Re: [PATCH 0/6][RFC] Introduce FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for fallocate

["Lukáš Czerner" <lczerner@redhat.com>]

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On Tue, 18 Feb 2014, Dave Chinner wrote:

> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:41:42 +1100
> From: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
> To: Lukáš Czerner <lczerner@redhat.com>
> Cc: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, tytso@mit.edu, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
>     xfs@oss.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/6][RFC] Introduce FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for
>     fallocate
> 
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 10:09:48AM +0100, Lukáš Czerner wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Feb 2014, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > 
> > > Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 19:33:24 +1100
> > > From: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
> > > To: Lukas Czerner <lczerner@redhat.com>
> > > Cc: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, tytso@mit.edu, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
> > >     xfs@oss.sgi.com
> > > Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/6][RFC] Introduce FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for
> > >     fallocate
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 12:01:38PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 04:08:17PM +0100, Lukas Czerner wrote:
> > > > > Introduce new FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for fallocate. This has the same
> > > > > functionality as xfs ioctl XFS_IOC_ZERO_RANGE.
> > > > > 
> > > > > It can be used to convert a range of file to zeros preferably without
> > > > > issuing data IO. Blocks should be preallocated for the regions that span
> > > > > holes in the file, and the entire range is preferable converted to
> > > > > unwritten extents - even though file system may choose to zero out the
> > > > > extent or do whatever which will result in reading zeros from the range
> > > > > while the range remains allocated for the file.
> > > > > 
> > > > > This can be also used to preallocate blocks past EOF in the same way as
> > > > > with fallocate. Flag FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE which should cause the inode
> > > > > size to remain the same.
> > > > > 
> > > > > You can test this feature yourself using xfstests, of fallocate(1) however
> > > > > you'll need patches for util_linux, xfsprogs and xfstests which you
> > > > > can find here:
> > > > > 
> > > > > http://people.redhat.com/lczerner/zero_range/
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'll post the patches after we agree and merge the kernel functionality.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I tested this mostly with a subset of xfstests using fsx and fsstress and
> > > > > even with new generic/290 which is just a copy of xfs/290 usinz fzero
> > > > > command for xfs_io instead of zero (which uses ioctl). I was testing on
> > > > > x86_64 and ppc64 with block sizes of 1024, 2048 and 4096.
> > > > 
> > > > You also want to convert xfs/242 to be a generic test - it uses the
> > > > _generic_test_punch helper to test all the corner cases across
> > > > different extent type transitions.
> > 
> > That was the plan originally, however it uses xfs bmap which is not
> > supported for other file systems. But I can take a better look and
> > possibly port it to generic as well.
> 
> Simply pass fiemap rather than "bmap -v" like all the other falloc
> tests do. The output of the xfs_io fiemap and bmap commands is
> pretty much identical so this shouldn't be an issue.

ok, will do.

> 
> > > > > ./check generic/076 generic/232 generic/013 generic/070 generic/269 generic/083 generic/117 generic/068 generic/231 generic/127 generic/091 generic/075 generic/112 generic/263 generic/091 generic/075 generic/256 generic/255 generic/316 generic/300 generic/290;
> > > 
> > > FWIW. if that's a group of tests you consider good for testing
> > > extent tree modifications, then can you create a test group for
> > > these by adding "extent" to each of the tests in the group file?
> > 
> > I've made patches adding support for FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE into fsx
> > and fsstress so those tests are mostly tests which are using fsx and
> > fsstress.
> 
> Ok, so it's a "fallocate" test group, then?

More like "fsx_fsstress" group, which might sound as a terrible name
for the group but it explains it quite well. So if you do not have
anything against that I'll call the new group "fsx_fsstress"

Thanks!
-Lukas

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dave.
>