From: "Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: delalloc and reservation.
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:37:08 +0530
Message-ID: <4725BEDC.5090902@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
References: <4725AF5B.1000300@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
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Cc: Andreas Dilger <adilger@clusterfs.com>,
	Eric Sandeen <sandeen@redhat.com>,
	Valerie Clement <valerie.clement@bull.net>,
	Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>, Mingming Cao <cmm@us.ibm.com>,
	linux-ext4 <linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org>
To: "Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: <4725AF5B.1000300@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org


Aneesh Kumar K.V wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I looked at the delalloc and reservation differences that Valerie was 
> observing.
> Below is my understanding. I am not sure whether the below will result 
> in higher fragmentation that Eric Sandeen is observing. I guess it 
> should not. Even
> though the reservation gets discarded during the clear inode due to 
> memory pressure
> the request for new reservation should get the blocks nearby and not 
> break extents right ?
> 
> 
> any how below is the simple case.
> 
> without delalloc the blocks are requested during prepare_write/write_begin.
> That means we enter ext4_new_blocks_old which will call 
> ext4_try_to_allocate_with_rsv.
> Now if there is no reservation for this inode a new one will be 
> allocated.  After
> using the blocks this reservation is destroyed during the close via 
> ext4_release_file
> 
> With delalloc the blocks are not requested until we hit 
> writeback/ext4_da_writepages
> That means if we create new file and close them the reservation will be 
> discarded
> during close via ext4_release_file.( Actually there will be nothing to 
> clear)
> Now when we do a sync/or write back. We try to get the block, the inode 
> will
> request for new reservation. This reservation is not discarded untill we 
> call clear_inode
> and that results in the behavior we are seeing.
> Free blocks: 1440-8191, 8194-8199, 8202-8207, 8210-8215, 8218-8223, 
> 8226-8231, 8234-8239, 8242-8247, 8250-8255, 8258-8263, 8266-8271, 
> 8274-8279, 8282-8287, 8290-8295, 8298-8303, 8306-8311, 8314-8319, 
> 8322-8327, 8330-8335, 8338-8343, 8346-12799
> 
> So now the question is where do we discard the reservation in case of 
> delalloc.
> 
> -

with respect to mballoc we are not seeing this because we are doing
allocation from group prealloc list which is per cpu. 

For most the case we have EXT4_MB_HINT_GROUP_ALLOC set in mballoc.

In ext4_mb_group_or_file i already have a FIXME!! regarding this.

currently we have

        /* request is so large that we don't care about
         * streaming - it overweights any possible seek */
        if (ac->ac_o_ex.fe_len >= sbi->s_mb_large_req)
                return;

        /* FIXME!!
         * is this  >=  considering the above ?
         */
        if (ac->ac_o_ex.fe_len >= sbi->s_mb_small_req)
                return;

        .....
        ......

       /* we're going to use group allocation */
        ac->ac_flags |= EXT4_MB_HINT_GROUP_ALLOC;
        
       ........
       .........

So for small size we have the EXT4_MB_HINT_GROUP_ALLOC set . Now if
i change the the line below FIXME!! to <= , that will force
small size to use inode prealloc and that cause

Free blocks: 1442-1443, 1446-1447, 1450-1451, 1454-1455, 1458-1459, 1462-1463, 1466-1467, 1470-1471, 1474-1475, 1478-1479, 1482-1483, 1486-1487, 1490-1491, 1494-1495, 1498-1499, 1502-1503, 1506-1507, 1510-1511, 1514-1515, 1518-12799


So the problem is generic.


-aneesh