[OpenAFS] Cache file status after Network error

[Jeffrey Altman]

Harald Barth wrote:
>> A write error might be caused by a failure in the communication
>> path between the client and the file server.  Such a failure should not
>> result in the data being discarded from the cache.  
> 
> So we just told the user (by returning error on the close) that the
> file is bad, but subsequent reads should proceed as everything went
> fine? If we can guarantee to obain consistency at a later point, the
> close should not have returned failiure in the first place. You can't
> have it both ways. Until someone implements disconnected AFS and fixes
> the writeback later, I suggest to throw away the data which never will
> make it to the server.

The problem is that you are forgetting about the memory mapped file
case.  I'm not sure about on UNIX/Linux but on Windows, there are three
phases:

  * open - application obtains a file descriptor
  * cleanup - application closes a file descriptor
  * close - operating system releases the file

Between the cleanup and the close file access will continue if the
file has been memory mapped.  The cache manager cannot discard the
writes because doing so would corrupt any memory mapped regions.

You have a valid point.  It raises a the question of whether or not 
close() should be given an error if the reason for the error is that the 
server is unreachable.

On Windows there are non-fatal errors and in response to the close an
informational error can be returned.  Again, I don't know about UNIX/Linux.

Jeffrey Altman