Re: [PATCH] Fix queueing work if !bdi_cap_writeback_dirty()

From: Fengguang Wu
Date: Fri Sep 14 2012 - 07:15:14 EST


> >> @@ -120,6 +120,9 @@ __bdi_start_writeback(struct backing_dev
> >> {
> >> struct wb_writeback_work *work;
> >>
> >> + if (!bdi_cap_writeback_dirty(bdi))
> >> + return;
> >
> > Will someone in the current kernel actually call
> > __bdi_start_writeback() on a BDI_CAP_NO_WRITEBACK bdi?
> >
> > If the answer is no, VM_BUG_ON(!bdi_cap_writeback_dirty(bdi)) looks better.
>
> I guess nobody call it in current kernel though. Hmm.., but we also have
> check in __mark_inode_dirty(), nobody should be using it, right?
>
> If we defined it as the bug, I can't see what BDI_CAP_NO_WRITEBACK wants
> to do actually. We are not going to allow to disable the writeback task?

> I was going to use this to disable writeback task on my developing FS...

That sounds like an interesting use case. Can you elaborate a bit more?
Note that even if you disable __bdi_start_writeback() here, the kernel
may also start writeback in the page reclaim path, the fsync() path,
and perhaps more.

Thanks,
Fengguang
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/