TODO revision 1.2 1 # $NetBSD: TODO,v 1.2 1994/06/29 06:46:45 cgd Exp $
2
3 # @(#)TODO 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/11/93
4
5 NOTE: Changed the lookup on a page of inodes to search from the back
6 in case the same inode gets written twice on the same page.
7
8 Make sure that if you are writing a file, but not all the blocks
9 make it into a single segment, that you do not write the inode in
10 that segment.
11
12 Keith:
13 Why not delete the lfs_bmapv call, just mark everything dirty
14 that isn't deleted/truncated? Get some numbers about
15 what percentage of the stuff that the cleaner thinks
16 might be live is live. If it's high, get rid of lfs_bmapv.
17
18 There is a nasty problem in that it may take *more* room to write
19 the data to clean a segment than is returned by the new segment
20 because of indirect blocks in segment 2 being dirtied by the data
21 being copied into the log from segment 1. The suggested solution
22 at this point is to detect it when we have no space left on the
23 filesystem, write the extra data into the last segment (leaving
24 no clean ones), make it a checkpoint and shut down the file system
25 for fixing by a utility reading the raw partition. Argument is
26 that this should never happen and is practically impossible to fix
27 since the cleaner would have to theoretically build a model of the
28 entire filesystem in memory to detect the condition occurring.
29 A file coalescing cleaner will help avoid the problem, and one
30 that reads/writes from the raw disk could fix it.
31
32 DONE Currently, inodes are being flushed to disk synchronously upon
33 creation -- see ufs_makeinode. However, only the inode
34 is flushed, the directory "name" is written using VOP_BWRITE,
35 so it's not synchronous. Possible solutions: 1: get some
36 ordering in the writes so that inode/directory entries get
37 stuffed into the same segment. 2: do both synchronously
38 3: add Mendel's information into the stream so we log
39 creation/deletion of inodes. 4: do some form of partial
40 segment when changing the inode (creation/deletion/rename).
41 DONE Fix i_block increment for indirect blocks.
42 If the file system is tar'd, extracted on top of another LFS, the
43 IFILE ain't worth diddly. Is the cleaner writing the IFILE?
44 If not, let's make it read-only.
45 DONE Delete unnecessary source from utils in main-line source tree.
46 DONE Make sure that we're counting meta blocks in the inode i_block count.
47 Overlap the version and nextfree fields in the IFILE
48 DONE Vinvalbuf (Kirk):
49 Why writing blocks that are no longer useful?
50 Are the semantics of close such that blocks have to be flushed?
51 How specify in the buf chain the blocks that don't need
52 to be written? (Different numbering of indirect blocks.)
53
54 Margo:
55 Change so that only search one sector of inode block file for the
56 inode by using sector addresses in the ifile instead of
57 logical disk addresses.
58 Fix the use of the ifile version field to use the generation
59 number instead.
60 DONE Unmount; not doing a bgetvp (VHOLD) in lfs_newbuf call.
61 DONE Document in the README file where the checkpoint information is
62 on disk.
63 Variable block sizes (Margo/Keith).
64 Switch the byte accounting to sector accounting.
65 DONE Check lfs.h and make sure that the #defines/structures are all
66 actually needed.
67 DONE Add a check in lfs_segment.c so that if the segment is empty,
68 we don't write it.
69 Need to keep vnode v_numoutput up to date for pending writes?
70 DONE USENIX paper (Carl/Margo).
71
72
73 Evelyn:
74 lfsck: If delete a file that's being executed, the version number
75 isn't updated, and lfsck has to figure this out; case is the same as if have an inode that no directory references,
76 so the file should be reattached into lost+found.
77 Recovery/fsck.
78
79 Carl:
80 Investigate: clustering of reads (if blocks in the segment are ordered,
81 should read them all) and writes (McVoy paper).
82 Investigate: should the access time be part of the IFILE:
83 pro: theoretically, saves disk writes
84 con: cacheing inodes should obviate this advantage
85 the IFILE is already humongous
86 Cleaner.
87 Port to OSF/1 (Carl/Keith).
88 Currently there's no notion of write error checking.
89 + Failed data/inode writes should be rescheduled (kernel level
90 bad blocking).
91 + Failed superblock writes should cause selection of new
92 superblock for checkpointing.
93
94 FUTURE FANTASIES: ============
95
96 + unrm, versioning
97 + transactions
98 + extended cleaner policies (hot/cold data, data placement)
99
100 ==============================
101 Problem with the concept of multiple buffer headers referencing the segment:
102 Positives:
103 Don't lock down 1 segment per file system of physical memory.
104 Don't copy from buffers to segment memory.
105 Don't tie down the bus to transfer 1M.
106 Works on controllers supporting less than large transfers.
107 Disk can start writing immediately instead of waiting 1/2 rotation
108 and the full transfer.
109 Negatives:
110 Have to do segment write then segment summary write, since the latter
111 is what verifies that the segment is okay. (Is there another way
112 to do this?)
113 ==============================
114
115 The algorithm for selecting the disk addresses of the super-blocks
116 has to be available to the user program which checks the file system.
117
118 (Currently in newfs, becomes a common subroutine.)
119