rm -r: avoid O(n^2) performance for a directory with very many entries

This enhancement works around a problem that is specific to at least
ext3 and ext4 file systems.  With them, it would take hours to remove
a two-million-entry directory.  RAM-backed file systems (tmpfs) are
not affected, since there is no seek penalty.
* remove.c (rm_malloc, rm_free, compare_ino): New functions.
(dirent_count, preprocess_dir): New function.
[struct readdir_data]: New struct.
(remove_cwd_entries): Call preprocess_dir.
* tests/rm/ext3-perf: New file.  Test for the performance fix.
* NEWS: mention the new feature

4 files changed, 249 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 77458d652..b3eb3a98a 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -9,6 +9,13 @@ GNU coreutils NEWS                                    -*- outline -*-
 
 ** New features
 
+  chgrp, chmod, chown, chcon, du, rm: now all display linear performance,
+  even when operating on million-entry directories on ext3 and ext4 file
+  systems.  Before, they would exhibit O(N^2) performance, due to linear
+  per-entry seek time cost when operating on entries in readdir order.
+  Rm was improved directly, while the others inherit the improvement
+  from the newer version of fts in gnulib.
+
   comm now verifies that the inputs are in sorted order.  This check can
   be turned off with the --nocheck-order option.
 
diff --git a/src/remove.c b/src/remove.c
index 8143f5015..26f096e2c 100644
--- a/src/remove.c
+++ b/src/remove.c
@@ -60,6 +60,14 @@ enum
     CONSECUTIVE_READDIR_UNLINK_THRESHOLD = 10
   };
 
+/* If the heuristics in preprocess_dir suggest that there
+   are fewer than this many entries in a directory, then it
+   skips the preprocessing altogether.  */
+enum
+{
+  INODE_SORT_DIR_ENTRIES_THRESHOLD = 10000
+};
+
 /* FIXME: in 2009, or whenever Darwin 7.9.0 (aka MacOS X 10.3.9) is no
    longer relevant, remove this work-around code.  Then, there will be
    no need to perform the extra rewinddir call, ever.  */
@@ -217,6 +225,24 @@ hash_compare_strings (void const *x, void const *y)
   return STREQ (x, y) ? true : false;
 }
 
+/* Obstack allocator: longjump on failure.  */
+static void *
+rm_malloc (void *v_jumpbuf, long size)
+{
+  jmp_buf *jumpbuf = v_jumpbuf;
+  void *p = malloc (size);
+  if (p)
+    return p;
+  longjmp (*jumpbuf, 1);
+}
+
+/* With the 2-arg allocator, we must also provide a two-argument freer.  */
+static void
+rm_free (void *v_jumpbuf ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED, void *ptr)
+{
+  free (ptr);
+}
+
 static inline void
 push_dir (Dirstack_state *ds, const char *dir_name)
 {
@@ -1225,6 +1251,141 @@ fd_to_subdirp (int fd_cwd, char const *f,
   return NULL;
 }
 
+struct readdir_data
+{
+  ino_t ino;
+  char name[FLEXIBLE_ARRAY_MEMBER];
+};
+
+/* A comparison function to sort on increasing inode number.  */
+static int
+compare_ino (void const *av, void const *bv)
+{
+  struct readdir_data const *const *a = av;
+  struct readdir_data const *const *b = bv;
+  return (a[0]->ino < b[0]->ino ? -1
+	  : b[0]->ino < a[0]->ino ? 1 : 0);
+}
+
+/* Return an approximation of the maximum number of dirent entries
+   in a directory with stat data *ST.  */
+static size_t
+dirent_count (struct stat const *st)
+{
+  return st->st_size / 16;
+}
+
+/* When a directory contains very many entries, operating on N entries in
+   readdir order can be very seek-intensive (be it to unlink or even to
+   merely stat each entry), to the point that it results in O(N^2) work.
+   This is file-system-specific: ext3 and ext4 (as of 2008) are susceptible,
+   but tmpfs is not.  The general solution is to process entries in inode
+   order.  That means reading all entries, and sorting them before operating
+   on any.  As such, it is useful only on systems with useful dirent.d_ino.
+   Since 'rm -r's removal process must traverse into directories and since
+   this preprocessing phase can allocate O(N) storage, here we store and
+   sort only non-directory entries, and then remove all of those, so that we
+   can free all allocated storage before traversing into any subdirectory.
+   Perform this optimization only when not interactive and not in verbose
+   mode, to keep the implementation simple and to minimize duplication.
+   Upon failure, simply free any resources and return.  */
+static void
+preprocess_dir (DIR **dirp, struct rm_options const *x)
+{
+#if HAVE_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
+
+  struct stat st;
+  /* There are many reasons to return right away, skipping this
+     optimization.  The penalty for being wrong is that we will
+     perform a small amount of extra work.
+
+     Skip this optimization if... */
+
+  if (/* - there is a chance of interactivity */
+      x->interactive != RMI_NEVER
+
+      /* - we're in verbose mode */
+      || x->verbose
+
+      /* - privileged users can unlink nonempty directories.
+	 Otherwise, there'd be a race condition between the readdir
+	 call (in which we learn dirent.d_type) and the unlink, by
+	 which time the non-directory may be replaced with a directory. */
+      || ! cannot_unlink_dir ()
+
+      /* - we can't fstat the file descriptor */
+      || fstat (dirfd (*dirp), &st) != 0
+
+      /* - the directory is smaller than some threshold.
+	 Estimate the number of inodes with a heuristic.
+         There's no significant benefit to sorting if there are
+	 too few inodes.  */
+      || dirent_count (&st) < INODE_SORT_DIR_ENTRIES_THRESHOLD)
+    return;
+
+  /* FIXME: maybe test file system type, too; skip if it's tmpfs: see fts.c */
+
+  struct obstack o_readdir_data;  /* readdir data: inode,name pairs  */
+  struct obstack o_p;  /* an array of pointers to each inode,name pair */
+
+  /* Arrange to longjmp upon obstack allocation failure.  */
+  jmp_buf readdir_jumpbuf;
+  if (setjmp (readdir_jumpbuf))
+    goto cleanup;
+
+  obstack_init_minimal (&o_readdir_data);
+  obstack_init_minimal (&o_p);
+
+  obstack_specify_allocation_with_arg (&o_readdir_data, 0, 0,
+				       rm_malloc, rm_free, &readdir_jumpbuf);
+  obstack_specify_allocation_with_arg (&o_p, 0, 0,
+				       rm_malloc, rm_free, &readdir_jumpbuf);
+
+  /* Read all entries, storing <d_ino, d_name> for each non-dir one.
+     Maintain a parallel list of pointers into the primary buffer.  */
+  while (1)
+    {
+      struct dirent const *dp;
+      dp = readdir_ignoring_dot_and_dotdot (*dirp);
+      /* no need to distinguish EOF from failure */
+      if (dp == NULL)
+	break;
+
+      /* Skip known-directory and type-unknown entries.  */
+      if (D_TYPE (dp) == DT_UNKNOWN || D_TYPE (dp) == DT_DIR)
+	break;
+
+      size_t name_len = strlen (dp->d_name);
+      size_t ent_len = offsetof (struct readdir_data, name) + name_len + 1;
+      struct readdir_data *v = obstack_alloc (&o_readdir_data, ent_len);
+      v->ino = D_INO (dp);
+      memcpy (v->name, dp->d_name, name_len + 1);
+
+      /* Append V to the list of pointers.  */
+      obstack_ptr_grow (&o_p, v);
+    }
+
+  /* Compute size and finalize VV.  */
+  size_t n = obstack_object_size (&o_p) / sizeof (void *);
+  struct readdir_data **vv = obstack_finish (&o_p);
+
+  /* Sort on inode number.  */
+  qsort(vv, n, sizeof *vv, compare_ino);
+
+  /* Iterate through those pointers, unlinking each name.  */
+  for (size_t i = 0; i < n; i++)
+    {
+      /* ignore failure */
+      (void) unlinkat (dirfd (*dirp), vv[i]->name, 0);
+    }
+
+ cleanup:
+  obstack_free (&o_readdir_data, NULL);
+  obstack_free (&o_p, NULL);
+  rewinddir (*dirp);
+#endif
+}
+
 /* Remove entries in the directory open on DIRP
    Upon finding a directory that is both non-empty and that can be chdir'd
    into, return RM_OK and set *SUBDIR and fill in SUBDIR_SB, where
@@ -1247,6 +1408,10 @@ remove_cwd_entries (DIR **dirp,
   assert (VALID_STATUS (status));
   *subdir = NULL;
 
+  /* This is just an optimization.
+     It's not a fatal problem if it fails.  */
+  preprocess_dir (dirp, x);
+
   while (1)
     {
       struct dirent const *dp;
diff --git a/tests/Makefile.am b/tests/Makefile.am
index bc656c427..e0377cc32 100644
--- a/tests/Makefile.am
+++ b/tests/Makefile.am
@@ -72,6 +72,7 @@ EXTRA_DIST += $(TESTS)
 TESTS =						\
   misc/help-version				\
   misc/invalid-opt				\
+  rm/ext3-perf					\
   rm/cycle					\
   chmod/no-x					\
   chgrp/basic					\
diff --git a/tests/rm/ext3-perf b/tests/rm/ext3-perf
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..e0439dffb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/rm/ext3-perf
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# ensure that "rm -rf DIR-with-many-entries" is not O(N^2)
+
+# Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+if test "$VERBOSE" = yes; then
+  set -x
+  rm --version
+fi
+
+. $srcdir/test-lib.sh
+
+expensive_
+
+# Using rm -rf to remove a 400k-entry directory takes:
+# - 9 seconds with the patch, on a 2-yr-old system
+# - 350 seconds without the patch, on a high-end system (disk 20-30% faster)
+threshold_seconds=60
+
+# The number of entries in our test directory.
+n=400000
+
+# Choose a value that is large enough to ensure an accidentally
+# regressed rm would require much longer than $threshold_seconds to remove
+# the directory.  With n=400k, pre-patch GNU rm would require about 350
+# seconds even on a fast disk.  On a relatively modern system, the
+# patched version of rm requires about 10 seconds, so even if you
+# choose to enable very expensive tests with a disk that is much slower,
+# the test should still succeed.
+
+# Skip unless "." is on an ext[34] file system.
+# FIXME-maybe: try to find a suitable file system or allow
+# the user to specify it via an envvar.
+df -t ext3 -t ext4dev -t ext4 . \
+  || skip_test_ 'this test runs only on an ext3 or ext4 file system'
+
+# Skip if there are too few inodes free.  Require some slack.
+free_inodes=$(stat -f --format=%d .) || framework_failure
+min_free_inodes=$(expr 12 \* $n / 10)
+test $min_free_inodes -lt $free_inodes \
+  || skip_test_ "too few free inodes on '.': $free_inodes;" \
+      "this test requires at least $min_free_inodes"
+
+ok=0
+mkdir d &&
+  cd d &&
+    seq $n | xargs touch &&
+    test -f 1 &&
+    test -f $n &&
+  cd .. &&
+  ok=1
+test $ok = 1 || framework_failure
+
+fail=0
+start=$(date +%s)
+rm -rf d || fail=1
+duration=$(expr $(date +%s) - $start)
+test $duration -lt $threshold_seconds ||
+  { fail=1; echo rm took longer than $threshold_seconds seconds; }
+
+echo removing a $n-entry directory took $duration seconds
+
+Exit $fail