linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v20 02/12] Add infrastructure for copy offload in block and request layer.

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Date: Tue, 28 May 2024 07:07:51 -0700
From: Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@....org>
To: Hannes Reinecke <hare@...e.de>, Nitesh Shetty <nj.shetty@...sung.com>,
 Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
 Alasdair Kergon <agk@...hat.com>, Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...nel.org>,
 Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@...hat.com>, Keith Busch <kbusch@...nel.org>,
 Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>, Sagi Grimberg <sagi@...mberg.me>,
 Chaitanya Kulkarni <kch@...dia.com>, Alexander Viro
 <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>, Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>,
 Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc: martin.petersen@...cle.com, david@...morbit.com,
 damien.lemoal@...nsource.wdc.com, anuj20.g@...sung.com, joshi.k@...sung.com,
 nitheshshetty@...il.com, gost.dev@...sung.com, linux-block@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
 dm-devel@...ts.linux.dev, linux-nvme@...ts.infradead.org,
 linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v20 02/12] Add infrastructure for copy offload in block
 and request layer.

On 5/21/24 00:01, Hannes Reinecke wrote:
> On 5/20/24 12:20, Nitesh Shetty wrote:
>> We add two new opcode REQ_OP_COPY_DST, REQ_OP_COPY_SRC.
>> Since copy is a composite operation involving src and dst sectors/lba,
>> each needs to be represented by a separate bio to make it compatible
>> with device mapper.
>> We expect caller to take a plug and send bio with destination 
>> information,
>> followed by bio with source information.
>> Once the dst bio arrives we form a request and wait for source
>> bio. Upon arrival of source bio we merge these two bio's and send
>> corresponding request down to device driver.
>> Merging non copy offload bio is avoided by checking for copy specific
>> opcodes in merge function.
>>
> I am a bit unsure about leveraging 'merge' here. As Bart pointed out, 
> this is arguably as mis-use of the 'merge' functionality as we don't
> actually merge bios, but rather use the information from these bios to
> form the actual request.
> Wouldn't it be better to use bio_chain here, and send out the eventual
> request from the end_io function of the bio chain?

Let me formulate this a bit stronger: I think this patch series abuses
the merge functionality and also that it should use another mechanism
for combining REQ_OP_COPY_DST and REQ_OP_COPY_SRC. See also my email
with concerns about using the merge functionality:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-block/eda6c198-3a29-4da4-94db-305cfe28d3d6@acm.org/.

Thanks,

Bart.