fs-writeback: Add helper function to start writeback if idle

ext4, at least, would like to start pushing on writeback if it starts
to get close to ENOSPC when reserving worst-case blocks for delalloc
writes.  Writing out delalloc data will convert those worst-case
predictions into usually smaller actual usage, freeing up space
before we hit ENOSPC based on this speculation.

Thanks to Jens for the suggestion for the helper function,
& the naming help.

I've made the helper return status on whether writeback was
started even though I don't plan to use it in the ext4 patch;
it seems like it would be potentially useful to test this
in some cases.

Signed-off-by: Eric Sandeen <sandeen@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>

2 files changed, 18 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/fs/fs-writeback.c b/fs/fs-writeback.c
index 49bc1b8e8f19..f6c2155e0026 100644
--- a/fs/fs-writeback.c
+++ b/fs/fs-writeback.c
@@ -1187,6 +1187,23 @@ void writeback_inodes_sb(struct super_block *sb)
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(writeback_inodes_sb);
 
 /**
+ * writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle  -       start writeback if none underway
+ * @sb: the superblock
+ *
+ * Invoke writeback_inodes_sb if no writeback is currently underway.
+ * Returns 1 if writeback was started, 0 if not.
+ */
+int writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle(struct super_block *sb)
+{
+        if (!writeback_in_progress(sb->s_bdi)) {
+                writeback_inodes_sb(sb);
+                return 1;
+        } else
+                return 0;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle);
+
+/**
  * sync_inodes_sb       -       sync sb inode pages
  * @sb: the superblock
  *
diff --git a/include/linux/writeback.h b/include/linux/writeback.h
index c18c008f4bbf..76e8903cd204 100644
--- a/include/linux/writeback.h
+++ b/include/linux/writeback.h
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ struct writeback_control {
 struct bdi_writeback;
 int inode_wait(void *);
 void writeback_inodes_sb(struct super_block *);
+int writeback_inodes_sb_if_idle(struct super_block *);
 void sync_inodes_sb(struct super_block *);
 void writeback_inodes_wbc(struct writeback_control *wbc);
 long wb_do_writeback(struct bdi_writeback *wb, int force_wait);