2009-09-02 15:35:58

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
to be continuous.

Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
---
misc/e4defrag.c | 21 ++++++++++-----------
1 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/misc/e4defrag.c b/misc/e4defrag.c
index c25514a..c1e9213 100644
--- a/misc/e4defrag.c
+++ b/misc/e4defrag.c
@@ -1603,6 +1603,7 @@ static int file_defrag(const char *file, const struct stat64 *buf,
struct fiemap_extent_list *donor_list_logical = NULL;
struct fiemap_extent_group *orig_group_head = NULL;
struct fiemap_extent_group *orig_group_tmp = NULL;
+ ext4_fsblk_t orig_block_count;

defraged_file_count++;

@@ -1742,19 +1743,17 @@ static int file_defrag(const char *file, const struct stat64 *buf,
/* Allocate space for donor inode */
orig_group_tmp = orig_group_head;
do {
- ret = fallocate(donor_fd, 0,
- (loff_t)orig_group_tmp->start->data.logical * block_size,
- (loff_t)orig_group_tmp->len * block_size);
- if (ret < 0) {
- if (mode_flag & DETAIL) {
- PRINT_FILE_NAME(file);
- PRINT_ERR_MSG_WITH_ERRNO("Failed to fallocate");
- }
- goto out;
- }


2009-09-02 22:09:43

by Greg Freemyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
> to be continuous.
>
> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>

Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
sparse files. (Not before or after this patch.)

Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.

My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
(with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
the truly allocated blocks?

If so, that is not very optimum.

Greg

2009-09-02 22:23:53

by Andreas Dilger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Sep 02, 2009 18:09 -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> > If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
> > to be continuous.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>
> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
> sparse files. (Not before or after this patch.)
>
> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>
> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
> the truly allocated blocks?
>
> If so, that is not very optimum.

And of course FIEMAP can be used to easily determine if the file is sparse.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre Group
Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.


2009-09-03 08:00:47

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>> to be continuous.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>
> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
> sparse files.  (Not before or after this patch.)
>
> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>
> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
> the truly allocated blocks?
Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.

Sorry for the noise.

>
> If so, that is not very optimum.
>
> Greg
>



--
Cheers,
Peng Tao
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.

2009-09-03 09:30:34

by Greg Freemyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>> to be continuous.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>
>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>> sparse files. ?(Not before or after this patch.)
>>
>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>
>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>> the truly allocated blocks?
> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>
> Sorry for the noise.

RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:

The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. I don't see why it
needs to know so much about extents and groups.

I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c

It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,

If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. Pretty straight
forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.

Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
be something like:

defrag_file() {
loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
}

defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
// allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
fallocate(chunk);
move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
}
}

And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. Maybe the
"chunk" should be bigger than one extent?

Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
new file is less fragmented than the original. That will add to the
complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
simple as the above instead of what it is now.

Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
code currently does.

Greg

2009-09-04 03:16:50

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>
>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>> sparse files.  (Not before or after this patch.)
>>>
>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>
>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>
>> Sorry for the noise.
>
> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>
> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex.  I don't see why it
> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>
> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>
> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>
> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest.  Pretty straight
> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>
> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
> be something like:
>
> defrag_file()  {
>    loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>          defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
> }
>
> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>    // allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>    for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>          fallocate(chunk);
>          move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>      }
> }
>
> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent.  Maybe the
> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>
> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
> new file is less fragmented than the original.  That will add to the
> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>
> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
> code currently does.
Hi, Greg,

The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
point.

Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.

>
> Greg
>

--
Cheers,
Peng Tao
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.

2009-09-04 12:36:09

by Greg Freemyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>
>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>> sparse files. ?(Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>
>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>
>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>
>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>
>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>
>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. ?I don't see why it
>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>
>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>
>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>
>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. ?Pretty straight
>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>
>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>> be something like:
>>
>> defrag_file() ?{
>> ? ?loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>> ? ? ? ? ?defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>> }
>>
>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>> ? ?// allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>> ? ?for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>> ? ? ? ? ?fallocate(chunk);
>> ? ? ? ? ?move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>> ? ? ?}
>> }
>>
>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. ?Maybe the
>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>
>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>> new file is less fragmented than the original. ?That will add to the
>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>
>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>> code currently does.
> Hi, Greg,
>
> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
> point.
>
> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.

I've looked a lot more at the current code. I'm pretty sure this is right:

First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.

The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
of donor blocks. Then compare the number of extents in the original
and the donor. If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
blocks.

It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
fits the kernels block structure.

ie.

for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
max_blocks_in_extent)

current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
start+max_blocks_in_extent);

if (current_extents == 1) continue;

// allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
currently required by kernel
fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);

donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
start+max_blocks_in_extent);

if (donor_extents < current_extents)
donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
start+max_blocks_in_extent);

)

And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
blocks. Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
a block range that has holes in it.

It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
return an error.

Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
code. Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
defrag'ed. The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
the entire file.

Greg

2009-09-04 16:56:21

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>>> sparse files. (Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>>
>>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>>
>>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. I don't see why it
>>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>>
>>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>>
>>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>>
>>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. Pretty straight
>>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>>
>>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>>> be something like:
>>>
>>> defrag_file() {
>>> loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>>> }
>>>
>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>>> // allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>>> for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>>> fallocate(chunk);
>>> move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>>> }
>>> }
>>>
>>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. Maybe the
>>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>>
>>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>>> new file is less fragmented than the original. That will add to the
>>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>>
>>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>>> code currently does.
>> Hi, Greg,
>>
>> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
>> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
>> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
>> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
>> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
>> point.
>>
>> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.
>
> I've looked a lot more at the current code. I'm pretty sure this is right:
>
> First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.
>
> The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
> group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
> of donor blocks. Then compare the number of extents in the original
> and the donor. If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
> blocks.
>
> It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
> fits the kernels block structure.
>
> ie.
>
> for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
> max_blocks_in_extent)
>
> current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>
> if (current_extents == 1) continue;
>
> // allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
> currently required by kernel
> fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);
>
> donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>
> if (donor_extents < current_extents)
> donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>
> )
>
> And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
> if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
> blocks. Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
> a block range that has holes in it.
Agreed. If the kernel doesn't have to deal with holes, the EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
ioctl can be much simplified.
>
> It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
> passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
> return an error.
>
> Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
> above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
> code. Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
> defrag'ed. The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
> the entire file.
Yes, it makes sense. Are you planning some patch for above changes?
>
> Greg
>


--
Best Regards,
Peng Tao
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.

2009-09-04 19:10:44

by Greg Freemyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>>>> sparse files. ?(Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>>>
>>>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. ?I don't see why it
>>>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>>>
>>>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>>>
>>>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>>>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>>>
>>>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. ?Pretty straight
>>>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>>>
>>>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>>>> be something like:
>>>>
>>>> defrag_file() ?{
>>>> ? ?loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>>>> ? ? ? ? ?defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>>>> ? ?// allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>>>> ? ?for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>>>> ? ? ? ? ?fallocate(chunk);
>>>> ? ? ? ? ?move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>>>> ? ? ?}
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. ?Maybe the
>>>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>>>
>>>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>>>> new file is less fragmented than the original. ?That will add to the
>>>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>>>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>>>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>>>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>>>> code currently does.
>>> Hi, Greg,
>>>
>>> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
>>> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
>>> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
>>> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
>>> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
>>> point.
>>>
>>> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.
>>
>> I've looked a lot more at the current code. ?I'm pretty sure this is right:
>>
>> First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.
>>
>> The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
>> group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
>> of donor blocks. ?Then compare the number of extents in the original
>> and the donor. ?If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
>> blocks.
>>
>> It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
>> fits the kernels block structure.
>>
>> ie.
>>
>> for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
>> max_blocks_in_extent)
>>
>> ? ? ? current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>
>> ? ? ? if (current_extents == 1) continue;
>>
>> ? ? ? // allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
>> currently required by kernel
>> ? ? ? fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);
>>
>> ? ? ? donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>
>> ? ? ?if (donor_extents < current_extents)
>> ? ? ? ? ? ? donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>
>> )
>>
>> And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
>> if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
>> blocks. ?Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
>> a block range that has holes in it.
> Agreed. If the kernel doesn't have to deal with holes, the EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
> ioctl can be much simplified.
>>
>> It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
>> passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
>> return an error.
>>
>> Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
>> above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
>> code. ? Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
>> defrag'ed. ?The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
>> the entire file.
> Yes, it makes sense. Are you planning some patch for above changes?

I'm "planning", but I doubt that I get to it for a few weeks. If you
or someone else has time, that would be great.

Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team
Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
Preservation and Forensic processing of Exchange Repositories White Paper -
<http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/tng_whitepaper_fpe.html>

The Norcross Group
The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
http://www.norcrossgroup.com

2009-09-05 16:29:39

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>>>>> sparse files. (Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>>>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>>>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>>>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>>>>
>>>>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. I don't see why it
>>>>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>>>>
>>>>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>>>>
>>>>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>>>>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>>>>
>>>>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. Pretty straight
>>>>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>>>>> be something like:
>>>>>
>>>>> defrag_file() {
>>>>> loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>>>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>>>>> // allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>>>>> for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>>>>> fallocate(chunk);
>>>>> move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>>>>> }
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. Maybe the
>>>>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>>>>
>>>>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>>>>> new file is less fragmented than the original. That will add to the
>>>>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>>>>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>>>>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>>>>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>>>>> code currently does.
>>>> Hi, Greg,
>>>>
>>>> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
>>>> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
>>>> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
>>>> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
>>>> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
>>>> point.
>>>>
>>>> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.
>>> I've looked a lot more at the current code. I'm pretty sure this is right:
>>>
>>> First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.
>>>
>>> The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
>>> group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
>>> of donor blocks. Then compare the number of extents in the original
>>> and the donor. If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
>>> blocks.
>>>
>>> It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
>>> fits the kernels block structure.
>>>
>>> ie.
>>>
>>> for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
>>> max_blocks_in_extent)
>>>
>>> current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>
>>> if (current_extents == 1) continue;
>>>
>>> // allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
>>> currently required by kernel
>>> fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);
>>>
>>> donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>
>>> if (donor_extents < current_extents)
>>> donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>
>>> )
>>>
>>> And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
>>> if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
>>> blocks. Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
>>> a block range that has holes in it.
>> Agreed. If the kernel doesn't have to deal with holes, the EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
>> ioctl can be much simplified.
>>> It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
>>> passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
>>> return an error.
>>>
>>> Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
>>> above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
>>> code. Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
>>> defrag'ed. The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
>>> the entire file.
>> Yes, it makes sense. Are you planning some patch for above changes?
>
> I'm "planning", but I doubt that I get to it for a few weeks. If you
> or someone else has time, that would be great.
I don't have time for it in a few weeks either. So if anyone is interested,
please drop in.
>
> Greg


--
Best Regards,
Peng Tao
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.

2009-09-08 15:41:03

by Greg Freemyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>>>>>> sparse files. ?(Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>>>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>>>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>>>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>>>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>>>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>>>>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>>>>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>>>>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex. ?I don't see why it
>>>>>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>>>>>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest. ?Pretty straight
>>>>>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>>>>>> be something like:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> defrag_file() ?{
>>>>>> ? ?loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>>>>>> ? ? ? ? ?defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>>>>>> ? ?// allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>>>>>> ? ?for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>>>>>> ? ? ? ? ?fallocate(chunk);
>>>>>> ? ? ? ? ?move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>>>>>> ? ? ?}
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent. ?Maybe the
>>>>>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>>>>>> new file is less fragmented than the original. ?That will add to the
>>>>>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>>>>>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>>>>>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>>>>>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>>>>>> code currently does.
>>>>> Hi, Greg,
>>>>>
>>>>> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
>>>>> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
>>>>> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
>>>>> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
>>>>> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
>>>>> point.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.
>>>> I've looked a lot more at the current code. ?I'm pretty sure this is right:
>>>>
>>>> First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.
>>>>
>>>> The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
>>>> group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
>>>> of donor blocks. ?Then compare the number of extents in the original
>>>> and the donor. ?If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
>>>> blocks.
>>>>
>>>> It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
>>>> fits the kernels block structure.
>>>>
>>>> ie.
>>>>
>>>> for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
>>>> max_blocks_in_extent)
>>>>
>>>> ? ? ? current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>
>>>> ? ? ? if (current_extents == 1) continue;
>>>>
>>>> ? ? ? // allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
>>>> currently required by kernel
>>>> ? ? ? fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);
>>>>
>>>> ? ? ? donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>
>>>> ? ? ?if (donor_extents < current_extents)
>>>> ? ? ? ? ? ? donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>
>>>> )
>>>>
>>>> And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
>>>> if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
>>>> blocks. ?Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
>>>> a block range that has holes in it.
>>> Agreed. If the kernel doesn't have to deal with holes, the EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
>>> ioctl can be much simplified.
>>>> It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
>>>> passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
>>>> return an error.
>>>>
>>>> Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
>>>> above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
>>>> code. ? Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
>>>> defrag'ed. ?The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
>>>> the entire file.
>>> Yes, it makes sense. Are you planning some patch for above changes?
>>
>> I'm "planning", but I doubt that I get to it for a few weeks. ?If you
>> or someone else has time, that would be great.
> I don't have time for it in a few weeks either. So if anyone is interested,
> please drop in.
>>
>> Greg
>
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Peng Tao
> State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
> Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.
>

If I take a shot at this, which branch should a base my patch against? Master?

Thanks
Greg

2009-09-09 01:24:54

by Peng Tao

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] e4defrag: fallocate donor file only once

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:41 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Greg Freemyer wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM, Greg Freemyer<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Peng Tao<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> If we allocate the donor file once for all, it will have a better chance
>>>>>>>>>> to be continuous.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: "Peng Tao" <[email protected]>
>>>>>>>>> Seems like an improvement, but I'm not seeing any special handling for
>>>>>>>>> sparse files.  (Not before or after this patch.)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Seems like there should be an outer loop that identifies contiguous
>>>>>>>>> data block sets in a sparse file and defrags them individually as
>>>>>>>>> opposed to trying to defrag the entire file at once.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> My impression is that with a large sparse file, e4defrag currently
>>>>>>>>> (with or without this patch) would fallocate a full non-sparse donor
>>>>>>>>> set of blocks the full size of the original file, then swap in just
>>>>>>>>> the truly allocated blocks?
>>>>>>>> Thanks for the reminder. The original code takes good care of sparse
>>>>>>>> files in join_extents(). Please ignore my patch.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sorry for the noise.
>>>>>>> RFC from a more ext4 knowledgeable person than me:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The code in e4defrag still looks way to complex.  I don't see why it
>>>>>>> needs to know so much about extents and groups.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I just looked at util/copy_sparse.c
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It simply loops through all the blocks in the source file and calls
>>>>>>> ioctl(fd, FIBMAP, &b) to see if they are allocated vs. sparse,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If allocated it copies the block from src to dest.  Pretty straight
>>>>>>> forward and has none of the complexity of e4defrag.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Seems to me e4defrag should have the actual defrag_file() rewritten to
>>>>>>> be something like:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> defrag_file()  {
>>>>>>>    loop through the blocks looking for the contiguous set of data blocks.
>>>>>>>          defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks)
>>>>>>> }
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> defrag_contiguous_data(start_block, num_blocks) {
>>>>>>>    // allocate one full extent at a time and donate the blocks to orig file
>>>>>>>    for(start=start_block; start < start_block, num_blocks; start+=chunk) {
>>>>>>>          fallocate(chunk);
>>>>>>>          move_ext(orig, donor, start, 0, chunk);
>>>>>>>      }
>>>>>>> }
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And then set chunk to be the max size of one extent.  Maybe the
>>>>>>> "chunk" should be bigger than one extent?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also, I did not put any logic in above to show testing to see if the
>>>>>>> new file is less fragmented than the original.  That will add to the
>>>>>>> complexity, but hopefully the actual defrag logic can be as relatively
>>>>>>> simple as the above instead of what it is now.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Anyway, t would be a major change to e4defrag, but it seems that it
>>>>>>> would give ext4 a much better chance to reorganize itself by calling
>>>>>>> fallocate on full extent size chunks at minimum, instead of what the
>>>>>>> code currently does.
>>>>>> Hi, Greg,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The current e4defrag is doing most of work exactly same as your RFC,
>>>>>> and in a nicer manner. If you look into the code path, you'll see that
>>>>>> its logic is very much like the RFC except that it first fallocates a
>>>>>> donor file to see if a defragmentation is really necessary so it won't
>>>>>> have to fall back during defragmentation, which IMO is a good design
>>>>>> point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Please correct me if I understand anything wrong.
>>>>> I've looked a lot more at the current code.  I'm pretty sure this is right:
>>>>>
>>>>> First, assume defrag of a non-sparse 1TB file.
>>>>>
>>>>> The current code will walk the extent tree and create a single extent
>>>>> group that covers the full 1TB, then call fallocate to try to get 1TB
>>>>> of donor blocks.  Then compare the number of extents in the original
>>>>> and the donor.  If the donor has less it will swap in the donor
>>>>> blocks.
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems much smarter work on extent size chunks (or whatever best
>>>>> fits the kernels block structure.
>>>>>
>>>>> ie.
>>>>>
>>>>> for (start_block=0; start_block < max_blocks; start_block+=
>>>>> max_blocks_in_extent)
>>>>>
>>>>>       current_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>>
>>>>>       if (current_extents == 1) continue;
>>>>>
>>>>>       // allocate a sparse file with perfectly aligned donor blocks as
>>>>> currently required by kernel
>>>>>       fallocate(start_block * block_size, max_blocks_in_extent * block_size);
>>>>>
>>>>>       donor_extents = num_extents_in_block_range(start_block,
>>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>>
>>>>>      if (donor_extents < current_extents)
>>>>>             donate_donor_blocks_to_orig(start_block,
>>>>> start+max_blocks_in_extent);
>>>>>
>>>>> )
>>>>>
>>>>> And in the case of a sparse file, it seems much easier to understand
>>>>> if the above is called on each logically contiguous set or data
>>>>> blocks.  Seriously, why bother the kernel by making it able to accept
>>>>> a block range that has holes in it.
>>>> Agreed. If the kernel doesn't have to deal with holes, the EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
>>>> ioctl can be much simplified.
>>>>> It seems reasonable for the kernel to check the block range being
>>>>> passed in and if the orig files has a hole in the middle of it, then
>>>>> return an error.
>>>>>
>>>>> Back to e4defrag, even if the code is not greatly simplified, the
>>>>> above seems like it would use far less resources than the current
>>>>> code.   Think about a large file that has the first 90% of the blocks
>>>>> defrag'ed.  The above would cause just the tail to be defrag'ed, not
>>>>> the entire file.
>>>> Yes, it makes sense. Are you planning some patch for above changes?
>>>
>>> I'm "planning", but I doubt that I get to it for a few weeks.  If you
>>> or someone else has time, that would be great.
>> I don't have time for it in a few weeks either. So if anyone is interested,
>> please drop in.
>>>
>>> Greg
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best Regards,
>> Peng Tao
>> State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
>> Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.
>>
>
> If I take a shot at this, which branch should a base my patch against?  Master?
Yes, I think so. I verified that e4defrag.c is the same in master and pu branch.
>
> Thanks
> Greg
>



--
Cheers,
Peng Tao
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecoms.