xfs: dummy transactions should not dirty VFS state

When we  need to cover the log, we issue dummy transactions to ensure
the current log tail is on disk. Unfortunately we currently use the
root inode in the dummy transaction, and the act of committing the
transaction dirties the inode at the VFS level.

As a result, the VFS writeback of the dirty inode will prevent the
filesystem from idling long enough for the log covering state
machine to complete. The state machine gets stuck in a loop issuing
new dummy transactions to cover the log and never makes progress.

To avoid this problem, the dummy transactions should not cause
externally visible state changes. To ensure this occurs, make sure
that dummy transactions log an unchanging field in the superblock as
it's state is never propagated outside the filesystem. This allows
the log covering state machine to complete successfully and the
filesystem now correctly enters a fully idle state about 90s after
the last modification was made.

Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>

1 files changed, 18 insertions, 13 deletions

diff --git a/fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c b/fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c
index dbca5f5c37ba..43b1d5699335 100644
--- a/fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c
+++ b/fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c
@@ -604,31 +604,36 @@ out:
         return 0;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Dump a transaction into the log that contains no real change. This is needed
+ * to be able to make the log dirty or stamp the current tail LSN into the log
+ * during the covering operation.
+ *
+ * We cannot use an inode here for this - that will push dirty state back up
+ * into the VFS and then periodic inode flushing will prevent log covering from
+ * making progress. Hence we log a field in the superblock instead.
+ */
 int
 xfs_fs_log_dummy(
-        xfs_mount_t     *mp)
+        xfs_mount_t     *mp,
+        int             flags)
 {
         xfs_trans_t     *tp;
-        xfs_inode_t     *ip;
         int             error;
 
         tp = _xfs_trans_alloc(mp, XFS_TRANS_DUMMY1, KM_SLEEP);
-        error = xfs_trans_reserve(tp, 0, XFS_ICHANGE_LOG_RES(mp), 0, 0, 0);
+        error = xfs_trans_reserve(tp, 0, mp->m_sb.sb_sectsize + 128, 0, 0,
+                                        XFS_DEFAULT_LOG_COUNT);
         if (error) {
                 xfs_trans_cancel(tp, 0);
                 return error;
         }
 
-        ip = mp->m_rootip;
-        xfs_ilock(ip, XFS_ILOCK_EXCL);
-
-        xfs_trans_ijoin(tp, ip);
-        xfs_trans_log_inode(tp, ip, XFS_ILOG_CORE);
-        xfs_trans_set_sync(tp);
-        error = xfs_trans_commit(tp, 0);
-
-        xfs_iunlock(ip, XFS_ILOCK_EXCL);
-        return error;
+        /* log the UUID because it is an unchanging field */
+        xfs_mod_sb(tp, XFS_SB_UUID);
+        if (flags & SYNC_WAIT)
+                xfs_trans_set_sync(tp);
+        return xfs_trans_commit(tp, 0);
 }
 
 int