linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Enable use of Solid State Hybrid Drives

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Date:	Wed, 12 Nov 2014 08:47:50 -0800
From:	Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
To:	Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>
Cc:	Jens Axboe <axboe@...com>,
	"Jason B. Akers" <jason.b.akers@...el.com>,
	"IDE/ATA development list" <linux-ide@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Karkra, Kapil" <kapil.karkra@...el.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Enable use of Solid State Hybrid Drives

On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 8:22 PM, Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com> wrote:
> [Been distrcted with other issues, so just getting back to this.]
>
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 10:07:47AM -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com> wrote:
>> > On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 03:24:11PM -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
>> >> On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com> wrote:
>> >> > On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 03:10:51PM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> >> >> As for the fs accessing this, the io nice fields are readily exposed
>> >> >> through the ->bi_rw setting. So while the above example uses ionice to
>> >> >> set a task io priority (that a bio will then inherit), nothing prevents
>> >> >> you from passing it in directly from the kernel.
>> >> >
>> >> > Right, but now the filesystem needs to provide that on a per-inode
>> >> > basis, not from the task structure as the task that is submitting
>> >> > the bio is not necesarily the task doing the read/write syscall.
>> >> >
>> >> > e.g. the write case above doesn't actually inherit the task priority
>> >> > at the bio level at all because the IO is being dispatched by a
>> >> > background flusher thread, not the ioniced task calling write(2).
>> >>
>> >> When the ioniced task calling write(2) inserts the page into the page
>> >> cache then the current priority is recorded in the struct page.  The
>> >
>> > It does? Can you point me to where the page cache code does this,
>> > because I've clearly missed something important go by in the past
>> > few months...
>>
>> Sorry, should have been more clear that this patch set added that
>> capability in patch-4.  The idea is to claim some unused extended page
>> flags to stash priority bits.  Yes, the PageSetAdvice() helper needs
>> to be fixed up to do the flags update atomically, and yes this
>> precludes hinting on 32-bit platforms.  I also think that
>> bio_add_page() is the better place to read the per-page priority into
>> the bio.  We felt ok deferring these items until after the initial
>> RFC.
>
> I think that using page flags for this is a 'orrible idea. Yeah,
> it's a neat hack that you can use for proff of concept
> demonstrations, but my biggest concern is that it isn't a scalable
> channel for carrying IO priority information through the page cache.
> e.g. it can't carry existing ionice priority scheduling information,
> it can't carry blkcg IO control information, etc.
>
> So, really, I think that this buffered write IO priority issue is
> bigger than this patch series, and we need to solve it properly
> rather than hack ugly special cases into core infrastructure
> that are an evolutionary dead-end....
>
>> >> > IOWs, to make effective use of this the task will need different
>> >> > cache hints for each different type of data needs to do IO on, and
>> >> > so overloading IO priorities just seems the wrong direction to be
>> >> > starting from.
>> >>
>> >> There's also the fadvise() enabling that could be bolted on top of
>> >> this capability.  But, before that step, is a thread-id per-caching
>> >> context too much to ask?
>> >
>> > If we do it that way, we are stuck with it forever. So let's get our
>> > ducks in line first before pulling the trigger...
>>
>> Are you objecting to ionice as the interface or per-pid based hinting
>> in general?
>
> Neither. It's the implementation I don't like.
>

Fair enough.  The page flags hack was indeed a hack to get an RFC out
the door instead of implementing a proper look-aside data structure
for remembering page cache io-priority.  We'll iterate from here...
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