Re: [PATCH] Prevent large file writeback starvation

From: David Chinner
Date: Mon Feb 06 2006 - 06:55:47 EST


On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 10:36:11PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > If so, why would that happen? Take a look at wb_kupdate(). It's supposed
> > to work *continuously* on the inodes until writeback_inodes() failed to
> > write back enough pages. It takes this as an indication that there's no
> > more work to do at this time.
> >
> > It'd be interesting to take a look at what's happening in wb_kupdate().
>
> Took a quick look at xfs_convert_page(). I don't immediately see a cause
> in there, but
>
> if (count) {
> struct backing_dev_info *bdi;
>
> bdi = inode->i_mapping->backing_dev_info;
> if (bdi_write_congested(bdi)) {
> wbc->encountered_congestion = 1;
> done = 1;
> } else if (--wbc->nr_to_write <= 0) {
> done = 1;
> }
> }
> xfs_start_page_writeback(page, wbc, !page_dirty, count);
>
> shouldn't we be decrementing wbc->nr_to_write even if the queue is congested?

Yes, you are right. I'll fix it tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
R&D Software Enginner
SGI Australian Software Group
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