Hi,


We have a simple python program which keeps running a C loop to lstat
NFS mounted directories.  We are seeing some weird behavior w.r.t. the
run-time of this program on 2.6.26.3 kernel vs 2.6.24 kernel.

The run-time of the following code increases over time on the 2.6.26.3
kernel, whereas remains flat (as expected) on the 2.6.24 kernel.
[See attached graphs - B1.jpg and B2.jpg]  Once the 2.6.26.3 machine
gets into this state, we need to restart the box to get back to
reasonable run-times.  Is this a known issue ?

Setup :

Machine A (2.6.26) : exports NFS directory  - /a/baz contains 10,000
directories bar0 ... bar9999
/a/baz        *(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_all_squash,subtree_check)

Machine B1 (2.6.26.3) : mounts NFS dir RO from A - graph B1.jpg
10.x.x.x:/a/baz on /baz type nfs
(ro,vers=3,rsize=4096,wsize=4096,namlen=255,hard,nointr,nolock,proto=udp,timeo=11,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountproto=udp,addr=10.x.x.x)

Machine B2 (2.6.24) : mounts NFS dir RO from A - graph B2.jpg
10.x.x.x:/a/baz on /baz type nfs
(ro,vers=3,rsize=4096,wsize=4096,hard,nointr,nolock,proto=udp,timeo=11,retrans=2,sec=sys,addr=10.x.x.x)

Repro :

B1 and B2, run the following python program :
{{{
#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import sys
import time

while True:
    t1 = time.time()
    rv = os.system("/a.out 10000 >& /dev/null")   # lstat the 10000
directories mounted via NFS
    t2 = time.time()
    print >> sys.stderr, "%.3f" % (t2 - t1), rv
}}}

where a.out is the following C code :

{{{
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   int i, n = atoi(argv[1]);
   char filename[64];
   struct stat statbuf;

   for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      sprintf(filename, "/baz/bar%d", i);
      lstat(filename, &statbuf);
   }

   printf("done\n");
   return 0;
}
}}}

Attachments :

B1.jpg and B2.jpg - runtimes on the 2 client machines -
X-axis : iteration number
Y-axis : run-time

Config files : - for the machines B1, B2 and A

b1.2.6.26.3.config
b2.2.6.24.config
a.2.6.26.config


- P