Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] vfs: allow syncfs to return an error when inode writeback fails

[Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>]

On Thu, 2018-05-31 at 07:29 -0400, Jeff Layton wrote:
> From: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
> 
> v2: don't modify sync_fs op prototype, handle errors at vfs layer
> 
> The syncfs system call returns an int error code, but in general it does
> not return errors when an inode fails writeback. It will return an error
> if __sync_blockdev fails, but that's not useful on non-block based
> filesystems and is generally not useful on more modern filesystems that
> don't rely on that call.
> 
> This patchset aims to remedy that by adding some infrastructure to allow
> syncfs to return an error when an inode fails writeback. The basic idea
> is to add a new errseq_t to the super_block to record writeback errors.
> 
> Because we don't want to grow struct file for this purpose, this new
> behavior is only activated when the fd passed to syncfs is opened with
> O_PATH.
> 
> One of the items on the wishlist from the PostgreSQL developers at this
> year's LSF/MM was a way to tell whether there has been any writeback
> failure on a filesystem without forcing everything to be synced out.
> 
> The final patch in this series adds a new generic vfs ioctl that
> presents the new sb->s_wb_err field to userland applications that wish
> to see it.
> 
> Comments and suggestions welcome.
> 
> Jeff Layton (5):
>   vfs: push __sync_blockdev calls down into sync_fs routines
>   vfs: add an errseq_t pointer arg to sync_filesystem and
>     __sync_filesystem
>   vfs: track per-sb writeback errors and report them to syncfs
>   buffer: record blockdev write errors in super_block that backs them
>   vfs: add a new ioctl for fetching the superblock's errseq_t
> 
>  drivers/staging/ncpfs/inode.c |  2 +-
>  fs/adfs/super.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/affs/super.c               |  4 +--
>  fs/befs/linuxvfs.c            |  2 +-
>  fs/block_dev.c                |  3 ++-
>  fs/btrfs/super.c              |  4 +--
>  fs/buffer.c                   |  2 ++
>  fs/cachefiles/interface.c     |  2 +-
>  fs/cifs/cifsfs.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/coda/inode.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/cramfs/inode.c             |  2 +-
>  fs/debugfs/inode.c            |  2 +-
>  fs/efs/super.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/ext2/super.c               |  4 +--
>  fs/ext4/super.c               | 13 +++++-----
>  fs/f2fs/super.c               | 15 ++++++-----
>  fs/fat/inode.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/freevxfs/vxfs_super.c      |  2 +-
>  fs/fuse/inode.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/gfs2/super.c               |  6 +++--
>  fs/hfs/super.c                |  4 +--
>  fs/hfsplus/super.c            |  2 +-
>  fs/hpfs/super.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/internal.h                 |  7 ------
>  fs/ioctl.c                    |  3 +++
>  fs/isofs/inode.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/jffs2/super.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/jfs/super.c                |  5 ++--
>  fs/minix/inode.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/nfs/super.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/nilfs2/super.c             |  7 +++---
>  fs/ntfs/super.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/ocfs2/super.c              |  4 +--
>  fs/open.c                     |  6 ++---
>  fs/openpromfs/inode.c         |  2 +-
>  fs/overlayfs/super.c          |  2 +-
>  fs/proc/root.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/pstore/inode.c             |  2 +-
>  fs/qnx4/inode.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/qnx6/inode.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/quota/dquot.c              | 11 +++-----
>  fs/reiserfs/super.c           |  4 +--
>  fs/romfs/super.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/squashfs/super.c           |  2 +-
>  fs/super.c                    |  4 +--
>  fs/sync.c                     | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
>  fs/sysv/inode.c               |  5 ++--
>  fs/tracefs/inode.c            |  2 +-
>  fs/ubifs/super.c              |  2 +-
>  fs/udf/super.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/ufs/super.c                |  2 +-
>  fs/xfs/xfs_super.c            |  2 +-
>  include/linux/errseq.h        |  1 +
>  include/linux/fs.h            | 13 +++++++++-
>  include/linux/pagemap.h       |  5 +++-
>  include/uapi/linux/fs.h       |  1 +
>  lib/errseq.c                  | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++--
>  57 files changed, 173 insertions(+), 102 deletions(-)
> 

After chatting with David Howells about this, I think I'm going to
withdraw this set and do one that only exposes s_wb_err via the new
fsinfo syscall that's going in soon. We can always add the other
interfaces later if it's 

Let's just disregard this set for now and I'll look at respinning it
around that as an interface.

Cheers,
-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>