On 2014.06.09, at 12:46 , Maxim Patlasov <mpatla...@parallels.com> wrote:

> On 06/09/2014 01:26 PM, John Muir wrote:
>> On 2014.06.09, at 9:50 , Maxim Patlasov <mpatla...@parallels.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 06/06/2014 05:51 PM, John Muir wrote:
>>>> On 2014.06.06, at 15:27 , Maxim Patlasov <mpatla...@parallels.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> The patch-set resolves the problem by making fuse_release synchronous:
>>>>> wait for ACK from userspace for FUSE_RELEASE if the feature is ON.
>>>> Why not make this feature per-file with a new flag bit in struct 
>>>> fuse_file_info rather than as a file-system global?
>>> I don't expect a great demand for such a granularity. File-system global 
>>> "close_wait" conveys a general user expectation about filesystem behaviour 
>>> in distributed environment: if you stopped using a file on given node, 
>>> whether it means that the file is immediately accessible from another node.
>>> 
>> By user do you mean the end-user, or the implementor of the file-system? It 
>> seems to me that the end-user doesn't care, and just wants the file-system 
>> to work as expected. I don't think we're really talking about the end-user.
> 
> No, this is exactly about end-user expectations. Imagine a complicated 
> heavy-loaded shared storage where handling FUSE_RELEASE in userspace may take 
> a few minutes. In close_wait=0 case, an end-user who has just called close(2) 
> has no idea when it's safe to access the file from another node or even when 
> it's OK to umount filesystem.

I think we're saying the same thing here from different perspectives. The 
end-user wants the file-system to operate with the semantics you describe, but 
I don't think it makes sense to give the end-user control over those semantics. 
The file-system itself should be implemented that way, or not, or per-file

If it's a read-only file, then does this not add the overhead of having the 
kernel wait for the user-space file-system process to respond before closing 
it. In my experience, there is actually significant cost to the kernel to 
user-space messaging in FUSE when manipulating thousands of files.

> 
>> 
>> The implementor of a file-system, on the other hand, might want the 
>> semantics for close_wait on some files, but not on others. Won't there be a 
>> performance impact? Some distributed file-systems might want this on 
>> specific files only. Implementing it as a flag on the struct fuse_file_info 
>> gives the flexibility to the file-system implementor.
> 
> fuse_file_info is an userspace structure, in-kernel fuse knows nothing about 
> it. In close_wait=1 case, nothing prevents a file-system implementation from 
> ACK-ing FUSE_RELEASE request immediately (for specific files) and schedule 
> actual handling for future processing.

Of course you know I meant that you'd add another flag to both fuse_file_info, 
and in the kernel equivalent for those flags which is struct fuse_open_out -> 
open_flags. This is where other such per file options are specified such as 
whether or not to keep the in-kernal cache for a file, whether or not to allow 
direct-io, and whether or not to allow seek.

Anyway, I guess you're the one doing all the work on this and if you have a 
particular implementation that doesn't require such fine-grained control, and 
no one else does then it's up to you. I'm just trying to show an alternative 
implementation that gives the file-system implementor more control while 
keeping the ability to meet user expectations.

Regards,
 
John.

--
John Muir - j...@jmuir.com
+32 491 64 22 76

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