From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 17:08:05 -0500 From: Mike Snitzer Message-ID: <20101202220805.GA23388@redhat.com> References: <4CF7A539.1050206@shiftmail.org> <20101202141134.GA22012@infradead.org> <4CF7A9C4.2040607@shiftmail.org> <20101202141737.GA29799@infradead.org> <20101202212227.GA22703@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20101202212227.GA22703@redhat.com> Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] Bugs in mkfs.xfs, device mapper, xfs, and /dev/ram Reply-To: LVM general discussion and development List-Id: LVM general discussion and development List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: LVM general discussion and development Cc: tytso@mit.edu, npiggin@kernel.dk, "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , xfs@oss.sgi.com, Christoph Hellwig , dm-devel@redhat.com, Spelic On Thu, Dec 02 2010 at 4:22pm -0500, Mike Snitzer wrote: > On Thu, Dec 02 2010 at 9:17am -0500, > Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > > On Thu, Dec 02, 2010 at 03:14:28PM +0100, Spelic wrote: > > > On 12/02/2010 03:11 PM, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > > >I'm pretty sure you have CONFIG_DEBUG_BLOCK_EXT_DEVT enabled. This > > > >option must never be enabled, as it causes block devices to be > > > >randomly renumered. Together with the ramdisk driver overloading > > > >the BLKFLSBUF ioctl to discard all data it guarantees you to get > > > >data loss like yours. > > > > > > Nope... > > > > > > # CONFIG_DEBUG_BLOCK_EXT_DEVT is not set > > > > Hmm, I suspect dm-linear's dumb forwarding of ioctls has the same > > effect. > > For the benefit of others: > - mkfs.xfs will avoid sending BLKFLSBUF to any device whose major is > ramdisk's major, this dates back to 2004: > http://oss.sgi.com/archives/xfs/2004-08/msg00463.html > - but because a kpartx partition overlay (linear DM mapping) is used for > the /dev/ram0p1 device, mkfs.xfs only sees a device with DM's major > - so mkfs.xfs sends BLKFLSBUF to the DM device blissfully unaware that > the backing device (behind the DM linear target) is a brd device > - DM will forward the BLKFLSBUF ioctl to brd, which triggers > drivers/block/brd.c:brd_ioctl (nuking the entire ramdisk in the > process) > > So coming full circle this is what hch was referring to when he > mentioned: > 1) "ramdisk driver overloading the BLKFLSBUF ioctl ..." > 2) "dm-linear's dumb forwarding of ioctls ..." > > I really can't see DM adding a specific check for ramdisk's major when > forwarding the BLKFLSBUF ioctl. > > brd has direct partition support (see commit d7853d1f8932c) so maybe > kpartx should just blacklist /dev/ram devices? > > Alternatively, what about switching brd away from overloading BLKFLSBUF > to a real implementation of (overloaded) BLKDISCARD support in brd.c? > One that doesn't blindly nuke the entire device but that properly > processes the discard request. Hmm, any chance we could revisit this approach? http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0405.3/0998.html