xfs: document how online fsck deals with eventual consistency
authorDarrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
Wed, 12 Apr 2023 01:59:48 +0000 (18:59 -0700)
committerDarrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
Wed, 12 Apr 2023 01:59:48 +0000 (18:59 -0700)
commitbae43864c08884bacde35c5aba36d0335f659868
tree5a247ef7a8ea4d29930c05a5c896321bf7330a92
parente5edad526262d4ce389f7259396184975a9bc14e
xfs: document how online fsck deals with eventual consistency

Writes to an XFS filesystem employ an eventual consistency update model
to break up complex multistep metadata updates into small chained
transactions.  This is generally good for performance and scalability
because XFS doesn't need to prepare for enormous transactions, but it
also means that online fsck must be careful not to attempt a fsck action
unless it can be shown that there are no other threads processing a
transaction chain.  This part of the design documentation covers the
thinking behind the consistency model and how scrub deals with it.

Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst