linux/arch
Sage Weil b7ed78f565 introduce sys_syncfs to sync a single file system
It is frequently useful to sync a single file system, instead of all
mounted file systems via sync(2):

 - On machines with many mounts, it is not at all uncommon for some of
   them to hang (e.g. unresponsive NFS server).  sync(2) will get stuck on
   those and may never get to the one you do care about (e.g., /).
 - Some applications write lots of data to the file system and then
   want to make sure it is flushed to disk.  Calling fsync(2) on each
   file introduces unnecessary ordering constraints that result in a large
   amount of sub-optimal writeback/flush/commit behavior by the file
   system.

There are currently two ways (that I know of) to sync a single super_block:

 - BLKFLSBUF ioctl on the block device: That also invalidates the bdev
   mapping, which isn't usually desirable, and doesn't work for non-block
   file systems.
 - 'mount -o remount,rw' will call sync_filesystem as an artifact of the
   current implemention.  Relying on this little-known side effect for
   something like data safety sounds foolish.

Both of these approaches require root privileges, which some applications
do not have (nor should they need?) given that sync(2) is an unprivileged
operation.

This patch introduces a new system call syncfs(2) that takes an fd and
syncs only the file system it references.  Maybe someday we can

 $ sync /some/path

and not get

 sync: ignoring all arguments

The syscall is motivated by comments by Al and Christoph at the last LSF.
syncfs(2) seems like an appropriate name given statfs(2).

A similar ioctl was also proposed a while back, see
	http://marc.info/?l=linux-fsdevel&m=127970513829285&w=2

Signed-off-by: Sage Weil <sage@newdream.net>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2011-03-21 00:40:29 -04:00
..
alpha Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2011-03-18 10:37:40 -07:00
arm Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
avr32
blackfin Blackfin: ip0x: fix unused variable warning 2011-03-18 05:17:02 -04:00
cris Merge branches 'irq-fixes-for-linus' and 'sched-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2011-03-18 10:44:05 -07:00
frv Merge branch 'for-2.6.39' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/percpu 2011-03-16 08:22:41 -07:00
h8300 Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
ia64 Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
m32r Merge branch 'for-2.6.39' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/percpu 2011-03-16 08:22:41 -07:00
m68k Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/geert/linux-m68k 2011-03-16 19:08:03 -07:00
m68knommu Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gerg/m68knommu 2011-03-16 19:02:36 -07:00
microblaze Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
mips Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
mn10300 MN10300: Clear ASB2364 peripheral interrupt masks before enabling interrupts 2011-03-18 16:52:54 +00:00
parisc mm: make __get_user_pages return -EHWPOISON for HWPOISON page optionally 2011-03-17 13:08:27 -03:00
powerpc Merge branch 'perf-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2011-03-18 10:38:34 -07:00
s390 Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
score
sh Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound-2.6 2011-03-18 10:46:37 -07:00
sparc Merge branch 'kvm-updates/2.6.39' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/kvm 2011-03-17 18:40:35 -07:00
tile arch/tile: fix futex sanitization definition/prototype mismatch 2011-03-20 00:08:21 -04:00
um Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
unicore32 unicore32: rewrite arch-specific tlb.h to use asm-generic version 2011-03-17 09:19:21 +08:00
x86 introduce sys_syncfs to sync a single file system 2011-03-21 00:40:29 -04:00
xtensa Merge branch 'trivial' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild-2.6 2011-03-20 18:14:55 -07:00
.gitignore
Kconfig oprofile, s390: Cleanups 2011-03-16 14:30:40 +01:00