Date:	Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:07:24 +0100
From:	Hugo Mills <hugo@...fax.org.uk>
To:	Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com>
Cc:	Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@...hat.com>, NeilBrown <neilb@...e.de>,
	david <david@...g.hm>,
	Nico Schottelius <nico-lkml-20110623@...ottelius.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-btrfs <linux-btrfs@...r.kernel.org>,
	Alasdair G Kergon <agk@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: Mis-Design of Btrfs?

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:00:35AM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> Excerpts from Ric Wheeler's message of 2011-07-15 09:31:37 -0400:
> > On 07/15/2011 02:20 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > Excerpts from Ric Wheeler's message of 2011-07-15 08:58:04 -0400:
> > >> On 07/15/2011 12:34 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > [ triggering IO retries on failed crc or other checks ]
> > >
> > >>> But, maybe the whole btrfs model is backwards for a generic layer.
> > >>> Instead of sending down ios and testing when they come back, we could
> > >>> just set a verification function (or stack of them?).
> > >>>
> > >>> For metadata, btrfs compares the crc and a few other fields of the
> > >>> metadata block, so we can easily add a compare function pointer and a
> > >>> void * to pass in.
> > >>>
> > >>> The problem is the crc can take a lot of CPU, so btrfs kicks it off to
> > >>> threading pools so saturate all the cpus on the box.  But there's no
> > >>> reason we can't make that available lower down.
> > >>>
> > >>> If we pushed the verification down, the retries could bubble up the
> > >>> stack instead of the other way around.
> > >>>
> > >>> -chris
> > >> I do like the idea of having the ability to do the verification and retries down
> > >> the stack where you actually have the most context to figure out what is possible...
> > >>
> > >> Why would you need to bubble back up anything other than an error when all
> > >> retries have failed?
> > > By bubble up I mean that if you have multiple layers capable of doing
> > > retries, the lowest levels would retry first.  Basically by the time we
> > > get an -EIO_ALREADY_RETRIED we know there's nothing that lower level can
> > > do to help.
> > >
> > > -chris
> > 
> > Absolutely sounds like the most sane way to go to me, thanks!
> > 
> 
> It really seemed like a good idea, but I just realized it doesn't work
> well when parts of the stack transform the data.
> 
> Picture dm-crypt on top of raid1.  If raid1 is responsible for the
> crc retries, there's no way to crc the data because it needs to be
> decrypted first.
> 
> I think the raided dm-crypt config is much more common (and interesting)
> than multiple layers that can retry for other reasons (raid1 on top of
> raid10?)

   Isn't this a case where the transformative mid-layer would replace
the validation function before passing it down the stack? So btrfs
hands dm-crypt a checksum function; dm-crypt then stores that function
for its own purposes and hands off a new function to the DM layer
below that which decrypts the data and calls the btrfs checksum
function it stored earlier.

> In other words, do we really want to do a lot of design work for
> multiple layers where each one maintains multiple copies of the data
> blocks?  Are there configs where this really makes sense?

   Hugo.

-- 
=== Hugo Mills: hugo@... carfax.org.uk | darksatanic.net | lug.org.uk ===
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    --- "What are we going to do tonight?" "The same thing we do ---     
            every night, Pinky.  Try to take over the world!"            

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