[Devel] Re: [PATCH 2.6.19-rc3] VFS: per-sb dentry lru list

Neil Brown neilb at suse.de
Mon Oct 30 20:38:58 PST 2006


On Monday October 30, dev at sw.ru wrote:
> David,
> 
> >>The proposed fix prevents this issue by using per-sb dentry LRU list. It
> >>provides very quickly search for the unused dentries for given super block thus
> >>forcing shrinking always making good progress.
> > 
> > 
> > We've been down this path before:
> > 
> > http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114861109717260&w=2
> > 
> > A lot of comments on per-sb unused dentry lists were made in
> > the threads associated with the above. other solutions were
> > found to the problem that the above patch addressed, but I don't
> > think any of them have made it to mainline yet. You might want
> > to have a bit of a read of these threads first...
> The major difference between our patch and the one discussed in the link
> it that we keep both global and per-sb dentry LRU lists.
> Thus, when needed normal LRU is used and prune logic is unchanged,
> while umount/remount use per-sb list and do its job faster.

Yes, we have been down this path before - several times I think.
Below is the patch that I like (not tested recently - just rediffed
and reviewed).

NeilBrown

Subject: Reduce contention in dentry_unused when unmounting.

When we unmount a filesystem we need to release all dentries.
We currently
  - move a collection of dentries to the end of the dentry_unused list
  - call prune_dcache to prune that number of dentries.

If lots of other dentries are added to the end of the list while
the prune_dcache proceeds (e.g. another filesystem is unmounted),
this can involve a lot of wasted time wandering through the
list looking for dentries that we had previously found.

This patch allows the dentry_unused list to temporarily be multiple
lists.
When unmounting, dentries that are found to require pruning are moved
to a temporary list, but accounted as though they were on dentry_unused.
Then this list is passed to prune_dcache for freeing.  Any entries
that are not pruned for whatever reason are added to the end of
dentry_unused.

Also change shrink_dcache_sb to simply call shrink_dcache_parent.
This avoids a long walk of the LRU.

Signed-off-by: Neil Brown <neilb at suse.de>

### Diffstat output
 ./fs/dcache.c |  104 ++++++++++++++++------------------------------------------
 1 file changed, 30 insertions(+), 74 deletions(-)

diff .prev/fs/dcache.c ./fs/dcache.c
--- .prev/fs/dcache.c	2006-10-31 15:22:10.000000000 +1100
+++ ./fs/dcache.c	2006-10-31 15:37:22.000000000 +1100
@@ -384,8 +384,8 @@ static void prune_one_dentry(struct dent
 /**
  * prune_dcache - shrink the dcache
  * @count: number of entries to try and free
- * @sb: if given, ignore dentries for other superblocks
- *         which are being unmounted.
+ * @list: If given, remove from this list instead of
+ *        from dentry_unused.
  *
  * Shrink the dcache. This is done when we need
  * more memory, or simply when we need to unmount
@@ -394,11 +394,21 @@ static void prune_one_dentry(struct dent
  *
  * This function may fail to free any resources if
  * all the dentries are in use.
+ *
+ * Any dentries that were not removed due to the @count
+ * limit will be splice on to the end of dentry_unused,
+ * so they should already be founded in dentry_stat.nr_unused.
  */
  
-static void prune_dcache(int count, struct super_block *sb)
+static void prune_dcache(int count, struct list_head *list)
 {
+	int have_list = list != NULL;
+
 	spin_lock(&dcache_lock);
+	if (!have_list)
+		/* use the dentry_unused list */
+		list = &dentry_unused;
+
 	for (; count ; count--) {
 		struct dentry *dentry;
 		struct list_head *tmp;
@@ -406,23 +416,11 @@ static void prune_dcache(int count, stru
 
 		cond_resched_lock(&dcache_lock);
 
-		tmp = dentry_unused.prev;
-		if (sb) {
-			/* Try to find a dentry for this sb, but don't try
-			 * too hard, if they aren't near the tail they will
-			 * be moved down again soon
-			 */
-			int skip = count;
-			while (skip && tmp != &dentry_unused &&
-			    list_entry(tmp, struct dentry, d_lru)->d_sb != sb) {
-				skip--;
-				tmp = tmp->prev;
-			}
-		}
-		if (tmp == &dentry_unused)
+		tmp = list->prev;
+		if (tmp == list)
 			break;
 		list_del_init(tmp);
-		prefetch(dentry_unused.prev);
+		prefetch(list->prev);
  		dentry_stat.nr_unused--;
 		dentry = list_entry(tmp, struct dentry, d_lru);
 
@@ -455,7 +453,7 @@ static void prune_dcache(int count, stru
 		 * If this dentry is for "my" filesystem, then I can prune it
 		 * without taking the s_umount lock (I already hold it).
 		 */
-		if (sb && dentry->d_sb == sb) {
+		if (have_list) {
 			prune_one_dentry(dentry);
 			continue;
 		}
@@ -485,68 +483,25 @@ static void prune_dcache(int count, stru
  		list_add(&dentry->d_lru, &dentry_unused);
 		dentry_stat.nr_unused++;
 	}
+	/* split any remaining entries back onto dentry_unused */
+	if (have_list)
+		list_splice(list, dentry_unused.prev);
 	spin_unlock(&dcache_lock);
 }
 
-/*
- * Shrink the dcache for the specified super block.
- * This allows us to unmount a device without disturbing
- * the dcache for the other devices.
- *
- * This implementation makes just two traversals of the
- * unused list.  On the first pass we move the selected
- * dentries to the most recent end, and on the second
- * pass we free them.  The second pass must restart after
- * each dput(), but since the target dentries are all at
- * the end, it's really just a single traversal.
- */
-
 /**
  * shrink_dcache_sb - shrink dcache for a superblock
  * @sb: superblock
  *
  * Shrink the dcache for the specified super block. This
- * is used to free the dcache before unmounting a file
- * system
+ * is used to reduce the dcache presence of a file system
+ * before re-mounting, and when invalidating the device
+ * holding a file system.
  */
 
 void shrink_dcache_sb(struct super_block * sb)
 {
-	struct list_head *tmp, *next;
-	struct dentry *dentry;
-
-	/*
-	 * Pass one ... move the dentries for the specified
-	 * superblock to the most recent end of the unused list.
-	 */
-	spin_lock(&dcache_lock);
-	list_for_each_safe(tmp, next, &dentry_unused) {
-		dentry = list_entry(tmp, struct dentry, d_lru);
-		if (dentry->d_sb != sb)
-			continue;
-		list_move(tmp, &dentry_unused);
-	}
-
-	/*
-	 * Pass two ... free the dentries for this superblock.
-	 */
-repeat:
-	list_for_each_safe(tmp, next, &dentry_unused) {
-		dentry = list_entry(tmp, struct dentry, d_lru);
-		if (dentry->d_sb != sb)
-			continue;
-		dentry_stat.nr_unused--;
-		list_del_init(tmp);
-		spin_lock(&dentry->d_lock);
-		if (atomic_read(&dentry->d_count)) {
-			spin_unlock(&dentry->d_lock);
-			continue;
-		}
-		prune_one_dentry(dentry);
-		cond_resched_lock(&dcache_lock);
-		goto repeat;
-	}
-	spin_unlock(&dcache_lock);
+	shrink_dcache_parent(sb->s_root);
 }
 
 /*
@@ -739,7 +694,7 @@ positive:
 
 /*
  * Search the dentry child list for the specified parent,
- * and move any unused dentries to the end of the unused
+ * and move any unused dentries to the end of a new unused
  * list for prune_dcache(). We descend to the next level
  * whenever the d_subdirs list is non-empty and continue
  * searching.
@@ -751,7 +706,7 @@ positive:
  * drop the lock and return early due to latency
  * constraints.
  */
-static int select_parent(struct dentry * parent)
+static int select_parent(struct dentry * parent, struct list_head *new)
 {
 	struct dentry *this_parent = parent;
 	struct list_head *next;
@@ -775,7 +730,7 @@ resume:
 		 * of the unused list for prune_dcache
 		 */
 		if (!atomic_read(&dentry->d_count)) {
-			list_add_tail(&dentry->d_lru, &dentry_unused);
+			list_add_tail(&dentry->d_lru, new);
 			dentry_stat.nr_unused++;
 			found++;
 		}
@@ -819,9 +774,10 @@ out:
 void shrink_dcache_parent(struct dentry * parent)
 {
 	int found;
+	LIST_HEAD(list);
 
-	while ((found = select_parent(parent)) != 0)
-		prune_dcache(found, parent->d_sb);
+	while ((found = select_parent(parent, &list)) != 0)
+		prune_dcache(found, &list);
 }
 
 /*




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