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List:       linux-xfs
Subject:    Re: massively truncated files with XFS with sudden power loss on
From:       Russell Cattelan <cattelan () thebarn ! com>
Date:       2008-12-29 19:09:18
Message-ID: 4959205E.4000000 () thebarn ! com
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Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Remember
>
> http://oss.sgi.com/pipermail/xfs/2008-November/037399.html
>
> ?
>
> I thought it was resolved and with later TuxOnIce and sync all is better 
> for sure. This all was with barriers and write cache enabled.
>
> But I had a hard crash this time while shutting down the system regularily 
> and the KDE addressbook, KDE settings, additional sidebar all was lost 
> due to truncated files. This was without barriers but also without write 
> cache.
>
> Curious about the safety of my data I tried to simulate the thing. I 
> shouldn't have done that with my productive data but here are the 
> results:
>
> I just switched the machine off after having made a backup of my KDE 
> configuration and after closing my usual apps. Then I waited 30-40 
> seconds. First time was fine, second time KDE colors were lost again. 
> Third time I didn't wait that long. Side bar was lost. Fourth time I 
> pressed power off after *starting* KDE. Lots of stuff was lost, 
> including:
>
> - colors
> - sidebar
> - kpanel settings
> - kgpg settings
> - one kwallet digital wallet with passwords and stuff, a complete file of 
> 130 KB was just 60 bytes anymore
>
> I cannot remember having seen this kind of behavior anywhere between 
> 2.6.17.7 and 2.6.26! And I had sudden interruptions of write activity 
> from time to time. 
>
> I can't prove anything right now. I possibly could if I dare to test this 
> again with 2.6.26! But from my experiences this never was so massive. 
> Prior to the null file fixes a file or two might have been corrupted and 
> that not all the times. Thats to be expected if thats the file that where 
> written out at the time. But now it seems that almost every file that is 
> opened for writing or not even just for writing is truncated seriously at 
> sudden interruption of write activity. Whereas before it appeared that 
> usually either the change was not made or it was made - at least for 
> small files. Now the file is truncated, no holes, just lots less bytes 
> than before.
>
> I think I will go back to 2.6.26 for now - with write barriers, cause 
> thats what used to work. I went too far already with my tests, cause its 
> difficult to be sure that I found all truncated files even when I close 
> all productivity applications in my tests. Altough it seems I was able to 
> recovery everything everytime by mixing the current data set with the 
> broken stuff restored from the last backup this is setting my data at a 
> too high risk.
>
> Do you have any idea on how to help to get down to the cause of this - 
> without risking precious data? Did anyone else see this? Does anyone use 
> XFS on laptops and had recent power losses or crashes?
>
> I have seen this on a 2.6.27.7, 2.6.28 with tuxonice patches. syncing 
> before a crash occurs seems to fix the issue. Did something change with 
> how aggressively the kernel writes data out?
>
> I think it was something along
>
> shambhala:/proc/sys/vm> cat dirty_expire_centisecs
> 2999
>
> shambhala:/proc/sys/fs/xfs> cat xfsbufd_centisecs xfssyncd_centisecs
> 100
> 3000
>
> in all recent kernels!
>
> I expect to loose the changes for a dirtied file thats in the page cache. 
> But I do not expect to loose the current (old) file on disk in that case, 
> unless the crash happens when its actually written out at that time. And 
> that appears to be highly unlikely expecially at the time just after KDE 
> started up when I did not use any application yet. I would be surprised 
> when the first things applications would be doing was to write out what 
> they just read in. And even then I would be surprised when XFS did write 
> to all the files at once. So I just don't get what I have seen here and I 
> think I see a regression. I am willing to look deeper when I found how to 
> do so safely enough.
>
> If there an xfsqa test that simulates sudden interruption of write 
> activity?
>
> Actually I am considering to switch to ext3/4. Maybe the people that say 
> don't use XFS on commodity hardware really have a point. But then it did 
> work very well from 2.6.17.7 to 2.6.26, so I think what I face here is a 
> behavorial regression. It might be a performance improvement at the same 
> time, but for laptops and commodity workstations this is too risky IMHO. 
> Is there interest in digging this? I can accept when you tell my not to 
> use XFS on my laptop. But actually I think something changed between 
> 2.6.26 andf 2.6.27 and maybe thats worth looking at.
>
> Ciao,
>   
I would have to look for sure when Dave's rewrite of the inode cache/fs 
sync code went in but
it could be around the time of 2.6.27.  xfssyncd also has special 
handling for laptop mode
so that is does not tickle the disk  to often, so maybe that needs to be 
looked at?

The question that I have is regards to kde apps.
The "null file" issue mainly shows up when an app truncates a file to 0 
and then
re-writes the entire contents, (vim is the most common app doing this).
So does kde do this on a regular basis? open a file, read it in, 
truncate to 0 and then write
it back out at some point? and why? are these files that are modified often?

The other thing that is odd is why files full of nulls still? xfs 
changed its behavior to write out size changes
at flush time and not before, previously size changes would be synced 
out prior to the data being synced
out, thus creating "null files" or rather a file with size but no extent 
data.

The "null files" problem should be an "empty files" problem at worst 
now, so it is really curious that you
are seeing null files still.

-Russell

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