31 Mar, 2011

1 commit


02 Jan, 2010

1 commit

  • When we relax the reiserfs lock to avoid creating unwanted
    dependencies against others locks while grabbing these,
    we want to ensure it has not been taken recursively, otherwise
    the lock won't be really relaxed. Only its depth will be decreased.
    The unwanted dependency would then actually happen.

    To prevent from that, add a reiserfs_lock_check_recursive() call
    in the places that need it.

    Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker
    Cc: Alexander Beregalov
    Cc: Chris Mason
    Cc: Ingo Molnar

    Frederic Weisbecker
     

14 Sep, 2009

3 commits

  • Until now, trying to unlock the reiserfs write lock whereas the current
    task doesn't hold it lead to a simple warning.
    We should actually warn and panic in this case to avoid the user datas
    to reach an unstable state.

    Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker
    Cc: Jeff Mahoney
    Cc: Chris Mason
    Cc: Ingo Molnar
    Cc: Alexander Beregalov
    Cc: Laurent Riffard

    Frederic Weisbecker
     
  • Sometimes we don't want to recursively hold the per superblock write
    lock because we want to be sure it is actually released when we come
    to sleep.

    This patch introduces the necessary tools for that.

    reiserfs_write_lock_once() does the same job than reiserfs_write_lock()
    except that it won't try to acquire recursively the lock if the current
    task already owns it. Also the lock_depth before the call of this function
    is returned.

    reiserfs_write_unlock_once() unlock only if reiserfs_write_lock_once()
    returned a depth equal to -1, ie: only if it actually locked.

    Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker
    Cc: Alessio Igor Bogani
    Cc: Jeff Mahoney
    Cc: Alexander Beregalov
    Cc: Chris Mason
    LKML-Reference:
    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar

    Frederic Weisbecker
     
  • This patch is an attempt to remove the Bkl based locking scheme from
    reiserfs and is intended.

    It is a bit inspired from an old attempt by Peter Zijlstra:

    http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0704.2/2174.html

    The bkl is heavily used in this filesystem to prevent from
    concurrent write accesses on the filesystem.

    Reiserfs makes a deep use of the specific properties of the Bkl:

    - It can be acqquired recursively by a same task
    - It is released on the schedule() calls and reacquired when schedule() returns

    The two properties above are a roadmap for the reiserfs write locking so it's
    very hard to simply replace it with a common mutex.

    - We need a recursive-able locking unless we want to restructure several blocks
    of the code.
    - We need to identify the sites where the bkl was implictly relaxed
    (schedule, wait, sync, etc...) so that we can in turn release and
    reacquire our new lock explicitly.
    Such implicit releases of the lock are often required to let other
    resources producer/consumer do their job or we can suffer unexpected
    starvations or deadlocks.

    So the new lock that replaces the bkl here is a per superblock mutex with a
    specific property: it can be acquired recursively by a same task, like the
    bkl.

    For such purpose, we integrate a lock owner and a lock depth field on the
    superblock information structure.

    The first axis on this patch is to turn reiserfs_write_(un)lock() function
    into a wrapper to manage this mutex. Also some explicit calls to
    lock_kernel() have been converted to reiserfs_write_lock() helpers.

    The second axis is to find the important blocking sites (schedule...(),
    wait_on_buffer(), sync_dirty_buffer(), etc...) and then apply an explicit
    release of the write lock on these locations before blocking. Then we can
    safely wait for those who can give us resources or those who need some.
    Typically this is a fight between the current writer, the reiserfs workqueue
    (aka the async commiter) and the pdflush threads.

    The third axis is a consequence of the second. The write lock is usually
    on top of a lock dependency chain which can include the journal lock, the
    flush lock or the commit lock. So it's dangerous to release and trying to
    reacquire the write lock while we still hold other locks.

    This is fine with the bkl:

    T1 T2

    lock_kernel()
    mutex_lock(A)
    unlock_kernel()
    // do something
    lock_kernel()
    mutex_lock(A) -> already locked by T1
    schedule() (and then unlock_kernel())
    lock_kernel()
    mutex_unlock(A)
    ....

    This is not fine with a mutex:

    T1 T2

    mutex_lock(write)
    mutex_lock(A)
    mutex_unlock(write)
    // do something
    mutex_lock(write)
    mutex_lock(A) -> already locked by T1
    schedule()

    mutex_lock(write) -> already locked by T2
    deadlock

    The solution in this patch is to provide a helper which releases the write
    lock and sleep a bit if we can't lock a mutex that depend on it. It's another
    simulation of the bkl behaviour.

    The last axis is to locate the fs callbacks that are called with the bkl held,
    according to Documentation/filesystem/Locking.

    Those are:

    - reiserfs_remount
    - reiserfs_fill_super
    - reiserfs_put_super

    Reiserfs didn't need to explicitly lock because of the context of these callbacks.
    But now we must take care of that with the new locking.

    After this patch, reiserfs suffers from a slight performance regression (for now).
    On UP, a high volume write with dd reports an average of 27 MB/s instead
    of 30 MB/s without the patch applied.

    Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker
    Reviewed-by: Ingo Molnar
    Cc: Jeff Mahoney
    Cc: Peter Zijlstra
    Cc: Bron Gondwana
    Cc: Andrew Morton
    Cc: Linus Torvalds
    Cc: Alexander Viro
    LKML-Reference:
    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar

    Frederic Weisbecker