Three changes targeting 0.20.9's "muxer never read-stalls on NFS read
latency" invariant:
A. FileSectorSource gets a 32 MiB internal read-ahead buffer
(READAHEAD_BUF_BYTES). Splits out from src/sector/file.rs into
src/io/file_sector_source/ with per-OS open hints (Linux
posix_fadvise(SEQUENTIAL), macOS fcntl(F_RDADVISE) with 64 MiB
cap, Windows TODO stub, BSD/illumos no-op). Backward seeks
rebuffer; partial reads at EOF return only the bytes that exist;
oversize-request bypass for count > BUF_SECTORS.
B. WritebackFile inline #[cfg(target_os = "linux")] blocks split
into per-OS files under src/io/writeback_file/. Linux unchanged
(fallocate KEEP_SIZE, fsync via bounded_syscall). macOS gets a
real F_PREALLOCATE + F_FULLFSYNC impl (was a "skipped (non-linux)"
debug log before). Windows is a stub (FlushFileBuffers via
std sync_all; TODO for SetFileValidData). BSDs/illumos fall back
to std sync_all.
C. New byte_channel module — byte-bounded producer/consumer wrapping
std sync_channel with Mutex/Condvar byte accounting. Sender blocks
when used_bytes + item.byte_size() > capacity. HasByteSize impl
for PesFrame. Default cap BYTE_CHANNEL_DEFAULT_CAPACITY = 64 MiB,
sized to absorb worst-case NFS read p99 (~2 s × UHD peak compressed
~15 MB/s). The mux call site lives in autorip (out of scope here);
this lands the primitive in libfreemkv for autorip to adopt.
Test counts: byte_channel +6, file_sector_source +5, sector::file
round-trip suite (3) preserved. passn_handler_ab.rs A/B fixture
(8 profiles) still green.
precommit.sh libfreemkv: fmt + clippy + test all green on Rust 1.86.
No version bump; no Cargo.lock changes; no forbidden-file edits
(disc/patch.rs, disc/read_error.rs, io/pipeline.rs,
tests/passn_handler_ab.rs).
Generalizes 0.20.5's hand-written wait_after_with_timeout into a
reusable primitive. After this change, every blocking syscall in the
recovery + mux paths is wrapped, so cooperative Halt has bounded
~250 ms latency reach even into kernel-owned thread states.
New module src/io/bounded.rs:
- BoundedError { Halted, Timeout, WorkerLost }
- bounded_syscall<F, R>(halt: Option<&Halt>, timeout, op) -> Result<R, BoundedError>
- Worker thread runs op; main thread recv_timeouts on a rendezvous
channel in 250 ms slices, polling halt between slices.
- Worker is intentionally leaked on timeout/halt — kernel reaps when
the syscall finally returns or at process exit. Calling thread is
NEVER trapped inside a kernel call.
- 6 unit tests cover the happy path + each error variant.
Refactored callsites:
- src/io/writeback/linux.rs::wait_after_with_timeout now delegates
to bounded_syscall. ~30 LOC of duplicated channel/thread plumbing
deleted. Same semantics, cleaner.
- src/io/writeback_file.rs::WritebackFile::sync_all now wraps the
final libc::fsync(fd) with bounded_syscall (60 s deadline). On
timeout: log error at target=mux and return Ok — kernel will flush
on close, best-effort but bounded. Covers FileSectorSink::finish,
PatchSink::close, SweepSink::close, and the mux MKV finalize path
(they all sync through WritebackFile).
What still hangs (deliberately not wrapped — too hot a path):
- File::write itself. Per-frame write on a wedged NFS could still
block; but back-pressure from a stuck consumer means the producer
notices within seconds, not minutes — different failure mode than
the WAIT_AFTER hang 0.20.5/0.20.6 fix.
Targets the recurring mux hang on NFS dest where the consumer thread
sits indefinitely inside libc::sync_file_range(SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER)
because the NFS server never returns a commit ack. The whole rip
wedges; halt is cooperative and can't reach inside a kernel syscall.
A. NFS detection at WritebackPipeline construction (fstatfs f_type ==
NFS_SUPER_MAGIC 0x6969). When NFS:
- Skip SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER entirely.
- Skip posix_fadvise(DONTNEED) — NFS client handles its own buffering.
- Still issue async SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE (harmless hint).
Cannot hang on a syscall not made. fstatfs failure fails open (assume
local). Logged at info on construction so operators see which strategy
is active. The whole hang vector is removed for NFS deployments.
B. Hard timeout on WAIT_AFTER for non-NFS (defense in depth, since
even a degraded local disk could in principle hang the syscall).
Each WAIT_AFTER runs on a worker thread; main thread waits on a
sync_channel rendezvous with 30s deadline. On timeout: log error,
set per-pipeline 'degraded' Arc<AtomicBool>, downgrade to NFS-style
skip for the rest of the pipeline's life. Worker thread leaks
intentionally — it'll unwind when the syscall eventually returns or
the process exits. Converts indefinite freeze into 'log loud +
downgrade + keep ripping'.
C. Diagnostic logging for the 73%-of-this-movie reproduction:
- WritebackFile::seek logs every non-trivial seek (from, to, signed
delta) at target=mux so we can see if MkvMuxer seeks back before
a stall.
- WritebackPipeline::finalize logs the chunk being finalised before
any WAIT_AFTER call, so a hung chunk is identifiable by offset.
No new dependencies. macOS / Windows noop stubs unchanged. Net
+198 LOC libfreemkv (mostly writeback/linux.rs).
Four targeted changes to maximize mux throughput regardless of storage
backend (local SSD, local HDD, NFS, network share) and surface enough
log data to diagnose 'mux slow' reports without a re-rip:
1. POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL on FileSectorSource::open (Linux only).
Widens the kernel readahead window for sequential ISO reads. One
syscall at open, free on every storage type.
2. POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED on the ISO read side after every 32 MiB chunk.
Mirrors the writeback DONTNEED that already runs on the write
side. Keeps the read-side page cache bounded during multi-GB ISO
reads — eliminates the OOM-pressure / eviction-storm risk on
long mux runs. Linux only; per-drop trace at target="mux".
3. WritebackFile::create_with_size_hint(path, size_bytes) calls
fallocate(FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE) on Linux to pre-reserve extents
for the output. Reported file size stays 0 (writes grow it
naturally) but the on-disk extent allocation is contiguous —
reduces extent fragmentation for big sequential muxes. Wired
into mkv:// and m2ts:// output paths via DiscTitle::size_bytes.
No-op on macOS/Windows; old create() kept with #[allow(dead_code)]
for callers without a size hint.
4. Adaptive WRITEBACK_CHUNK_BYTES in the Linux writeback pipeline.
Tracks sync_file_range(WAIT_AFTER) elapsed_ms in a rolling
16-sample window. p95 > 200 ms → double chunk size (cap 256 MiB).
p95 < 20 ms → halve (floor 4 MiB). One algorithm, both
fast-storage (small chunks, responsive) and slow-storage (big
chunks, fewer commit round-trips) optimized. Per-chunk trace +
per-32-chunk debug snapshot + info-on-resize so an operator can
see where the autoscaler settled.
All four are universal — no storage-type detection, no env vars to
flip, no per-deploy tuning required. Total +201/-6 across four files.
Sweep was the original producer/consumer split that motivated the
generic Pipeline primitive (round 1, commit 198268b). Now that
Pipeline + Sink exist, sweep stops shipping its own bespoke
threading.
- New SweepSink: Sink<WorkItem> impl in src/disc/sweep.rs. Owns
WritebackFile + Mapfile + ProgressSnapshot back-channel. apply()
carries the file-write + mapfile.record per WorkItem; close()
drains writeback, fsyncs, flushes mapfile.
- Disc::sweep: constructs SweepSink, calls Pipeline::spawn_named
(so the consumer thread keeps showing up as
freemkv-sweep-consumer), sends WorkItems, calls pipe.finish().
The producer-side ReadCtx state machine, decrypt, set_speed,
halt — all unchanged.
- Pipeline gains spawn_named(name, depth, sink) so callers can
preserve identifiable thread names without the primitive baking
one in. Also adds Pipeline::try_send for the throttled
StatsRequest path that must not block the producer.
- Deleted src/disc/sweep_pipeline.rs entirely. WorkItem,
ProgressSnapshot, ConsumerSummary moved into disc/sweep.rs as
module-private types. WorkItem::Finish dropped — dropping the
channel is the end-of-stream signal Pipeline already uses.
Behaviour-preserving: the sweep algorithm, mapfile invariants,
back-pressure via channel depth (DEFAULT_PIPELINE_DEPTH = 4) all
match the 0.17.13 implementation. New synthetic regression test
(sweep_pipeline_full_good_100_batches) exercises ~100 batches of
clean reads end-to-end through the new Pipeline path and verifies
bytes_good and ISO file size.
See (internal)/memory/0_18_redesign.md.
Patch was strictly serial (per-sector recovery: read → seek+write
→ mapfile.record → next). Lifting the write+record onto a consumer
thread lets the drive issue the next per-sector retry while the
previous block's recovered bytes are being committed — small but
real win on damaged discs with many bad sectors, and uniform with
sweep's threading model.
- New PatchSink: Sink<PatchItem> impl in src/disc/patch.rs. Owns
WritebackFile + Mapfile. apply() seeks+writes recovered bytes
and records mapfile state per item; close() runs sync_all and
mapfile.flush.
- Channel depth: WRITE_THROUGH_DEPTH (1). Patch wants minimum
buffering — back-pressure should kick in immediately so the
drive's per-sector retry budget isn't ahead of the writer.
- Disc::patch: keeps every existing recovery decision on the
producer (reverse walk, damage-window skip, NOT_READY pauses,
bridge-degradation handling, wedge exit, range watchdog).
WritebackFile ownership moves to the sink.
Behaviour-preserving: per-sector single-shot read budget unchanged
(BU40N+Initio bridge wedge concern still respected); recovery
algorithm bit-identical.
See (internal)/memory/0_18_redesign.md.
Single contributor: MattJackson.
Generic bounded producer/consumer pipeline. The same shape applies to
sweep, patch, and mux today via three near-duplicate implementations
(or, in patch's and mux's case, no implementation at all). 0.18
collapses them onto one primitive. See
(internal)/memory/0_18_redesign.md for full context.
Single contributor: MattJackson.
The type's job is the bounded-cache writeback pipeline (sync_file_range
+ posix_fadvise(DONTNEED)) — not generic writing. The 0.17 name was
ambiguous; reading `Writer::new(file)` gave no hint about what was
special. New name makes the role obvious at every call site.
Adds `WritebackFile::create(path)` and `WritebackFile::open(path)`
constructors so callers don't have to assemble a `File` first.
No alias kept; this is a clean 0.18 rename. See
(internal)/memory/0_18_redesign.md.
Single contributor: MattJackson.
Pre-0.17.11 sweep ran strictly serialised: SCSI read → decrypt → seek
+ write → mapfile.record → next read. Drive idled for the post-read
work; throughput capped at the sum of both costs. On a healthy disc
that's ~7-12 ms read + ~5-15 ms write/record per 64 KB batch, limiting
sustained throughput to ~10-12 MB/s on the test bed (BU40N + UHD inner
zone), well below the ~14-16 MB/s drive ceiling.
Decouples them: producer thread (caller's) owns SectorReader +
read_error state + decrypt + set_speed + halt; consumer thread (one
spawn) owns Writer + Mapfile, receives WorkItem messages, applies
file write + mapfile record. Bounded mpsc::sync_channel(4) gives
natural back-pressure. While the consumer writes batch N, the
producer is already reading batch N+1 — steady-state throughput is
now bound by the slower of the two pipelines (drive on healthy
discs), not their sum.
Side effects:
- Bisect path now decrypts. Pre-0.17.11 the bisect inner loop wrote
raw cyphertext for single-sector recoveries on encrypted discs —
quiet correctness bug exercised only by batch-fail-then-
bisect-succeed on encrypted media. New producer-side decrypt
covers main + bisect success paths uniformly.
- All read_ctx state stays single-threaded on producer (damage
window, jump multiplier, etc.). No locking added.
- Mapfile remains single-writer on consumer. No locking.
- Halt latency: producer breaks loop, sends Finish, consumer drains
≤4 in-flight items + sync_all. ~1 batch (~12 ms) typical.
- BU40N + Initio bridge wedge concern unchanged: still single SCSI
command in flight, error-path timing identical, no new retries.
New module: src/disc/sweep_pipeline.rs (WorkItem, ProgressSnapshot,
ConsumerInputs, spawn_consumer, consumer_loop, helpers). Public API
unchanged — Disc::copy / CopyOptions / CopyResult identical.
Patch (Pass N) is NOT changed; it's bound by drive recovery time, not
the read/write serialisation.
Pass 1 sweep speed on a healthy disc previously dipped from ~15 MB/s
to ~1 MB/s every ~30 s on a host with default Linux dirty-page
settings. Empirical cause: the kernel's vm.dirty_ratio (~20% of RAM)
lets hundreds of MB of dirty pages accumulate, then bursts a flush at
99% disk utilisation that blocks app writes for ~1 s. Confirmed on
the BU40N test bed — dirty pages grew 112 → 563 MB between bursts;
lowering vm.dirty_bytes to 64 MB at the host sysctl level eliminated
the dips. Shipping the equivalent inside libfreemkv so users do not
need to tune the host kernel.
- New crate::io::Writer: drop-in File wrapper (impl Write + Seek).
Wraps a per-platform WritebackPipeline that on Linux schedules
sync_file_range(WRITE) + lagging sync_file_range(WAIT_AFTER) +
posix_fadvise(DONTNEED) in 32 MB chunks, bounding dirty cache at
~64 MB. macOS and Windows ship a no-op stub.
- Disc::sweep wraps its output File in Writer. Loop body unchanged.
- Module is purpose-built so any large sequential output (patch,
mux) can adopt the same wrapper as a one-line change later.
MattJackson