Looks like this is the problem, which point Al Viro some time ago:
ufs's get_block callback allocates 16k of disk at a time, and links that
entire 16k into the file's metadata. But because get_block is called for only
a single buffer_head (a 2k buffer_head in this case?) we are only able to tell
the VFS that this 2k is buffer_new().
So when ufs_getfrag_block() is later called to map some more data in the file,
and when that data resides within the remaining 14k of this fragment,
ufs_getfrag_block() will incorrectly return a !buffer_new() buffer_head.
I don't see _right_ way to do nullification of whole block, if use inode
page cache, some pages may be outside of inode limits (inode size), and
will be lost; if use blockdev page cache it is possible to zero real data,
if later inode page cache will be used.
The simpliest way, as can I see usage of block device page cache, but not only
mark dirty, but also sync it during "nullification". I use my simple tests
collection, which I used for check that create,open,write,read,close works on
ufs, and I see that this patch makes ufs code 18% slower then before.
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
d63b70902b