cfq-iosched: don't let idling interfere with plugging

When CFQ is waiting for a new request from a process, currently it'll
immediately restart queuing when it sees such a request. This doesn't
work very well with streamed IO, since we then end up splitting IO
that would otherwise have been merged nicely. For a simple dd test,
this causes 10x as many requests to be issued as we should have.
Normally this goes unnoticed due to the low overhead of requests
at the device side, but some hardware is very sensitive to request
sizes and there it can cause big slow downs.

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>
diff --git a/block/cfq-iosched.c b/block/cfq-iosched.c
index 11efcf1..a4809de 100644
--- a/block/cfq-iosched.c
+++ b/block/cfq-iosched.c
@@ -177,6 +177,7 @@
 enum cfqq_state_flags {
 	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_on_rr = 0,	/* on round-robin busy list */
 	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_wait_request,	/* waiting for a request */
+	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_must_dispatch,	/* must be allowed a dispatch */
 	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_must_alloc,	/* must be allowed rq alloc */
 	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_must_alloc_slice,	/* per-slice must_alloc flag */
 	CFQ_CFQQ_FLAG_fifo_expire,	/* FIFO checked in this slice */
@@ -202,6 +203,7 @@
 
 CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(on_rr);
 CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(wait_request);
+CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(must_dispatch);
 CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(must_alloc);
 CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(must_alloc_slice);
 CFQ_CFQQ_FNS(fifo_expire);
@@ -774,6 +776,7 @@
 		cfqq->slice_dispatch = 0;
 
 		cfq_clear_cfqq_wait_request(cfqq);
+		cfq_clear_cfqq_must_dispatch(cfqq);
 		cfq_clear_cfqq_must_alloc_slice(cfqq);
 		cfq_clear_cfqq_fifo_expire(cfqq);
 		cfq_mark_cfqq_slice_new(cfqq);
@@ -1009,7 +1012,7 @@
 	/*
 	 * The active queue has run out of time, expire it and select new.
 	 */
-	if (cfq_slice_used(cfqq))
+	if (cfq_slice_used(cfqq) && !cfq_cfqq_must_dispatch(cfqq))
 		goto expire;
 
 	/*
@@ -1173,6 +1176,7 @@
 	 */
 	cfq_dispatch_request(cfqd, cfqq);
 	cfqq->slice_dispatch++;
+	cfq_clear_cfqq_must_dispatch(cfqq);
 
 	/*
 	 * expire an async queue immediately if it has used up its slice. idle
@@ -1898,14 +1902,13 @@
 
 	if (cfqq == cfqd->active_queue) {
 		/*
-		 * if we are waiting for a request for this queue, let it rip
-		 * immediately and flag that we must not expire this queue
-		 * just now
+		 * Remember that we saw a request from this process, but
+		 * don't start queuing just yet. Otherwise we risk seeing lots
+		 * of tiny requests, because we disrupt the normal plugging
+		 * and merging.
 		 */
-		if (cfq_cfqq_wait_request(cfqq)) {
-			del_timer(&cfqd->idle_slice_timer);
-			blk_start_queueing(cfqd->queue);
-		}
+		if (cfq_cfqq_wait_request(cfqq))
+			cfq_mark_cfqq_must_dispatch(cfqq);
 	} else if (cfq_should_preempt(cfqd, cfqq, rq)) {
 		/*
 		 * not the active queue - expire current slice if it is
@@ -2175,6 +2178,12 @@
 		timed_out = 0;
 
 		/*
+		 * We saw a request before the queue expired, let it through
+		 */
+		if (cfq_cfqq_must_dispatch(cfqq))
+			goto out_kick;
+
+		/*
 		 * expired
 		 */
 		if (cfq_slice_used(cfqq))