[PATCH] mm/memory-failure: Stop setting the folio error flag

[PATCH] mm/memory-failure: Stop setting the folio error flag

[Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)]

Nobody checks the error flag any more, so setting it accomplishes
nothing.  Remove the obsolete parts of this comment; it hasn't
been true since errseq_t was used to track writeback errors in 2017.

Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org
Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>
---
 mm/memory-failure.c | 29 -----------------------------
 1 file changed, 29 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/memory-failure.c b/mm/memory-failure.c
index ac030061eda0..78fdf5ee8421 100644
--- a/mm/memory-failure.c
+++ b/mm/memory-failure.c
@@ -1112,7 +1112,6 @@ static int me_pagecache_dirty(struct page_state *ps, struct page *p)
 	struct folio *folio = page_folio(p);
 	struct address_space *mapping = folio_mapping(folio);
 
-	SetPageError(p);
 	/* TBD: print more information about the file. */
 	if (mapping) {
 		/*
@@ -1120,34 +1119,6 @@ static int me_pagecache_dirty(struct page_state *ps, struct page *p)
 		 * who check the mapping.
 		 * This way the application knows that something went
 		 * wrong with its dirty file data.
-		 *
-		 * There's one open issue:
-		 *
-		 * The EIO will be only reported on the next IO
-		 * operation and then cleared through the IO map.
-		 * Normally Linux has two mechanisms to pass IO error
-		 * first through the AS_EIO flag in the address space
-		 * and then through the PageError flag in the page.
-		 * Since we drop pages on memory failure handling the
-		 * only mechanism open to use is through AS_AIO.
-		 *
-		 * This has the disadvantage that it gets cleared on
-		 * the first operation that returns an error, while
-		 * the PageError bit is more sticky and only cleared
-		 * when the page is reread or dropped.  If an
-		 * application assumes it will always get error on
-		 * fsync, but does other operations on the fd before
-		 * and the page is dropped between then the error
-		 * will not be properly reported.
-		 *
-		 * This can already happen even without hwpoisoned
-		 * pages: first on metadata IO errors (which only
-		 * report through AS_EIO) or when the page is dropped
-		 * at the wrong time.
-		 *
-		 * So right now we assume that the application DTRT on
-		 * the first EIO, but we're not worse than other parts
-		 * of the kernel.
 		 */
 		mapping_set_error(mapping, -EIO);
 	}
-- 
2.43.0

Re: [PATCH] mm/memory-failure: Stop setting the folio error flag

[Miaohe Lin]

On 2024/5/31 11:29, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) wrote:
> Nobody checks the error flag any more, so setting it accomplishes
> nothing.  Remove the obsolete parts of this comment; it hasn't
> been true since errseq_t was used to track writeback errors in 2017.
> 
> Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
> Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org
> Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>

Acked-by: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
Thanks.
.

> ---
>  mm/memory-failure.c | 29 -----------------------------
>  1 file changed, 29 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/memory-failure.c b/mm/memory-failure.c
> index ac030061eda0..78fdf5ee8421 100644
> --- a/mm/memory-failure.c
> +++ b/mm/memory-failure.c
> @@ -1112,7 +1112,6 @@ static int me_pagecache_dirty(struct page_state *ps, struct page *p)
>  	struct folio *folio = page_folio(p);
>  	struct address_space *mapping = folio_mapping(folio);
>  
> -	SetPageError(p);
>  	/* TBD: print more information about the file. */
>  	if (mapping) {
>  		/*
> @@ -1120,34 +1119,6 @@ static int me_pagecache_dirty(struct page_state *ps, struct page *p)
>  		 * who check the mapping.
>  		 * This way the application knows that something went
>  		 * wrong with its dirty file data.
> -		 *
> -		 * There's one open issue:
> -		 *
> -		 * The EIO will be only reported on the next IO
> -		 * operation and then cleared through the IO map.
> -		 * Normally Linux has two mechanisms to pass IO error
> -		 * first through the AS_EIO flag in the address space
> -		 * and then through the PageError flag in the page.
> -		 * Since we drop pages on memory failure handling the
> -		 * only mechanism open to use is through AS_AIO.
> -		 *
> -		 * This has the disadvantage that it gets cleared on
> -		 * the first operation that returns an error, while
> -		 * the PageError bit is more sticky and only cleared
> -		 * when the page is reread or dropped.  If an
> -		 * application assumes it will always get error on
> -		 * fsync, but does other operations on the fd before
> -		 * and the page is dropped between then the error
> -		 * will not be properly reported.
> -		 *
> -		 * This can already happen even without hwpoisoned
> -		 * pages: first on metadata IO errors (which only
> -		 * report through AS_EIO) or when the page is dropped
> -		 * at the wrong time.
> -		 *
> -		 * So right now we assume that the application DTRT on
> -		 * the first EIO, but we're not worse than other parts
> -		 * of the kernel.
>  		 */
>  		mapping_set_error(mapping, -EIO);
>  	}
> 

Re: [PATCH] mm/memory-failure: Stop setting the folio error flag

[Oscar Salvador]

On Fri, May 31, 2024 at 04:29:25AM +0100, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) wrote:
> Nobody checks the error flag any more, so setting it accomplishes
> nothing.  Remove the obsolete parts of this comment; it hasn't
> been true since errseq_t was used to track writeback errors in 2017.
> 
> Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
> Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org
> Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>

Reviewed-by: Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>


-- 
Oscar Salvador
SUSE Labs