Re: [BUG] active zones exceeded error with max_open_zones

[Sean Anderson <seanga2@gmail.com>]

On 4/23/25 23:10, Damien Le Moal wrote:
> On 4/24/25 02:11, Sean Anderson wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm getting an "active zones exceeded" error when running fio with
>> --rw=randwrite mode:
>>
>> # fio --bs=4k --rw=randwrite --norandommap --fsync=1 --number_ios=16384 --name=flushes --direct=1 --zonemode=zbd --max_open_zones=1978 --filename=/dev/my_zone_dev
> 
> --max_open_zones=1978 is an extremely large value that likely exceeds the drive
> capabilities, which is what fio is telling you.
> What are your drive maximum open and active zones limits ?
> 
> cat /sys/block/my_zone_dev/queue/max_open_zones
> cat /sys/block/my_zone_dev/queue/max_active_zones

This is correct for the drive.

> fio will use the min_not_zero of these 2 values as the maximum number of zones
> that can be written simultaneously. Especially if your drive has an active zone
> limit, you *cannot* write to more zones than that limit at the same time.
> fio will default to max_open_zones=min_not_zero(drive max open, drive max
> active) and for a random write workload, it will:
> - pick zones randomly up to max_open_zones
> - direct write IOs to a randomly chosen zone in the current set of open zones
> and when an open zone becomes full, randomly pick another zone to replace it.

Well the issue is that it appears to just pick random zones, not random open zones.

> For your workload, if you want to measure the maximum "random" write performance
> of your disk, simply do NOT specify --max_open_zones=. fio will pick the best
> possible number for you.

Same issue.

--Sean

>> flushes: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=(R) 4096B-4096B, (W) 4096B-4096B, (T) 4096B-4096B, ioengine=psync, iodepth=1
>> fio-3.39
>> Starting 1 process
>> active zones exceeded error, dev my_zone_dev, sector 189520 op 0x1:(WRITE) flags 0x8800 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
>> fio: io_u error on file /dev/my_zone_dev: Value too large for defined data type: write offset=97034240, buflen=4096
>> /dev/my_zone_dev: Exceeded max_active_zones limit. Check conditions of zones out of I/O ranges.
>> fio: pid=2549, err=75/file:io_u.c:1976, func=io_u error, error=Value too large for defined data type
>>
>> flushes: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err=75 (file:io_u.c:1976, func=io_u error, error=Value too large for defined data type): pid=2549: Wed Apr 23 17:01:03 2025
>>     write: IOPS=262, BW=1050KiB/s (1075kB/s)(9092KiB/8661msec); 0 zone resets
>>       clat (usec): min=983, max=20564, avg=3645.67, stdev=4347.94
>>        lat (usec): min=984, max=20564, avg=3645.75, stdev=4347.94
>>       clat percentiles (usec):
>>        |  1.00th=[  996],  5.00th=[ 1012], 10.00th=[ 1029], 20.00th=[ 1418],
>>        | 30.00th=[ 1434], 40.00th=[ 1434], 50.00th=[ 1450], 60.00th=[ 1450],
>>        | 70.00th=[ 1467], 80.00th=[ 5669], 90.00th=[12256], 95.00th=[12780],
>>        | 99.00th=[15008], 99.50th=[15533], 99.90th=[16712], 99.95th=[17171],
>>        | 99.99th=[20579]
>>      bw (  KiB/s): min=  500, max= 1205, per=100.00%, avg=1052.88, stdev=195.04, samples=17
>>      iops        : min=  125, max=  301, avg=262.88, stdev=48.79, samples=17
>>     lat (usec)   : 1000=1.76%
>>     lat (msec)   : 2=74.05%, 4=1.10%, 10=4.75%, 20=18.25%, 50=0.04%
>>     fsync/fdatasync/sync_file_range:
>>       sync (usec): min=50, max=11641, avg=160.03, stdev=798.31
>>       sync percentiles (usec):
>>        |  1.00th=[   53],  5.00th=[   57], 10.00th=[   66], 20.00th=[   73],
>>        | 30.00th=[   81], 40.00th=[   82], 50.00th=[   83], 60.00th=[   84],
>>        | 70.00th=[   85], 80.00th=[   87], 90.00th=[  178], 95.00th=[  208],
>>        | 99.00th=[  603], 99.50th=[ 1549], 99.90th=[11600], 99.95th=[11600],
>>        | 99.99th=[11600]
>>     cpu          : usr=0.00%, sys=49.31%, ctx=2823, majf=0, minf=181
>>     IO depths    : 1=200.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
>>        submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
>>        complete  : 0=0.1%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
>>        issued rwts: total=0,2274,0,2273 short=0,0,0,0 dropped=0,0,0,0
>>        latency   : target=0, window=0, percentile=100.00%, depth=1
>>
>> Run status group 0 (all jobs):
>>     WRITE: bw=1050KiB/s (1075kB/s), 1050KiB/s-1050KiB/s (1075kB/s-1075kB/s), io=9092KiB (9310kB), run=8661-8661msec
>>
>> Disk stats (read/write):
>>     my_zone_dev: ios=170/4498, sectors=1336/17992, merge=0/0, ticks=0/118, in_queue=230, util=47.80%
>>
>> The issue seems to be that fio writes to a bunch of zones but never
>> finishes them because they're not full yet:
>>
>> # blkzone report -c 16 /dev/my_block_dev
>>     start: 0x000000000, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000020, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000040, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000008 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 4(cl) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000060, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000080, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000000a0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000000c0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000000e0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000100, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000008 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 4(cl) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000120, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000008 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 4(cl) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000140, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000008 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 4(cl) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000160, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x000000180, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000001a0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000010 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 4(cl) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000001c0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>     start: 0x0000001e0, len 0x000020, cap 0x00001f, wptr 0x000000 reset:0 non-seq:0, zcond: 1(em) [type: 2(SEQ_WRITE_REQUIRED)]
>>
>> This issue doesn't seem to occur with --rw=write because sequential
>> writes fill up zones and they get finished automatically.
>>
>> --Sean
> 
>