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

[Luis Henriques]

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-3.5.y-queue branch of the 3.5.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-3.5.y-queue

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

For more information about the 3.5.y.z tree, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/ExtendedStable

Thanks.
-Luis

------

>From 187d88ef28e699fe92bfbb8162cee04c5fcfbb67 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jan Kara <jack at suse.cz>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 16:04:02 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] 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>
[ luis: backported to 3.5: adjusted context ]
Signed-off-by: Luis Henriques <luis.henriques 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 1244094..7da78cf 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);
 }

 sector_t blkdev_max_block(struct block_device *bdev)
--
1.8.1.2