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  1. Core Server
  2. SERVER-18629

WiredTiger journal system syncs wrong directory

    • Type: Icon: Bug Bug
    • Resolution: Done
    • Priority: Icon: Critical - P2 Critical - P2
    • 3.0.4, 3.1.4
    • Affects Version/s: 3.0.3
    • Component/s: WiredTiger
    • Fully Compatible
    • ALL

      While observing mongod behavior using strace and perf with dbpath (wt home) "/mnt/db" and journal (wt log) directory "journal" I noticed that it was calling fdatasync apparently unnecessarily on "/mnt/db" and never calling fdatasync on "/mnt/db/journal".

      The reason is because __wt_log_open initializes log->log_dir_fh by calling __wt_open(session, "journal", ...), which expands the path to "/mnt/db/journal" before passing it to __open_directory. But __open_directory appears to expect the path to a file in the directory rather than the path of the directory, as it strips the final component of the path and opens "/mnt/db". The result is that the wt log system calls fdatasync on "/mnt/db" and not on "/mnt/db/journal".

      There are two consequences to this:

      • Performance - the unnecessary fdatasync calls on /mnt/db can get stuck behind a lengthy call to fdatasync on a .wt file, or otherwise be hampered by i/o to .wt files; whereas an fdatsync call to /mnt/db/journal should be unimpeded by any activity in /mnt/db if the /mnt/db/journal has been placed on a separate drive, per our recommended best practices.
      • Durability - I believe durability of journaled writes depends on the fdatasync of /mnt/db/journal, in order to ensure that newly created journal files are durable.

            Assignee:
            Unassigned Unassigned
            Reporter:
            bruce.lucas@mongodb.com Bruce Lucas (Inactive)
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              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved: