Re: [RFC] Draft Linux kernel interfaces for ZBC drives

[Eric Sandeen <sandeen@sandeen.net>]

On 1/30/14, 11:38 PM, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> I've been reading the draft ZBC specifications, especially 14-010r1[1],
> and I've created the following draft kernel interfaces, which I present
> as a strawman proposal for comments.
> 
> [1] http://www.t10.org/cgi-bin/ac.pl?t=d&f=14-010r1.pdf
> 
> As noted in the comments below, supporting variable length SMR zones
> does result in more complexity at the file system / userspace interface
> layer.  Life would certainly get simpler if these zones were fixed
> length.

Hi Ted - 

Just to flesh out the context for these a bit, what do you envision as the
consumer of these interfaces?  Things in the block layer?  A DM target?
Existing filesystems?  A new filesystem?

I suppose we'll need an interface similar to this at whatever layer has
to deal with it.  I've got my own opinions on where we might handle
it (IMHO, retrofitting 3 or 4 major filesystems sounds like more
than really want to take on), but it'd be nice to know what you're
thinking here.

Thanks,
-Eric