xfs: pin inode backing buffer to the inode log item

When we dirty an inode, we are going to have to write it disk at
some point in the near future. This requires the inode cluster
backing buffer to be present in memory. Unfortunately, under severe
memory pressure we can reclaim the inode backing buffer while the
inode is dirty in memory, resulting in stalling the AIL pushing
because it has to do a read-modify-write cycle on the cluster
buffer.

When we have no memory available, the read of the cluster buffer
blocks the AIL pushing process, and this causes all sorts of issues
for memory reclaim as it requires inode writeback to make forwards
progress. Allocating a cluster buffer causes more memory pressure,
and results in more cluster buffers to be reclaimed, resulting in
more RMW cycles to be done in the AIL context and everything then
backs up on AIL progress. Only the synchronous inode cluster
writeback in the the inode reclaim code provides some level of
forwards progress guarantees that prevent OOM-killer rampages in
this situation.

Fix this by pinning the inode backing buffer to the inode log item
when the inode is first dirtied (i.e. in xfs_trans_log_inode()).
This may mean the first modification of an inode that has been held
in cache for a long time may block on a cluster buffer read, but
we can do that in transaction context and block safely until the
buffer has been allocated and read.

Once we have the cluster buffer, the inode log item takes a
reference to it, pinning it in memory, and attaches it to the log
item for future reference. This means we can always grab the cluster
buffer from the inode log item when we need it.

When the inode is finally cleaned and removed from the AIL, we can
drop the reference the inode log item holds on the cluster buffer.
Once all inodes on the cluster buffer are clean, the cluster buffer
will be unpinned and it will be available for memory reclaim to
reclaim again.

This avoids the issues with needing to do RMW cycles in the AIL
pushing context, and hence allows complete non-blocking inode
flushing to be performed by the AIL pushing context.

Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Brian Foster <bfoster@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>

1 files changed, 6 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/fs/xfs/xfs_trans_ail.c b/fs/xfs/xfs_trans_ail.c
index ac33f6393f99..c3be6e440134 100644
--- a/fs/xfs/xfs_trans_ail.c
+++ b/fs/xfs/xfs_trans_ail.c
@@ -377,8 +377,12 @@ xfsaild_resubmit_item(
 	}
 
 	/* protected by ail_lock */
-	list_for_each_entry(lip, &bp->b_li_list, li_bio_list)
-		xfs_clear_li_failed(lip);
+	list_for_each_entry(lip, &bp->b_li_list, li_bio_list) {
+		if (bp->b_flags & _XBF_INODES)
+			clear_bit(XFS_LI_FAILED, &lip->li_flags);
+		else
+			xfs_clear_li_failed(lip);
+	}
 
 	xfs_buf_unlock(bp);
 	return XFS_ITEM_SUCCESS;