Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757397Ab0G2MXj (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:23:39 -0400 Received: from mga14.intel.com ([143.182.124.37]:4143 "EHLO mga14.intel.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757301Ab0G2MX1 (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:23:27 -0400 X-ExtLoop1: 1 X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.55,280,1278313200"; d="scan'208";a="305844426" Message-Id: <20100729115142.102255590@intel.com> User-Agent: quilt/0.48-1 Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:51:42 +0800 From: Wu Fengguang To: Andrew Morton Cc: Wu Fengguang , LKML cc: "linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org" cc: "linux-mm@kvack.org" cc: Dave Chinner cc: Chris Mason , Nick Piggin cc: Rik van Riel cc: Johannes Weiner cc: Christoph Hellwig cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki cc: KOSAKI Motohiro cc: Andrea Arcangeli , Mel Gorman cc: Minchan Kim Subject: [PATCH 0/5] [RFC] transfer ASYNC vmscan writeback IO to the flusher threads Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1299 Lines: 30 Andrew, It's possible to transfer ASYNC vmscan writeback IOs to the flusher threads. This simple patchset shows the basic idea. Since it's a big behavior change, there are inevitably lots of details to sort out. I don't know where it will go after tests and discussions, so the patches are intentionally kept simple. sync livelock avoidance (need more to be complete, but this is minimal required for the last two patches) [PATCH 1/5] writeback: introduce wbc.for_sync to cover the two sync stages [PATCH 2/5] writeback: stop periodic/background work on seeing sync works [PATCH 3/5] writeback: prevent sync livelock with the sync_after timestamp let the flusher threads do ASYNC writeback for pageout() [PATCH 4/5] writeback: introduce bdi_start_inode_writeback() [PATCH 5/5] vmscan: transfer async file writeback to the flusher The last two patches are the meats, they depend on the first three patches to kick the background writeback work, so that the for_reclaim writeback can be serviced timely. Comments are welcome! Thanks, Fengguang -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/