Date:	Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:22:05 -0600
From:	Mike Christie <michaelc@...wisc.edu>
To:	device-mapper development <dm-devel@...hat.com>
CC:	mchristi@...hat.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, agk@...hat.com
Subject: Re: [dm-devel] Re: [RFC PATCH 1/8] rqbased-dm: allow	blk_get_request()
 to be called from interrupt context

Jens Axboe wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 21 2006, Mike Christie wrote:
>> Jens Axboe wrote:
>>> On Thu, Dec 21 2006, Mike Christie wrote:
>>>> Mike Christie wrote:
>>>>> Jens Axboe wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, Dec 21 2006, Mike Christie wrote:
>>>>>>> Or the block layer code could set up the clone too. elv_next_request
>>>>>>> could prep a clone based on the orignal request for the driver then dm
>>>>>>> would not have to worry about that part.
>>>>>> It really can't, since it doesn't know how to allocate the clone
>>>>>> request. I'd rather export this functionality as helpers.
>>>>>>
>>>>> What do you think about dm's plan to break up make_request into a
>>>>> mapping function and in to the part the builds the bio into a request.
>>>>> This would fit well with them being helpers and being able to allocate
>>>>> the request from the correct context.
>>>>>
>>>>> I see patches for that did not get posted, but I thought Joe and
>>>>> Alasdair used to talk about that a lot and in the dm code I think there
>>>>> is sill comments about doing it. Maybe the dm comments mentioned the
>>>>> merge_fn, but I guess the merge_fn did not fit what they wanted to do or
>>>>> something. I think Alasdair talked about this at one of his talks at OLS
>>>>> or it was in a proposal for the kernel summit. I can dig up the mail if
>>>>> you want.
>>>>>
>>>> Ignore that. The problem would be that we may not want to decide which
>>>> path to use at map time.
>>> Latter part, or both paragraphs? Dipping into ->make_request_fn() for
>>> some parts do seem to make sense to me. It'll be cheaper than at
>>> potential soft irq time (from elv_next_request()).
>>>
>> I think we got crisscrossed.
>>
>> The original idea but using your helper suggestion would have been this:
>>
>> dm->make_request_fn(bio)
>> {
>> 	rq = __make_request(bio)
>> 	if (this is a new request) {
>> 		allocate clone from either a real device/path specific mempool() or a
>> dm q mempool
>> }
>>
>>
>> dm->prep_fn(rq)
>> {
>> 	setup clone rq fields based on orig request fields.
>> }
>>
>> dm->request_fn(rq)
>> {
>> 	figure out which path to use;
>> 	set rq->q;
>> 	send cloned rq to real device;
>> }
> 
> This'll work nicely, much better.
> 
>> The second idea based on Joe and Alasdair to break up make_request would
>> just have been a more formal break up of the dm->make_request_fn above,
>> because I thought your comment about not knowing how to allocate the
>> clone request meant that we did not know which q's mempool to take the
>> request from if we were going to take the cloned request from the real
>> device/path's mempool. I guess this does not really matter since we can
>> have just a dm q mempool of requests to use for cloned requests.
> 
> Either approach is fine with me. Note that you need to be careful with
> foreign requests on a queue, see the elevator drain logic for barriers
> and scheduler switching.
> 

What I proposed may not work so nicely as is. I remember when we tried
this before, that because __make_request lets go of the q lock, the q
can then be unplugged or it can be unplugged from __make_request if you
hit the unplug threshold so we would not be able to easily allocate a
cloned request from the dm make request callout and set it to the
request that is allocated in make_request. You have to do some surgery
to the make_request function to make this work.

Maybe your preallocted requests that are used from the request_fn is a
better idea.
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