linux-ext4 - Re: [PATCH v7 0/5] Introduce provisioning primitives

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Date:   Fri, 2 Jun 2023 11:44:27 -0700
From:   Sarthak Kukreti <sarthakkukreti@...omium.org>
To:     Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...nel.org>
Cc:     Joe Thornber <thornber@...hat.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
        "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>, dm-devel@...hat.com,
        "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        "Darrick J. Wong" <djwong@...nel.org>,
        Brian Foster <bfoster@...hat.com>,
        Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@...gle.com>,
        Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-block@...r.kernel.org,
        Joe Thornber <ejt@...hat.com>,
        Andreas Dilger <adilger.kernel@...ger.ca>,
        Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@...hat.com>,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
        Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>,
        Alasdair Kergon <agk@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 0/5] Introduce provisioning primitives

On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 8:28 AM Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...nel.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 30 2023 at 10:55P -0400,
> Joe Thornber <thornber@...hat.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 3:02 PM Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Also Joe, for you proposed dm-thinp design where you distinquish
> > > between "provision" and "reserve": Would it make sense for REQ_META
> > > (e.g. all XFS metadata) with REQ_PROVISION to be treated as an
> > > LBA-specific hard request?  Whereas REQ_PROVISION on its own provides
> > > more freedom to just reserve the length of blocks? (e.g. for XFS
> > > delalloc where LBA range is unknown, but dm-thinp can be asked to
> > > reserve space to accomodate it).
> > >
> >
> > My proposal only involves 'reserve'.  Provisioning will be done as part of
> > the usual io path.
>
> OK, I think we'd do well to pin down the top-level block interfaces in
> question. Because this patchset's block interface patch (2/5) header
> says:
>
> "This patch also adds the capability to call fallocate() in mode 0
> on block devices, which will send REQ_OP_PROVISION to the block
> device for the specified range,"
>
> So it wires up blkdev_fallocate() to call blkdev_issue_provision(). A
> user of XFS could then use fallocate() for user data -- which would
> cause thinp's reserve to _not_ be used for critical metadata.
>
> The only way to distinquish the caller (between on-behalf of user data
> vs XFS metadata) would be REQ_META?
>
> So should dm-thinp have a REQ_META-based distinction? Or just treat
> all REQ_OP_PROVISION the same?
>
I'm in favor of a REQ_META-based distinction. Does that imply that
REQ_META also needs to be passed through the block/filesystem stack
(eg. REQ_OP_PROVION + REQ_META on a loop device translates to a
fallocate(<insert meta flag name>) to the underlying file)?

<bikeshed>
I think that might have applications beyond just provisioning:
currently, for stacked filesystems (eg filesystems residing in a file
on top of another filesystem), even if the upper filesystem issues
read/write requests with REQ_META | REQ_PRIO, these flags are lost in
translation at the loop device layer.  A flag like the above would
allow the prioritization of stacked filesystem metadata requests.
</bikeshed>

Bringing the discussion back to this series for a bit, I'm still
waiting on feedback from the Block maintainers before sending out v8
(which at the moment, only have a
s/EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL/g). I believe from the conversation
most of the above is follow up work, but please let me know if you'd
prefer I add some of this to the current series!

Best
Sarthak

> Mike