Re: [PATCH 2/2] btrfs: add ioctl for directly writing compressed data

Omar Sandoval
2019-09-06T21:27:14Z

On Sat, Sep 07, 2019 at 07:07:17AM +1000, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 06, 2019 at 11:19:49AM -0700, Omar Sandoval wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 12:10:12PM +1000, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 12:13:26PM -0700, Omar Sandoval wrote:
> > > > From: Omar Sandoval <osandov@fb.com>
> > > >
> > > > This adds an API for writing compressed data directly to the filesystem.
> > > > The use case that I have in mind is send/receive: currently, when
> > > > sending data from one compressed filesystem to another, the sending side
> > > > decompresses the data and the receiving side recompresses it before
> > > > writing it out. This is wasteful and can be avoided if we can just send
> > > > and write compressed extents. The send part will be implemented in a
> > > > separate series, as this ioctl can stand alone.
> > > >
> > > > The interface is essentially pwrite(2) with some extra information:
> > > >
> > > > - The input buffer contains the compressed data.
> > > > - Both the compressed and decompressed sizes of the data are given.
> > > > - The compression type (zlib, lzo, or zstd) is given.
> >
> > Hi, Dave,
> >
> > > So why can't you do this with pwritev2()? Heaps of flags, and
> > > use a second iovec to hold the decompressed size of the previous
> > > iovec. i.e.
> > >
> > > iov[0].iov_base = compressed_data;
> > > iov[0].iov_len = compressed_size;
> > > iov[1].iov_base = NULL;
> > > iov[1].iov_len = uncompressed_size;
> > > pwritev2(fd, iov, 2, offset, RWF_COMPRESSED_ZLIB);
> > >
> > > And you don't need to reinvent pwritev() with some whacky ioctl that
> > > is bound to be completely screwed up is ways not noticed until
> > > someone else tries to use it...
> >
> > This is a good suggestion, thanks. I hadn't considered (ab?)using iovecs
> > in this way.
>
> Yeah, it is a bit of API abuse to pass per-iovec context in the next
> iovec, but ISTR it being proposed in past times for other
> mechanisms. I think it's far better than a whole new filesystem
> private ioctl interface and structure to do what is effectively
> direct IO...
>
> > One modification I'd make would be to put the encoding into the second
> > iovec and use a single RWF_ENCODED flag so that we don't have to keep
> > stealing from RWF_* every time we add a new compression
> > algorithm/encryption type/whatever:
> >
> > iov[0].iov_base = compressed_data;
> > iov[0].iov_len = compressed_size;
> > iov[1].iov_base = (void *)IOV_ENCODING_ZLIB;
> > iov[1].iov_len = uncompressed_size;
> > pwritev2(fd, iov, 2, offset, RWF_ENCODED);
> >
> > Making every other iovec a metadata iovec in this way would be a major
> > pain to plumb through the iov_iter and VFS code, though. Instead, we
> > could put the metadata in iov[0] and the encoded data in iov[1..iovcnt -
> > 1]:
> >
> > iov[0].iov_base = (void *)IOV_ENCODING_ZLIB;
> > iov[0].iov_len = unencoded_len;
> > iov[1].iov_base = encoded_data1;
> > iov[1].iov_len = encoded_size1;
> > iov[2].iov_base = encoded_data2;
> > iov[2].iov_len = encoded_size2;
> > pwritev2(fd, iov, 3, offset, RWF_ENCODED);
> >
> > In my opinion, these are both reasonable interfaces. The former allows
> > the user to write multiple encoded "extents" at once, while the latter
> > allows writing a single encoded extent from scattered buffers. The
> > latter is much simpler to implement ;) Thoughts?
>
> Both reasonable, and I have no real concern about how it is done as
> long as the format is well documented and works for both read and
> write.
>
> The only other thing I think we need to be careful of is that
> interface works with AIO (via the RWF flag) and the new uioring async
> interface - I think thw RWF flag is all that is needed there). I
> think that's another good reason for taking the preadv2/pwritev2
> path, as that should all largely just work with the right iocb
> frobbing in the syscall context...

A symmetric interface for preadv2 would look something like this:

iov[1].iov_base = encoded_data1;
iov[1].iov_len = encoded_size1;
iov[2].iov_base = encoded_data2;
iov[2].iov_len = encoded_size2;
preadv2(fd, iov, 3, offset, RWF_ENCODED);
/*
* iov[0].iov_base gets filled in with the encoding flags,
* iov[0].iov_len gets filled in with unencoded length.
*/

But, iov is passed as a const struct iovec *, so it'd be nasty to write
to it in the RWF_ENCODED case. Maybe we actually want to pass the
encoding information through an extra indirection. Something along the
lines of this for writes:

struct encoded_rw {
size_t unencoded_len;
int compression;
int encryption;
...
};

struct encoded_rw encoded = {
unencoded_len,
ENCODED_RW_ZLIB,
};
iov[0].iov_base = &encoded;
iov[0].iov_len = sizeof(encoded);
iov[1].iov_base = encoded_data1;
iov[1].iov_len = encoded_size1;
iov[2].iov_base = encoded_data2;
iov[2].iov_len = encoded_size2;
pwritev2(fd, iov, 3, offset, RWF_ENCODED);

And similar for reads:

struct encoded_rw encoded;
iov[0].iov_base = &encoded;
iov[0].iov_len = sizeof(encoded);
iov[1].iov_base = encoded_data1;
iov[1].iov_len = encoded_size1;
iov[2].iov_base = encoded_data2;
iov[2].iov_len = encoded_size2;
preadv2(fd, iov, 3, offset, RWF_ENCODED);
/* encoded gets filled in with the encoding information. */

I'll draft something with this interface.