Re: POSIX violation by writeback error

From: Rogier Wolff
Date: Tue Sep 04 2018 - 03:53:51 EST


On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 02:32:28PM +0800, çæå wrote:
> Hi,
>
> After reading several writeback error handling articles from LWN, I
> begin to be upset about writeback error handling.
>
> Jlayton's patch is simple but wonderful idea towards correct error
> reporting. It seems one crucial thing is still here to be fixed. Does
> anyone have some idea?
>
> The crucial thing may be that a read() after a successful
> open()-write()-close() may return old data.
>
> That may happen where an async writeback error occurs after close()
> and the inode/mapping get evicted before read().

Suppose I have 1Gb of RAM. Suppose I open a file, write 0.5Gb to it
and then close it. Then I repeat this 9 times.

Now, when writing those files to storage fails, there is 5Gb of data
to remember and only 1Gb of RAM.

I can choose any part of that 5Gb and try to read it.

Please make a suggestion about where we should store that data?

In the easy case, where the data easily fits in RAM, you COULD write a
solution. But when the hardware fails, the SYSTEM will not be able to
follow the posix rules.

Roger.

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