise noted.
 
   release: called when the last reference to an open file is closed
 
-  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call
+  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call. Also see the section above
+	 entitled "Handling errors during writeback".
 
   fasync: called by the fcntl(2) system call when asynchronous
 	(non-blocking) mode is enabled for a file
-- 
2.13.0

WARNING: multiple messages have this Message-ID (diff)
From: jlayton@kernel.org
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>, Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>,
	tytso@mit.edu, axboe@kernel.dk, mawilcox@microsoft.com,
	ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com, corbet@lwn.net,
	Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>, Josef Bacik <jbacik@fb.com>,
	David Sterba <dsterba@suse.com>,
	"Darrick J . Wong" <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Cc: Carlos Maiolino <cmaiolino@redhat.com>,
	Eryu Guan <eguan@redhat.com>, David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
	Liu Bo <bo.li.liu@oracle.com>,
	linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org, linux-block@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v8 12/18] Documentation: flesh out the section in vfs.txt on storing and reporting writeback errors
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2017 09:19:48 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170629131954.28733-13-jlayton@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170629131954.28733-1-jlayton@kernel.org>

From: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>

Let's try to make this extra clear for fs authors.

Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt | 43 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
index f42b90687d40..1366043b3942 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
@@ -576,7 +576,42 @@ should clear PG_Dirty and set PG_Writeback.  It can be actually
 written at any point after PG_Dirty is clear.  Once it is known to be
 safe, PG_Writeback is cleared.
 
-Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure...
+Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure to direct the
+operations.  This gives the the writepage and writepages operations some
+information about the nature of and reason for the writeback request,
+and the constraints under which it is being done.  It is also used to
+return information back to the caller about the result of a writepage or
+writepages request.
+
+Handling errors during writeback
+--------------------------------
+Most applications that utilize the pagecache will periodically call
+fsync to ensure that data written has made it to the backing store.
+When there is an error during writeback, they expect that error to be
+reported when fsync is called.  After an error has been reported on one
+fsync, subsequent fsync calls on the same file descriptor should return
+0, unless further writeback errors have occurred since the previous
+fsync.
+
+Ideally, the kernel would report an error only on file descriptions on
+which writes were done that subsequently failed to be written back.  The
+generic pagecache infrastructure does not track the file descriptions
+that have dirtied each individual page however, so determining which
+file descriptors should get back an error is not possible.
+
+Instead, the generic writeback error tracking infrastructure in the
+kernel settles for reporting errors to fsync on all file descriptions
+that were open at the time that the error occurred.  In a situation with
+multiple writers, all of them will get back an error on a subsequent fsync,
+even if all of the writes done through that particular file descriptor
+succeeded (or even if there were no writes on that file descriptor at all).
+
+Filesystems that wish to use this infrastructure should call
+mapping_set_error to record the error in the address_space when it
+occurs.  Then, at the end of their fsync operation, they should call
+file_check_and_advance_wb_err to ensure that the struct file's error
+cursor has advanced to the correct point in the stream of errors emitted
+by the backing device(s).
 
 struct address_space_operations
 -------------------------------
@@ -804,7 +839,8 @@ struct address_space_operations {
 The File Object
 ===============
 
-A file object represents a file opened by a process.
+A file object represents a file opened by a process. This is also known
+as an "open file description" in POSIX parlance.
 
 
 struct file_operations
@@ -887,7 +923,8 @@ otherwise noted.
 
   release: called when the last reference to an open file is closed
 
-  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call
+  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call. Also see the section above
+	 entitled "Handling errors during writeback".
 
   fasync: called by the fcntl(2) system call when asynchronous
 	(non-blocking) mode is enabled for a file
-- 
2.13.0

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in
the body to majordomo@kvack.org.  For more info on Linux MM,
see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ .
Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@kvack.org"> email@kvack.org </a>

  parent reply	other threads:[~2017-06-29 13:19 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 90+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-06-29 13:19 [PATCH v8 00/18] fs: enhanced writeback error reporting with errseq_t (pile #1) jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 01/18] fs: remove call_fsync helper function jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 02/18] buffer: use mapping_set_error instead of setting the flag jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 03/18] fs: check for writeback errors after syncing out buffers in generic_file_fsync jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 14:19   ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 14:19     ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 20:17     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:17       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:17       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:17       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 04/18] buffer: set errors in mapping at the time that the error occurs jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 05/18] jbd2: don't clear and reset errors after waiting on writeback jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 06/18] mm: clear AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC when writeback initiation fails jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 07/18] mm: don't TestClearPageError in __filemap_fdatawait_range jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 08/18] mm: clean up error handling in write_one_page jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 09/18] lib: add errseq_t type and infrastructure for handling it jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 10/18] fs: new infrastructure for writeback error handling and reporting jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:45   ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:45     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:45     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:45     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 17:52   ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 17:52     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 17:52     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 17:52     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 11/18] mm: set both AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC and errseq_t in mapping_set_error jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` jlayton [this message]
2017-06-29 13:19   ` [PATCH v8 12/18] Documentation: flesh out the section in vfs.txt on storing and reporting writeback errors jlayton
2017-06-29 17:11   ` Darrick J. Wong
2017-06-29 17:11     ` Darrick J. Wong
2017-06-29 18:13     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 18:13       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 18:13       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 18:13       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 18:21       ` Matthew Wilcox
2017-06-29 18:21         ` Matthew Wilcox
2017-06-29 18:21         ` Matthew Wilcox
2017-06-29 20:42         ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:42           ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:42           ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:42           ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:42           ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 13/18] dax: set errors in mapping when writeback fails jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 14/18] block: convert to errseq_t based writeback error tracking jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 14:18   ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 14:18     ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 15/18] fs: convert __generic_file_fsync to use errseq_t based reporting jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 16/18] ext4: use errseq_t based error handling for reporting data writeback errors jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 14:12   ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 14:12     ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 20:26     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:26       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:26       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:26       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 17/18] xfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 14:12   ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 14:12     ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-30 16:45     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-30 16:45       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-30 16:45       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-30 16:45       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-30 16:49       ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-30 16:49         ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 17:13   ` Darrick J. Wong
2017-06-29 17:13     ` Darrick J. Wong
2017-06-29 13:19 ` [PATCH v8 18/18] btrfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting on fsync jlayton
2017-06-29 13:19   ` jlayton
2017-06-29 14:17   ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 14:17     ` Christoph Hellwig
2017-06-29 20:32     ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:32       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:32       ` Jeff Layton
2017-06-29 20:32       ` Jeff Layton

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20170629131954.28733-13-jlayton@kernel.org \
    --to=jlayton@kernel.org \
    --cc=akpm@linux-foundation.org \
    --cc=axboe@kernel.dk \
    --cc=bo.li.liu@oracle.com \
    --cc=clm@fb.com \
    --cc=cmaiolino@redhat.com \
    --cc=corbet@lwn.net \
    --cc=darrick.wong@oracle.com \
    --cc=dhowells@redhat.com \
    --cc=dsterba@suse.com \
    --cc=eguan@redhat.com \
    --cc=hch@infradead.org \
    --cc=jack@suse.cz \
    --cc=jbacik@fb.com \
    --cc=linux-block@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-mm@kvack.org \
    --cc=linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=mawilcox@microsoft.com \
    --cc=ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com \
    --cc=tytso@mit.edu \
    --cc=viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.