Re: [RFC PATCH v5 06/10] ovl: implement overlayfs' ->write_inode operation

From: Jan Kara
Date: Thu Nov 18 2021 - 11:43:57 EST


On Thu 18-11-21 20:02:09, Chengguang Xu wrote:
> ---- 在 星期四, 2021-11-18 19:23:15 Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> 撰写 ----
> > On Thu 18-11-21 14:32:36, Chengguang Xu wrote:
> > >
> > > ---- 在 星期三, 2021-11-17 14:11:29 Chengguang Xu <cgxu519@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 撰写 ----
> > > > ---- 在 星期二, 2021-11-16 20:35:55 Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> 撰写 ----
> > > > > On Tue, 16 Nov 2021 at 03:20, Chengguang Xu <cgxu519@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ---- 在 星期四, 2021-10-07 21:34:19 Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> 撰写 ----
> > > > > > > On Thu, 7 Oct 2021 at 15:10, Chengguang Xu <cgxu519@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > However that wasn't what I was asking about. AFAICS ->write_inode()
> > > > > > > > > won't start write back for dirty pages. Maybe I'm missing something,
> > > > > > > > > but there it looks as if nothing will actually trigger writeback for
> > > > > > > > > dirty pages in upper inode.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Actually, page writeback on upper inode will be triggered by overlayfs ->writepages and
> > > > > > > > overlayfs' ->writepages will be called by vfs writeback function (i.e writeback_sb_inodes).
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Right.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > But wouldn't it be simpler to do this from ->write_inode()?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I.e. call write_inode_now() as suggested by Jan.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Also could just call mark_inode_dirty() on the overlay inode
> > > > > > > regardless of the dirty flags on the upper inode since it shouldn't
> > > > > > > matter and results in simpler logic.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi Miklos,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Sorry for delayed response for this, I've been busy with another project.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I agree with your suggesion above and further more how about just mark overlay inode dirty
> > > > > > when it has upper inode? This approach will make marking dirtiness simple enough.
> > > > >
> > > > > Are you suggesting that all non-lower overlay inodes should always be dirty?
> > > > >
> > > > > The logic would be simple, no doubt, but there's the cost to walking
> > > > > those overlay inodes which don't have a dirty upper inode, right?
> > > >
> > > > That's true.
> > > >
> > > > > Can you quantify this cost with a benchmark? Can be totally synthetic,
> > > > > e.g. lookup a million upper files without modifying them, then call
> > > > > syncfs.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > No problem, I'll do some tests for the performance.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Hi Miklos,
> > >
> > > I did some rough tests and the results like below. In practice, I don't
> > > think that 1.3s extra time of syncfs will cause significant problem.
> > > What do you think?
> >
> > Well, burning 1.3s worth of CPU time for doing nothing seems like quite a
> > bit to me. I understand this is with 1000000 inodes but although that is
> > quite a few it is not unheard of. If there would be several containers
> > calling sync_fs(2) on the machine they could easily hog the machine... That
> > is why I was originally against keeping overlay inodes always dirty and
> > wanted their dirtiness to at least roughly track the real need to do
> > writeback.
> >
>
> Hi Jan,
>
> Actually, the time on user and sys are almost same with directly excute syncfs on underlying fs.
> IMO, it only extends syncfs(2) waiting time for perticular container but not burning cpu.
> What am I missing?

Ah, right, I've missed that only realtime changed, not systime. I'm sorry
for confusion. But why did the realtime increase so much? Are we waiting
for some IO?

Honza

> > > Test bed: kvm vm
> > > 2.50GHz cpu 32core
> > > 64GB mem
> > > vm kernel 5.15.0-rc1+ (with ovl syncfs patch V6)
> > >
> > > one millon files spread to 2 level of dir hierarchy.
> > > test step:
> > > 1) create testfiles in ovl upper dir
> > > 2) mount overlayfs
> > > 3) excute ls -lR to lookup all file in overlay merge dir
> > > 4) excute slabtop to make sure overlay inode number
> > > 5) call syncfs to the file in merge dir
> > >
> > > Tested five times and the reusults are in 1.310s ~ 1.326s
> > >
> > > root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-merge/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m1.310s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-merge/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m1.326s
> > > user 0m0.001s
> > > sys 0m0.000s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-merge/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m1.321s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-merge/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m1.316s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-merge/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m1.314s
> > > user 0m0.001s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > >
> > >
> > > Directly run syncfs to the file in ovl-upper dir.
> > > Tested five times and the reusults are in 0.001s ~ 0.003s
> > >
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs a
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.002s
> > > user 0m0.001s
> > > sys 0m0.000s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-upper/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.003s
> > > user 0m0.001s
> > > sys 0m0.000s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-upper/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.001s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-upper/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.001s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-upper/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.001s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001s
> > > [root@VM-144-4-centos test]# time ./syncfs ovl-upper/create-file.sh
> > > syncfs success
> > >
> > > real 0m0.001s
> > > user 0m0.000s
> > > sys 0m0.001
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > --
> > Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxxx>
> > SUSE Labs, CR
> >
--
Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxxx>
SUSE Labs, CR