Merge tag 'for-linus-v4.13-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux

Pull Writeback error handling updates from Jeff Layton:
 "This pile represents the bulk of the writeback error handling fixes
  that I have for this cycle. Some of the earlier patches in this pile
  may look trivial but they are prerequisites for later patches in the
  series.

  The aim of this set is to improve how we track and report writeback
  errors to userland. Most applications that care about data integrity
  will periodically call fsync/fdatasync/msync to ensure that their
  writes have made it to the backing store.

  For a very long time, we have tracked writeback errors using two flags
  in the address_space: AS_EIO and AS_ENOSPC. Those flags are set when a
  writeback error occurs (via mapping_set_error) and are cleared as a
  side-effect of filemap_check_errors (as you noted yesterday). This
  model really sucks for userland.

  Only the first task to call fsync (or msync or fdatasync) will see the
  error. Any subsequent task calling fsync on a file will get back 0
  (unless another writeback error occurs in the interim). If I have
  several tasks writing to a file and calling fsync to ensure that their
  writes got stored, then I need to have them coordinate with one
  another. That's difficult enough, but in a world of containerized
  setups that coordination may even not be possible.

  But wait...it gets worse!

  The calls to filemap_check_errors can be buried pretty far down in the
  call stack, and there are internal callers of filemap_write_and_wait
  and the like that also end up clearing those errors. Many of those
  callers ignore the error return from that function or return it to
  userland at nonsensical times (e.g. truncate() or stat()). If I get
  back -EIO on a truncate, there is no reason to think that it was
  because some previous writeback failed, and a subsequent fsync() will
  (incorrectly) return 0.

  This pile aims to do three things:

   1) ensure that when a writeback error occurs that that error will be
      reported to userland on a subsequent fsync/fdatasync/msync call,
      regardless of what internal callers are doing

   2) report writeback errors on all file descriptions that were open at
      the time that the error occurred. This is a user-visible change,
      but I think most applications are written to assume this behavior
      anyway. Those that aren't are unlikely to be hurt by it.

   3) document what filesystems should do when there is a writeback
      error. Today, there is very little consistency between them, and a
      lot of cargo-cult copying. We need to make it very clear what
      filesystems should do in this situation.

  To achieve this, the set adds a new data type (errseq_t) and then
  builds new writeback error tracking infrastructure around that. Once
  all of that is in place, we change the filesystems to use the new
  infrastructure for reporting wb errors to userland.

  Note that this is just the initial foray into cleaning up this mess.
  There is a lot of work remaining here:

   1) convert the rest of the filesystems in a similar fashion. Once the
      initial set is in, then I think most other fs' will be fairly
      simple to convert. Hopefully most of those can in via individual
      filesystem trees.

   2) convert internal waiters on writeback to use errseq_t for
      detecting errors instead of relying on the AS_* flags. I have some
      draft patches for this for ext4, but they are not quite ready for
      prime time yet.

  This was a discussion topic this year at LSF/MM too. If you're
  interested in the gory details, LWN has some good articles about this:

      https://lwn.net/Articles/718734/
      https://lwn.net/Articles/724307/"

* tag 'for-linus-v4.13-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux:
  btrfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting on fsync
  xfs: minimal conversion to errseq_t writeback error reporting
  ext4: use errseq_t based error handling for reporting data writeback errors
  fs: convert __generic_file_fsync to use errseq_t based reporting
  block: convert to errseq_t based writeback error tracking
  dax: set errors in mapping when writeback fails
  Documentation: flesh out the section in vfs.txt on storing and reporting writeback errors
  mm: set both AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC and errseq_t in mapping_set_error
  fs: new infrastructure for writeback error handling and reporting
  lib: add errseq_t type and infrastructure for handling it
  mm: don't TestClearPageError in __filemap_fdatawait_range
  mm: clear AS_EIO/AS_ENOSPC when writeback initiation fails
  jbd2: don't clear and reset errors after waiting on writeback
  buffer: set errors in mapping at the time that the error occurs
  fs: check for writeback errors after syncing out buffers in generic_file_fsync
  buffer: use mapping_set_error instead of setting the flag
  mm: fix mapping_set_error call in me_pagecache_dirty

1 files changed, 41 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
index f42b90687d40..48c9faa73a76 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
@@ -576,7 +576,43 @@ should clear PG_Dirty and set PG_Writeback.  It can be actually
 written at any point after PG_Dirty is clear.  Once it is known to be
 safe, PG_Writeback is cleared.
 
-Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure...
+Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure to direct the
+operations.  This gives the the writepage and writepages operations some
+information about the nature of and reason for the writeback request,
+and the constraints under which it is being done.  It is also used to
+return information back to the caller about the result of a writepage or
+writepages request.
+
+Handling errors during writeback
+--------------------------------
+Most applications that do buffered I/O will periodically call a file
+synchronization call (fsync, fdatasync, msync or sync_file_range) to
+ensure that data written has made it to the backing store.  When there
+is an error during writeback, they expect that error to be reported when
+a file sync request is made.  After an error has been reported on one
+request, subsequent requests on the same file descriptor should return
+0, unless further writeback errors have occurred since the previous file
+syncronization.
+
+Ideally, the kernel would report errors only on file descriptions on
+which writes were done that subsequently failed to be written back.  The
+generic pagecache infrastructure does not track the file descriptions
+that have dirtied each individual page however, so determining which
+file descriptors should get back an error is not possible.
+
+Instead, the generic writeback error tracking infrastructure in the
+kernel settles for reporting errors to fsync on all file descriptions
+that were open at the time that the error occurred.  In a situation with
+multiple writers, all of them will get back an error on a subsequent fsync,
+even if all of the writes done through that particular file descriptor
+succeeded (or even if there were no writes on that file descriptor at all).
+
+Filesystems that wish to use this infrastructure should call
+mapping_set_error to record the error in the address_space when it
+occurs.  Then, after writing back data from the pagecache in their
+file->fsync operation, they should call file_check_and_advance_wb_err to
+ensure that the struct file's error cursor has advanced to the correct
+point in the stream of errors emitted by the backing device(s).
 
 struct address_space_operations
 -------------------------------
@@ -804,7 +840,8 @@ struct address_space_operations {
 The File Object
 ===============
 
-A file object represents a file opened by a process.
+A file object represents a file opened by a process. This is also known
+as an "open file description" in POSIX parlance.
 
 
 struct file_operations
@@ -887,7 +924,8 @@ otherwise noted.
 
   release: called when the last reference to an open file is closed
 
-  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call
+  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call. Also see the section above
+	 entitled "Handling errors during writeback".
 
   fasync: called by the fcntl(2) system call when asynchronous
 	(non-blocking) mode is enabled for a file