Update Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt

Fix paragraph with recommendations on how to tune ext4 for benchmarks.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>

1 files changed, 32 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
index 174eaff7ded..f75ab101c00 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
@@ -58,13 +58,22 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be
 
         # mount -t ext4 /dev/hda1 /wherever
 
-  - When comparing performance with other filesystems, remember that
-    ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most.
-    So when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, such
-    as ext3, use `mount -o data=writeback'.  And you might as well use
-    `mount -o nobh' too along with it.  Making the journal larger than
-    the mke2fs default often helps performance with metadata-intensive
-    workloads.
+  - When comparing performance with other filesystems, it's always
+    important to try multiple workloads; very often a subtle change in a
+    workload parameter can completely change the ranking of which
+    filesystems do well compared to others.  When comparing versus ext3,
+    note that ext4 enables write barriers by default, while ext3 does
+    not enable write barriers by default.  So it is useful to use
+    explicitly specify whether barriers are enabled or not when via the
+    '-o barriers=[0|1]' mount option for both ext3 and ext4 filesystems
+    for a fair comparison.  When tuning ext3 for best benchmark numbers,
+    it is often worthwhile to try changing the data journaling mode; '-o
+    data=writeback,nobh' can be faster for some workloads.  (Note
+    however that running mounted with data=writeback can potentially
+    leave stale data exposed in recently written files in case of an
+    unclean shutdown, which could be a security exposure in some
+    situations.)  Configuring the filesystem with a large journal can
+    also be helpful for metadata-intensive workloads.
 
 2. Features
 ===========
@@ -74,7 +83,7 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be
 * ability to use filesystems > 16TB (e2fsprogs support not available yet)
 * extent format reduces metadata overhead (RAM, IO for access, transactions)
 * extent format more robust in face of on-disk corruption due to magics,
-* internal redunancy in tree
+* internal redundancy in tree
 * improved file allocation (multi-block alloc)
 * fix 32000 subdirectory limit
 * nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time
@@ -116,6 +125,12 @@ grouping of bitmaps and inode tables.  Some test results available here:
 When mounting an ext4 filesystem, the following option are accepted:
 (*) == default
 
+ro                      Mount filesystem read only. Note that ext4 will
+                        replay the journal (and thus write to the
+                        partition) even when mounted "read only". The
+                        mount options "ro,noload" can be used to prevent
+                        writes to the filesystem.
+
 extents         (*)     ext4 will use extents to address file data.  The
                         file system will no longer be mountable by ext3.
 
@@ -144,7 +159,11 @@ journal_dev=devnum	When the external journal device's major/minor numbers
                         identified through its new major/minor numbers encoded
                         in devnum.
 
-noload                  Don't load the journal on mounting.
+noload                  Don't load the journal on mounting.  Note that
+                        if the filesystem was not unmounted cleanly,
+                        skipping the journal replay will lead to the
+                        filesystem containing inconsistencies that can
+                        lead to any number of problems.
 
 data=journal            All data are committed into the journal prior to being
                         written into the main file system.
@@ -219,9 +238,12 @@ minixdf			Make 'df' act like Minix.
 
 debug                   Extra debugging information is sent to syslog.
 
-errors=remount-ro(*)    Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
+errors=remount-ro       Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
 errors=continue         Keep going on a filesystem error.
 errors=panic            Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs.
+                        (These mount options override the errors behavior
+                        specified in the superblock, which can be configured
+                        using tune2fs)
 
 data_err=ignore(*)      Just print an error message if an error occurs
                         in a file data buffer in ordered mode.