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From: Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>
To: Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>
Cc: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>,
	"Stefan Beller" <sbeller@google.com>,
	"Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy" <pclouds@gmail.com>,
	"Jeff King" <peff@peff.net>,
	"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>,
	"Brandon Williams" <bmwill@google.com>,
	git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 00/21] Read `packed-refs` using mmap()
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 21:53:45 +0200 (CEST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.21.1.1709192047450.219280@virtualbox> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <cover.1505799700.git.mhagger@alum.mit.edu>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3031 bytes --]

Hi Michael,

On Tue, 19 Sep 2017, Michael Haggerty wrote:

> This is v2 of a patch series that changes the reading and caching of the
> `packed-refs` file to use `mmap()`. Thanks to Junio, Stefan, and
> Johannes for their comments about v1 [1].

Thank you for the new iteration.

> The main change since v1 is to accommodate Windows, which doesn't let
> you replace a file using `rename()` if the file is currently mmapped.
> This is unfortunate, because it means that Windows will never get the
> O(N) → O(lg N) improvement for reading single references that more
> capable systems can now enjoy.

Triggered by your enquiry, I looked into passing the FILE_SHARE_DELETE
flag which I hoped would let us delete the file even if it still is open
(and mapped). In my tests, this did not work. If anybody wants to have a
look at what I did (and whether they can make it work):
https://github.com/dscho/git/tree/replace-wopen

> The background was discussed on the mailing list [2]. The bottom line
> is that on Windows, keeping the `packed-refs` lock mmapped would be
> tantamount to holding reader lock on that file, preventing anybody
> (even unrelated processes) from changing the `packed-refs` file while
> it is mmapped. This is even worse than the situation for packfiles
> (which is solved using `close_all_packs()`), because a packfile, once
> created, never needs to be replaced—every packfile has a filename that
> is determined from its contents. The worst that can happen if a
> packfile is locked is that another process cannot remove it, but that
> is not critical for correctness. The `packed-refs` file, on the other
> hand, always has the same filename and needs to be overwritten for
> correctness.
> 
> So the approach taken here is that a new compile-time option,
> `MMAP_PREVENTS_DELETE`, is introduced. When this option is set, then
> the `packed-refs` file is read quickly into memory then closed.

Another approach would be to imitate close_all_packs() and rely on the
Windows-specific code that retries renames in a staggered fashion, waiting
a little longer and longer before retrying, and finally telling the user
that some file cannot be overwritten:
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/blob/v2.14.1.windows.1/compat/mingw.c#L2439-L2441

This is not a new problem, by the way. If a file is in use while you try
to run `git checkout` with a different version of that file, we have the
exact same problem on Windows. And we deal with it using that
retry_ask_yes_no() function.

For this to work, the current process really would need to be able to
release all snapshots in one go (for simplicity, I would not even check
the filename but simply blow them all away when we want to overwrite
packed-refs).

I guess I should set aside some time to implement that on top of your
series (I *really* want our in-house users to benefit from that O(lg n)
improvement). In the meantime, I think this can go forward with the
current design.

Ciao,
Dscho

  parent reply	other threads:[~2017-09-19 19:54 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-09-19  6:22 [PATCH v2 00/21] Read `packed-refs` using mmap() Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 01/21] ref_iterator: keep track of whether the iterator output is ordered Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 02/21] prefix_ref_iterator: break when we leave the prefix Michael Haggerty
2017-09-20 20:25   ` Stefan Beller
2017-09-21  4:59     ` Jeff King
2017-09-21 17:29       ` Stefan Beller
2017-09-21  7:42     ` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 03/21] packed_ref_cache: add a backlink to the associated `packed_ref_store` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 04/21] die_unterminated_line(), die_invalid_line(): new functions Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 05/21] read_packed_refs(): use mmap to read the `packed-refs` file Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 06/21] read_packed_refs(): only check for a header at the top of the file Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 07/21] read_packed_refs(): make parsing of the header line more robust Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 08/21] read_packed_refs(): read references with minimal copying Michael Haggerty
2017-09-20 18:27   ` Jeff King
2017-09-21  7:34     ` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 09/21] packed_ref_cache: remember the file-wide peeling state Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 10/21] mmapped_ref_iterator: add iterator over a packed-refs file Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 11/21] mmapped_ref_iterator_advance(): no peeled value for broken refs Michael Haggerty
2017-09-20 18:29   ` Jeff King
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 12/21] packed-backend.c: reorder some definitions Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 13/21] packed_ref_cache: keep the `packed-refs` file mmapped if possible Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19 12:44   ` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-24  6:56     ` Junio C Hamano
2017-09-20 18:40   ` Jeff King
2017-09-20 18:51     ` Jeff King
2017-09-21  8:04       ` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 14/21] read_packed_refs(): ensure that references are ordered when read Michael Haggerty
2017-09-20 18:50   ` Jeff King
2017-09-21  8:27     ` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-25 15:44       ` Johannes Schindelin
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 15/21] packed_ref_iterator_begin(): iterate using `mmapped_ref_iterator` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 16/21] packed_read_raw_ref(): read the reference from the mmapped buffer Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 17/21] ref_store: implement `refs_peel_ref()` generically Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 18/21] packed_ref_store: get rid of the `ref_cache` entirely Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 19/21] ref_cache: remove support for storing peeled values Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 20/21] mmapped_ref_iterator: inline into `packed_ref_iterator` Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19  6:22 ` [PATCH v2 21/21] packed-backend.c: rename a bunch of things and update comments Michael Haggerty
2017-09-19 19:53 ` Johannes Schindelin [this message]
2017-09-20 18:57 ` [PATCH v2 00/21] Read `packed-refs` using mmap() Jeff King
2017-09-25 15:55   ` Johannes Schindelin

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