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    Merge tag 'for-linus-v4.13-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux · 088737f4
    Linus Torvalds authored
    Pull Writeback error handling updates from Jeff Layton:
     "This pile represents the bulk of the writeback error handling fixes
      that I have for this cycle. Some of the earlier patches in this pile
      may look trivial but they are prerequisites for later patches in the
      series.
    
      The aim of this set is to improve how we track and report writeback
      errors to userland. Most applications that care about data integrity
      will periodically call fsync/fdatasync/msync to ensure that their
      writes have made it to the backing store.
    
      For a very long time, we have tracked writeback errors using two flags
      in the address_space: AS_EIO and AS_ENOSPC. Those flags are set when a
      writeback error occurs (via mapping_set_error) and are cleared as a
      side-effect of filemap_check_errors (as you noted yesterday). This
      model really sucks for userland.
    
      Only the first task to call fsync (or msync or fdatasync) will see the
      error. Any subsequent task calling fsync on a file will get back 0
      (unless another writeback error occurs in the interim). If I have
      several tasks writing to a file and calling fsync to ensure that their
      writes got stored, then I need to have them coordinate with one
      another. That's difficult enough, but in a world of containerized
      setups that coordination may even not be possible.
    
      But wait...it gets worse!
    
      The calls to filemap_check_errors can be buried pretty far down in the
      call stack, and there are internal callers of filemap_write_and_wait
      and the like that also end up clearing those errors. Many of those
      callers ignore the error return from that function or return it to
      userland at nonsensical times (e.g. truncate() or stat()). If I get
      back -EIO on a truncate, there is no reason to think that it was
      because some previous writeback failed, and a subsequent fsync() will
      (incorrectly) return 0.
    
      This pile aims to do three things:
    
       1) ensure that when a writeback error occurs that that error will be
          reported to userland on a subsequent fsync/fdatasync/msync call,
          regardless of what internal callers are doing
    
       2) report writeback errors on all file descriptions that were open at
          the time that the error occurred. This is a user-visible change,
          but I think most applications are written to assume this behavior
          anyway. Those that aren't are unlikely to be hurt by it.
    
       3) document what filesystems should do when there is a writeback
          error. Today, there is very little consistency between them, and a
          lot of cargo-cult copying. We need to make it very clear what
          filesystems should do in this situation.
    
      To achieve this, the set adds a new data type (errseq_t) and then
      builds new writeback error tracking infrastructure around that. Once
      all of that is in place, we change the filesystems to use the new
      infrastructure for reporting wb errors to userland.
    
      Note that this is just the initial foray into cleaning up this mess.
      There is a lot of work remaining here:
    
       1) convert the rest of the filesystems in a similar fashion. Once the
          initial set is in, then I think most other fs' will be fairly
          simple to convert. Hopefully most of those can in via individual
          filesystem trees.
    
       2) convert internal waiters on writeback to use errseq_t for
          detecting errors instead of relying on the AS_* flags. I have some
          draft patches for this for ext4, but they are not quite ready for
          prime time yet.
    
      This was a discussion topic this year at LSF/MM too. If you're
      interested in the gory details, LWN has some good articles about this:
    
          https://lwn.net/Articles/718734/
          https://lwn.net/Articles/724307/"
    
    * tag 'for-linus-v4.13-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux:
      btrfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting on fsync
      xfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting
      ext4: use errseq_t based error handling for reporting data writeback errors
      fs: convert __generic_file_fsync to use errseq_t based reporting
      block: convert to errseq_t based writeback error tracking
      dax: set errors in mapping when writeback fails
      Documentation: flesh out the section in vfs.txt on storing and reporting writeback errors
      mm: set both AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC and errseq_t in mapping_set_error
      fs: new infrastructure for writeback error handling and reporting
      lib: add errseq_t type and infrastructure for handling it
      mm: don't TestClearPageError in __filemap_fdatawait_range
      mm: clear AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC when writeback initiation fails
      jbd2: don't clear and reset errors after waiting on writeback
      buffer: set errors in mapping at the time that the error occurs
      fs: check for writeback errors after syncing out buffers in generic_file_fsync
      buffer: use mapping_set_error instead of setting the flag
      mm: fix mapping_set_error call in me_pagecache_dirty
    088737f4
open.c 28.4 KB