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xfs: don't break from growfs ag update loop on error

RFC PATCH In review Eric Sandeen 4 participants 5 messages Aug 15, 2013 – Sep 10, 2013 XFS filesystem

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#0 lore raw

RFC PATCH 1/1 xfs: don't break from growfs ag update loop on error

When xfs_growfs_data_private() is updating backup superblocks, it bails out on the first error encountered, whether reading or writing:

* If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
* just issue a warning and continue. The real work is
* already done and committed.

This can cause a problem later during repair, because repair looks at all superblocks, and picks the most prevalent one as correct. If we bail out early in the backup superblock loop, we can end up with more "bad" matching superblocks than good, and a post-growfs repair may revert the filesystem to the old geometry.

With the combination of superblock verifiers and old bugs, we're more likely to encounter read errors due to verification.

And perhaps even worse, we don't even properly write any of the newly-added superblocks in the new AGs.

Even with this change, growfs will still say:

xfs_growfs: XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSDATA xfsctl failed: Structure needs cleaning data blocks changed from 319815680 to 335216640

which might be confusing to the user, but it at least communicates that something has gone wrong, and dmesg will probably highlight the need for an xfs_repair.

And this is still best-effort; if verifiers fail on more than half the backup supers, they may still "win" - but that's probably best left to repair to more gracefully handle by doing its own strict verification as part of the backup super "voting."

---

fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c +13 -9
index 614eb0c..70714bb 100644
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ xfs_growfs_data_private(
 	xfs_buf_t		*bp;
 	int			bucket;
 	int			dpct;
-	int			error;
+	int			error, saved_error = 0;
 	xfs_agnumber_t		nagcount;
 	xfs_agnumber_t		nagimax = 0;
 	xfs_rfsblock_t		nb, nb_mod;
@@ -495,29 +495,33 @@ xfs_growfs_data_private(
 				error = ENOMEM;
 		}
 
+		/*
+		 * If we get an error reading or writing alternate superblocks,
+		 * continue.  xfs_repair chooses the "best" superblock based
+		 * on most matches; if we break early, we'll leave more
+		 * superblocks un-updated than updated, and xfs_repair may
+		 * pick them over the properly-updated primary.
+		 */
 		if (error) {
 			xfs_warn(mp,
 		"error %d reading secondary superblock for ag %d",
 				error, agno);
-			break;
+			saved_error = error;
+			continue;
 		}
 		xfs_sb_to_disk(XFS_BUF_TO_SBP(bp), &mp->m_sb, XFS_SB_ALL_BITS);
 
-		/*
-		 * If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
-		 * just issue a warning and continue.  The real work is
-		 * already done and committed.
-		 */
 		error = xfs_bwrite(bp);
 		xfs_buf_relse(bp);
 		if (error) {
 			xfs_warn(mp,
 		"write error %d updating secondary superblock for ag %d",
 				error, agno);
-			break; /* no point in continuing */
+			saved_error = error;
+			continue;
 		}
 	}
-	return error;
+	return saved_error ? saved_error : error;
 
  error0:
 	xfs_trans_cancel(tp, XFS_TRANS_ABORT);

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#1 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Eric Sandeen

When xfs_growfs_data_private() is updating backup superblocks, it bails out on the first error encountered, whether reading or writing:

Any thoughts on this one? W/ the verifiers, we have a higher chance of encountering an error, and leaving the rest of the supers un-updated. Repair will then possibly revert the fs to it's pre-growfs state, and data loss will ensue...

Thanks,
-Eric

Quoted 91 lines

* If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
* just issue a warning and continue. The real work is
* already done and committed.

This can cause a problem later during repair, because repair looks at all superblocks, and picks the most prevalent one as correct. If we bail out early in the backup superblock loop, we can end up with more "bad" matching superblocks than good, and a post-growfs repair may revert the filesystem to the old geometry.

With the combination of superblock verifiers and old bugs, we're more likely to encounter read errors due to verification.

And perhaps even worse, we don't even properly write any of the newly-added superblocks in the new AGs.

Even with this change, growfs will still say:

xfs_growfs: XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSDATA xfsctl failed: Structure needs cleaning data blocks changed from 319815680 to 335216640

which might be confusing to the user, but it at least communicates that something has gone wrong, and dmesg will probably highlight the need for an xfs_repair.

And this is still best-effort; if verifiers fail on more than half the backup supers, they may still "win" - but that's probably best left to repair to more gracefully handle by doing its own strict verification as part of the backup super "voting."

---

fs/xfs/xfs_fsops.c +13 -9
index 614eb0c..70714bb 100644
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ xfs_growfs_data_private(
 	xfs_buf_t		*bp;
 	int			bucket;
 	int			dpct;
-	int			error;
+	int			error, saved_error = 0;
 	xfs_agnumber_t		nagcount;
 	xfs_agnumber_t		nagimax = 0;
 	xfs_rfsblock_t		nb, nb_mod;
@@ -495,29 +495,33 @@ xfs_growfs_data_private(
 				error = ENOMEM;
 		}
 
+		/*
+		 * If we get an error reading or writing alternate superblocks,
+		 * continue.  xfs_repair chooses the "best" superblock based
+		 * on most matches; if we break early, we'll leave more
+		 * superblocks un-updated than updated, and xfs_repair may
+		 * pick them over the properly-updated primary.
+		 */
 		if (error) {
 			xfs_warn(mp,
 		"error %d reading secondary superblock for ag %d",
 				error, agno);
-			break;
+			saved_error = error;
+			continue;
 		}
 		xfs_sb_to_disk(XFS_BUF_TO_SBP(bp), &mp->m_sb, XFS_SB_ALL_BITS);
 
-		/*
-		 * If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
-		 * just issue a warning and continue.  The real work is
-		 * already done and committed.
-		 */
 		error = xfs_bwrite(bp);
 		xfs_buf_relse(bp);
 		if (error) {
 			xfs_warn(mp,
 		"write error %d updating secondary superblock for ag %d",
 				error, agno);
-			break; /* no point in continuing */
+			saved_error = error;
+			continue;
 		}
 	}
-	return error;
+	return saved_error ? saved_error : error;
 
  error0:
 	xfs_trans_cancel(tp, XFS_TRANS_ABORT);
Quoted 5 lines

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Acked-by
#2 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Eric Sandeen
Quoted 3 lines · Eric Sandeen

When xfs_growfs_data_private() is updating backup superblocks, it bails out on the first error encountered, whether reading or writing:

Any thoughts on this one? W/ the verifiers, we have a higher chance of encountering an error, and leaving the rest of the supers un-updated. Repair will then possibly revert the fs to it's pre-growfs state, and data loss will ensue...

Sorry, I must have missed this. I remember discussing it with you. The change looks fine to me, but I haven't tested it at all.

Cheers,

Dave.

Signature · 7 lines
Dave Chinner
[email protected]

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Reviewed-by
#3 lore raw
In reply to Eric Sandeen
Quoted 5 lines · Eric Sandeen
Quoted 3 lines · Eric Sandeen

When xfs_growfs_data_private() is updating backup superblocks, it bails out on the first error encountered, whether reading or writing:

Quoted 41 lines

Any thoughts on this one? W/ the verifiers, we have a higher chance of encountering an error, and leaving the rest of the supers un-updated. Repair will then possibly revert the fs to it's pre-growfs state, and data loss will ensue...

Thanks,
-Eric

Quoted 33 lines

* If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
* just issue a warning and continue. The real work is
* already done and committed.

This can cause a problem later during repair, because repair looks at all superblocks, and picks the most prevalent one as correct. If we bail out early in the backup superblock loop, we can end up with more "bad" matching superblocks than good, and a post-growfs repair may revert the filesystem to the old geometry.

With the combination of superblock verifiers and old bugs, we're more likely to encounter read errors due to verification.

And perhaps even worse, we don't even properly write any of the newly-added superblocks in the new AGs.

Even with this change, growfs will still say:

xfs_growfs: XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSDATA xfsctl failed: Structure needs cleaning data blocks changed from 319815680 to 335216640

which might be confusing to the user, but it at least communicates that something has gone wrong, and dmesg will probably highlight the need for an xfs_repair.

And this is still best-effort; if verifiers fail on more than half the backup supers, they may still "win" - but that's probably best left to repair to more gracefully handle by doing its own strict verification as part of the backup super "voting."

---

Make sense to me - it could have been any kind of error including not being able to get a xfs_buf for the new secondary (a temp ENOMEM).

I wonder if it could be possible to fix corrupt entries rather than just skip them...

Probably could test this patch by corrupting a v5 secondary superblock and verifying with xfs_db.

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#4 lore raw
Quoted 45 lines · Mark Tinguely
Quoted 44 lines · Eric Sandeen
Quoted 3 lines · Eric Sandeen

When xfs_growfs_data_private() is updating backup superblocks, it bails out on the first error encountered, whether reading or writing:

Any thoughts on this one? W/ the verifiers, we have a higher chance of encountering an error, and leaving the rest of the supers un-updated. Repair will then possibly revert the fs to it's pre-growfs state, and data loss will ensue...

Thanks,
-Eric

Quoted 31 lines

* If we get an error writing out the alternate superblocks,
* just issue a warning and continue. The real work is
* already done and committed.

This can cause a problem later during repair, because repair looks at all superblocks, and picks the most prevalent one as correct. If we bail out early in the backup superblock loop, we can end up with more "bad" matching superblocks than good, and a post-growfs repair may revert the filesystem to the old geometry.

With the combination of superblock verifiers and old bugs, we're more likely to encounter read errors due to verification.

And perhaps even worse, we don't even properly write any of the newly-added superblocks in the new AGs.

Even with this change, growfs will still say:

xfs_growfs: XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSDATA xfsctl failed: Structure needs cleaning data blocks changed from 319815680 to 335216640

which might be confusing to the user, but it at least communicates that something has gone wrong, and dmesg will probably highlight the need for an xfs_repair.

And this is still best-effort; if verifiers fail on more than half the backup supers, they may still "win" - but that's probably best left to repair to more gracefully handle by doing its own strict verification as part of the backup super "voting."

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Quoted 2 lines

---

Make sense to me - it could have been any kind of error including not being able to get a xfs_buf for the new secondary (a temp ENOMEM).

I wonder if it could be possible to fix corrupt entries rather than just skip them...

Well, that should be xfs_repair's job right - and I think it does? (Esp. w/ my other patch, [PATCH] xfs_repair: zero out unused parts of superblocks)

but we'd want growfs to alert the user of the problem one way or another...

-Eric

Quoted 4 lines

Probably could test this patch by corrupting a v5 secondary superblock and verifying with xfs_db.

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