On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 03:59:40PM +0800, Shaohua Li wrote:

Herbert Poetzl reported a performance regression since 2.6.39. The test
is a simple dd read, but with big block size. The reason is:

T1: ra (A, A+128k), (A+128k, A+256k)
T2: lock_page for page A, submit the 256k
T3: hit page A+128K, ra (A+256k, A+384). the range isn't submitted
because of plug and there isn't any lock_page till we hit page A+256k
because all pages from A to A+256k is in memory
T4: hit page A+256k, ra (A+384, A+ 512). Because of plug, the range isn't
submitted again.
T5: lock_page A+256k, so (A+256k, A+512k) will be submitted. The task is
waitting for (A+256k, A+512k) finish.

There is no request to disk in T3 and T4, so readahead pipeline breaks.

We really don't need block plug for generic_file_aio_read() for buffered
I/O. The readahead already has plug and has fine grained control when I/O
should be submitted. Deleting plug for buffered I/O fixes the regression.

One side effect is plug makes the request size 256k, the size is 128k
without it. This is because default ra size is 128k and not a reason we
need plug here.

Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li <redacted>
Tested-by: Herbert Poetzl <redacted>
Tested-by: Eric Dumazet <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <redacted>

Please also CC -stable on this.

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