Re: libdiskfs sync issue at shutdown

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 02:10:22AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:

> I've digged a bit in the libdiskfs syncing issue at shutdown. The
> scenario is the following:
> 
> - halt or reboot is issued
> - S_startup_reboot() gets called in init which
>   - calls reboot_system(), which
>     - calls notify_shutdown(), which for each diskfs which registered itself
>       - calls startup_dosync() with a 1m grace period
> - diskfs_S_startup_dosync() thus gets called in e.g. ext2fs, which
>   - syncs everything and marks hypermetadata as dirty
>   - inhibits RPCs
>   - syncs everything again and marks hypermetadata as clean
>   - resume RPCs
> - init takes back hand, and eventually tells mach to hang or reboot.
> 
> But since RPCs are resumed, processes can continue writing to files,
> which makes ext2fs re-mark hypermetadata as dirty, and thus an
> "unclean!" message from ext2fs at reboot.

Nice catch! However, it explains only part of the problem: For me at
least, once the startup_dosync went through, the "unclean" problem shows
up only occasionally, and is generally harmless. The more serious issues
happen when halt/reboot is issued during or shortly after disk activity
(before the next regular sync), in which case the startup_dosync()
doesn't work properly, and instead is forcefully aborted after the grace
period (I presume)...

-antrik-