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Date:      Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:57:59 -0500 (EST)
From:      user <user@dhp.com>
To:        Eric Anderson <anderson@centtech.com>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: preventing deadlocks in snapshot directories - unexplained
Message-ID:  <Pine.LNX.4.21.0601131751230.8684-100000@shell.dhp.com>
In-Reply-To: <43C819C1.1060706@centtech.com>

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On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Eric Anderson wrote:

> What happens if you do:
> 
> rm -f snap_directory1/snapshot
> rmdir snap_directory1
> 
> Does the same thing happen?


I will try that as I try to reproduce the problem.

I am aware that there are two "lags" when creating a snapshot - the lock
that occurs in the snapshot directory for the entire course of
creation/destruction, and also a short system-wide lag that occurs for a
small portion of the time of creation/destruction.

It is possible that on a heavily taxed system, the two could be confused
for one another, which is possibly what happened when I noticed the
one-deep directory "locking" when I deleted a two-deep directory snapshot.

I think the main, conceptual question I am asking is this - what is the
difference between these three strategies:

#1:

/.snap/snapshot1
/.snap/snapshot2
/.snap/snapshot3

#2

/.snap/snapdir1/snapshot1
/.snap/snapdir2/snapshot2
/.snap/snapdir3/snapshot3

#3

/.snap/snapshot1
/.snap2/snapshot2
/.snap3/snapshot3


Now, so far in this thread, some have claimed that #2 and #3 are
identical, which seems reasonable.  My only problem is that I _think_ I am
seeing problems with #2.  We'll see.

However, what about #1 above ?  In that case, all of the snapshots are in
one directory, and I feel that this is dangerous, or at least poorly done
- isn't there a very real possibility of a deadlock there, because you
could be creating a snapshot in /.snap at the same time as you delete one
(or create a different one ?)

The man page says nothing about multiple snapshots, etc., and I want to
know if, one way or another, it is a good instinct on my part to make sure
multiple snapshots do not end up in the exact same directory...

thanks.




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