linux-kernel - Re: [PATCHv3 0/8] direct-io: even more flexible io vectors

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Message-ID: <87cy8ir835.fsf@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:29:58 +0530
From: Ritesh Harjani (IBM) <ritesh.list@...il.com>
To: Keith Busch <kbusch@...nel.org>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc: Keith Busch <kbusch@...a.com>, linux-block@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org, snitzer@...nel.org, axboe@...nel.dk, dw@...idwei.uk, brauner@...nel.org, hch@....de, martin.petersen@...cle.com, djwong@...nel.org, linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org, viro@...iv.linux.org.uk, Jan Kara <jack@...e.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCHv3 0/8] direct-io: even more flexible io vectors

Keith Busch <kbusch@...nel.org> writes:

> On Mon, Aug 25, 2025 at 02:07:15PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
>> On Fri 22-08-25 18:57:08, Ritesh Harjani wrote:
>> > Keith Busch <kbusch@...a.com> writes:
>> > >
>> > >   - EXT4 falls back to buffered io for writes but not for reads.
>> > 
>> > ++linux-ext4 to get any historical context behind why the difference of
>> > behaviour in reads v/s writes for EXT4 DIO. 
>> 
>> Hum, how did you test? Because in the basic testing I did (with vanilla
>> kernel) I get EINVAL when doing unaligned DIO write in ext4... We should be
>> falling back to buffered IO only if the underlying file itself does not
>> support any kind of direct IO.
>
> Simple test case (dio-offset-test.c) below.
>
> I also ran this on vanilla kernel and got these results:
>
>   # mkfs.ext4 /dev/vda
>   # mount /dev/vda /mnt/ext4/
>   # make dio-offset-test
>   # ./dio-offset-test /mnt/ext4/foobar
>   write: Success
>   read: Invalid argument
>
> I tracked the "write: Success" down to ext4's handling for the "special"
> -ENOTBLK error after ext4_want_directio_fallback() returns "true".
>

Right. Ext4 has fallback only for dio writes but not for DIO reads... 

buffered
static inline bool ext4_want_directio_fallback(unsigned flags, ssize_t written)
{
	/* must be a directio to fall back to buffered */
	if ((flags & (IOMAP_WRITE | IOMAP_DIRECT)) !=
		    (IOMAP_WRITE | IOMAP_DIRECT))
		return false;

    ...
}

So basically the path is ext4_file_[read|write]_iter() -> iomap_dio_rw
    -> iomap_dio_bio_iter() -> return -EINVAL. i.e. from...


	if ((pos | length) & (bdev_logical_block_size(iomap->bdev) - 1) ||
	    !bdev_iter_is_aligned(iomap->bdev, dio->submit.iter))
		return -EINVAL;

EXT4 then fallsback to buffered-io only for writes, but not for reads. 


-ritesh


> dio-offset-test.c:
> ---
> #ifndef _GNU_SOURCE
> #define _GNU_SOURCE
> #endif
>
> #include <sys/uio.h>
> #include <err.h>
> #include <errno.h>
> #include <fcntl.h>
> #include <stdlib.h>
> #include <stdio.h>
> #include <unistd.h>
>
> int main(int argc, char **argv)
> {
> 	unsigned int pagesize;
> 	struct iovec iov[2];
> 	int ret, fd;
> 	void *buf;
>
> 	if (argc < 2)
> 		err(EINVAL, "usage: %s <file>", argv[0]);
> 	
> 	pagesize = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
> 	ret = posix_memalign((void **)&buf, pagesize, 2 * pagesize);
> 	if (ret)
> 		err(errno, "%s: failed to allocate buf", __func__);
> 	
> 	fd = open(argv[1], O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_DIRECT);
> 	if (fd < 0)
> 		err(errno, "%s: failed to open %s", __func__, argv[1]);
> 	
> 	iov[0].iov_base = buf;
> 	iov[0].iov_len = 256;
> 	iov[1].iov_base = buf + pagesize;
> 	iov[1].iov_len = 256;
> 	ret = pwritev(fd, iov, 2, 0);
> 	perror("write");
> 	
> 	ret = preadv(fd, iov, 2, 0);
> 	perror("read");
> 	
> 	return 0;
> }
> --