Re: [PATCH 0/2] "big hammer" for DAX msync/fsync correctness

[Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>]

Ross Zwisler <ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com> writes:

> This series implements the very slow but correct handling for
> blkdev_issue_flush() with DAX mappings, as discussed here:
>
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/10/26/116
>
> I don't think that we can actually do the
>
>     on_each_cpu(sync_cache, ...);
>
> ...where sync_cache is something like:
>
>     cache_disable();
>     wbinvd();
>     pcommit();
>     cache_enable();
>
> solution as proposed by Dan because WBINVD + PCOMMIT doesn't guarantee that
> your writes actually make it durably onto the DIMMs.  I believe you really do
> need to loop through the cache lines, flush them with CLWB, then fence and
> PCOMMIT.

*blink*
*blink*

So much for not violating the principal of least surprise.  I suppose
you've asked the hardware folks, and they've sent you down this path?

> I do worry that the cost of blindly flushing the entire PMEM namespace on each
> fsync or msync will be prohibitively expensive, and that we'll by very
> incentivized to move to the radix tree based dirty page tracking as soon as
> possible. :)

Sure, but wbinvd would be quite costly as well.  Either way I think a
better solution will be required in the near term.

Cheers,
Jeff