block_write_full_page: switch synchronous writes to use WRITE_SYNC_PLUG
Now that we have a distinction between WRITE_SYNC and WRITE_SYNC_PLUG,
use WRITE_SYNC_PLUG in __block_write_full_page() to avoid unplugging
the block device I/O queue between each page that gets flushed out.
Otherwise, when we run sync() or fsync() and we need to write out a
large number of pages, the block device queue will get unplugged
between for every page that is flushed out, which will be a pretty
serious performance regression caused by commit a64c8610.
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
diff --git a/fs/buffer.c b/fs/buffer.c
index 6e35762..13edf7a 100644
--- a/fs/buffer.c
+++ b/fs/buffer.c
@@ -1596,6 +1596,16 @@
* locked buffer. This only can happen if someone has written the buffer
* directly, with submit_bh(). At the address_space level PageWriteback
* prevents this contention from occurring.
+ *
+ * If block_write_full_page() is called with wbc->sync_mode ==
+ * WB_SYNC_ALL, the writes are posted using WRITE_SYNC_PLUG; this
+ * causes the writes to be flagged as synchronous writes, but the
+ * block device queue will NOT be unplugged, since usually many pages
+ * will be pushed to the out before the higher-level caller actually
+ * waits for the writes to be completed. The various wait functions,
+ * such as wait_on_writeback_range() will ultimately call sync_page()
+ * which will ultimately call blk_run_backing_dev(), which will end up
+ * unplugging the device queue.
*/
static int __block_write_full_page(struct inode *inode, struct page *page,
get_block_t *get_block, struct writeback_control *wbc)
@@ -1606,7 +1616,8 @@
struct buffer_head *bh, *head;
const unsigned blocksize = 1 << inode->i_blkbits;
int nr_underway = 0;
- int write_op = (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_ALL ? WRITE_SYNC : WRITE);
+ int write_op = (wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_ALL ?
+ WRITE_SYNC_PLUG : WRITE);
BUG_ON(!PageLocked(page));
