Re: [PATCH v4 1/3] FUSE: Implement atomic lookup + create

[Dharmendra Hans <dharamhans87@gmail.com>]

On Wed, May 4, 2022 at 1:24 AM Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 03:55:19PM +0530, Dharmendra Singh wrote:
> > From: Dharmendra Singh <dsingh@ddn.com>
> >
> > When we go for creating a file (O_CREAT), we trigger
> > a lookup to FUSE USER SPACE. It is very  much likely
> > that file does not exist yet as O_CREAT is passed to
> > open(). This lookup can be avoided and can be performed
> > as part of create call into libfuse.
> >
> > This lookup + create in single call to libfuse and finally
> > to USER SPACE has been named as atomic create. It is expected
> > that USER SPACE create the file, open it and fills in the
> > attributes which are then used to make inode stand/revalidate
> > in the kernel cache. Also if file was newly created(does not
> > exist yet by this time) in USER SPACE then it should be indicated
> > in `struct fuse_file_info` by setting a bit which is again used by
> > libfuse to send some flags back to fuse kernel to indicate that
> > that file was newly created. These flags are used by kernel to
> > indicate changes in parent directory.
>
> Reading the existing code a little bit more and trying to understand
> existing semantics. And that will help me unerstand what new is being
> done.
>
> So current fuse_atomic_open() does following.
>
> A. Looks up dentry (if d_in_lookup() is set).
> B. If dentry is positive or O_CREAT is not set, return.
> C. If server supports atomic create + open, use that to create file and
>    open it as well.
> D. If server does not support atomic create + open, just create file
>    using "mknod" and return. VFS will take care of opening the file.
>
> Now with this patch, new flow is.
>
> A. Look up dentry if d_in_lookup() is set as well as either file is not
>    being created or fc->no_atomic_create is set. This basiclally means
>    skip lookup if atomic_create is supported and file is being created.
>
> B. Remains same. if dentry is positive or O_CREATE is not set, return.
>
> C. If server supports new atomic_create(), use that.
>
> D. If not, if server supports atomic create + open, use that
>
> E. If not, fall back to mknod and do not open file.
>
> So to me this new functionality is basically atomic "lookup + create +
> open"?
>
> Or may be not. I see we check "fc->no_create" and fallback to mknod.
>
>         if (fc->no_create)
>                 goto mknod;
>
> So fc->no_create is representing both old atomic "create + open" as well
> as new "lookup + create + open" ?
>
> It might be obvious to you, but it is not to me. So will be great if
> you shed some light on this.
>

I think you got it right now. New atomic create does what you
mentioned as new flow.  It does  lookup + create + open in single call
(being called as atomic create) to USER SPACE. mknod is a special case
where the file system does not have a create call implemented. I think
its legacy probably goes back to Linux 2.4 if I am not wrong. We did
not make any changes into that.

Second patch avoids lookup for open calls. 3rd patch avoids lookup in
de_revalidate() but for non-dir. And only in case when default
permissions are not enabled.