freebsd-dev

History

Jeff Roberson 9dbfeb0ae6 - Move BX_BKGRDWAIT and BX_BKGRDINPROG to BV_ and the b_vflags field. - Surround all accesses of the BKGRD{WAIT,INPROG} flags with the vnode interlock. - Don't use the B_LOCKED flag and QUEUE_LOCKED for background write buffers. Check for the BKGRDINPROG flag before recycling or throwing away a buffer. We do this instead because it is not safe for us to move the original buffer to a new queue from the callback on the background write buffer. - Remove the B_LOCKED flag and the locked buffer queue. They are no longer used. - The vnode interlock is used around checks for BKGRDINPROG where it may not be strictly necessary. If we hold the buf lock the a back-ground write will not be started without our knowledge, one may only be completed while we're not looking. Rather than remove the code, Document two of the places where this extra locking is done. A pass should be done to verify and minimize the locking later.		2003-08-28 06:55:18 +00:00
..
ffs_alloc.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_balloc.c	Eliminate the i_devvp field from the incore UFS inodes, we can	2003-08-15 20:03:19 +00:00
ffs_extern.h	This patch fixes a bug on an active filesystem on which a snapshot	2003-02-22 00:29:51 +00:00
ffs_inode.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_rawread.c	The previous change necessitates the addition of a new #include. Otherwise,	2003-08-18 17:27:08 +00:00
ffs_snapshot.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_softdep_stub.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_softdep.c	- Move BX_BKGRDWAIT and BX_BKGRDINPROG to BV_ and the b_vflags field.	2003-08-28 06:55:18 +00:00
ffs_subr.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_tables.c	Use __FBSDID().	2003-06-11 06:34:30 +00:00
ffs_vfsops.c	Eliminate the i_devvp field from the incore UFS inodes, we can	2003-08-15 20:03:19 +00:00
ffs_vnops.c	Consistently use the BSD u_int and u_short instead of the SYSV uint and	2003-08-07 15:04:27 +00:00
fs.h	This patch fixes a bug in the logical block calculation macros so	2003-02-22 00:19:26 +00:00
README.snapshot	Remove the comment about dump(8) not working properly with snapshots.	2002-12-12 00:31:45 +00:00
README.softupdates	Update to reflect current status.	2000-07-08 02:31:21 +00:00
softdep.h	Add support to UFS2 to provide storage for extended attributes.	2002-07-19 07:29:39 +00:00

README.softupdates

$FreeBSD$

Using Soft Updates

To enable the soft updates feature in your kernel, add option
SOFTUPDATES to your kernel configuration.

Once you are running a kernel with soft update support, you need to enable
it for whichever filesystems you wish to run with the soft update policy.
This is done with the -n option to tunefs(8) on the UNMOUNTED filesystems,
e.g. from single-user mode you'd do something like:

	tunefs -n enable /usr

To permanently enable soft updates on the /usr filesystem (or at least
until a corresponding ``tunefs -n disable'' is done).


Soft Updates Copyright Restrictions

As of June 2000 the restrictive copyright has been removed and 
replaced with a `Berkeley-style' copyright. The files implementing
soft updates now reside in the sys/ufs/ffs directory and are
compiled into the generic kernel by default.


Soft Updates Status

The soft updates code has been running in production on many
systems for the past two years generally quite successfully.
The two current sets of shortcomings are:

1) On filesystems that are chronically full, the two minute lag
   from the time a file is deleted until its free space shows up
   will result in premature filesystem full failures. This
   failure mode is most evident in small filesystems such as
   the root. For this reason, use of soft updates is not
   recommended on the root filesystem.

2) If your system routines runs parallel processes each of which
   remove many files, the kernel memory rate limiting code may
   not be able to slow removal operations to a level sustainable
   by the disk subsystem. The result is that the kernel runs out
   of memory and hangs.

Both of these problems are being addressed, but have not yet
been resolved. There are no other known problems at this time.


How Soft Updates Work

For more general information on soft updates, please see:
	http://www.mckusick.com/softdep/
	http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/papers/CSE-TR-254-95/

--
Marshall Kirk McKusick <mckusick@mckusick.com>
July 2000