[ 3.8.y.z extended stable ] Patch "writeback: Fix periodic writeback after fs mount" has been added to staging queue

[Kamal Mostafa]

This is a note to let you know that I have just added a patch titled

    writeback: Fix periodic writeback after fs mount

to the linux-3.8.y-queue branch of the 3.8.y.z extended stable tree 
which can be found at:

 http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/linux.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/linux-3.8.y-queue

This patch is scheduled to be released in version 3.8.13.5.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to this tree, please 
reply to this email.

For more information about the 3.8.y.z tree, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/ExtendedStable

Thanks.
-Kamal

------

>From 4ad8272091782ba0c7ec5dee139a01373b6374fa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jan Kara <jack at suse.cz>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 16:04:02 +0200
Subject: writeback: Fix periodic writeback after fs mount

commit a5faeaf9109578e65e1a32e2a3e76c8b47e7dcb6 upstream.

Code in blkdev.c moves a device inode to default_backing_dev_info when
the last reference to the device is put and moves the device inode back
to its bdi when the first reference is acquired. This includes moving to
wb.b_dirty list if the device inode is dirty. The code however doesn't
setup timer to wake corresponding flusher thread and while wb.b_dirty
list is non-empty __mark_inode_dirty() will not set it up either. Thus
periodic writeback is effectively disabled until a sync(2) call which can
lead to unexpected data loss in case of crash or power failure.

Fix the problem by setting up a timer for periodic writeback in case we
add the first dirty inode to wb.b_dirty list in bdev_inode_switch_bdi().

Reported-by: Bert De Jonghe <Bert.DeJonghe at amplidata.com>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack at suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe at kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Kamal Mostafa <kamal at canonical.com>
---
 fs/block_dev.c | 9 ++++++++-
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/block_dev.c b/fs/block_dev.c
index 883dc49..33f984f 100644
--- a/fs/block_dev.c
+++ b/fs/block_dev.c
@@ -57,17 +57,24 @@ static void bdev_inode_switch_bdi(struct inode *inode,
 			struct backing_dev_info *dst)
 {
 	struct backing_dev_info *old = inode->i_data.backing_dev_info;
+	bool wakeup_bdi = false;

 	if (unlikely(dst == old))		/* deadlock avoidance */
 		return;
 	bdi_lock_two(&old->wb, &dst->wb);
 	spin_lock(&inode->i_lock);
 	inode->i_data.backing_dev_info = dst;
-	if (inode->i_state & I_DIRTY)
+	if (inode->i_state & I_DIRTY) {
+		if (bdi_cap_writeback_dirty(dst) && !wb_has_dirty_io(&dst->wb))
+			wakeup_bdi = true;
 		list_move(&inode->i_wb_list, &dst->wb.b_dirty);
+	}
 	spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
 	spin_unlock(&old->wb.list_lock);
 	spin_unlock(&dst->wb.list_lock);
+
+	if (wakeup_bdi)
+		bdi_wakeup_thread_delayed(dst);
 }

 /* Kill _all_ buffers and pagecache , dirty or not.. */
--
1.8.1.2