Re: [RFC PATCH v2] Add new elevator ops for request hint

Jens Axboe
2011-08-11T08:23:37Z

On 2011-08-11 03:14, Shaohua Li wrote:
> 2011/8/11 Shaohua Li <shli@kernel.org>:
>> 2011/8/11 Kyungmin Park <kmpark@infradead.org>:
>>> Hi Jens
>>>
>>> Now eMMC device requires the upper layer information to improve the data
>>> performance and reliability.
>>>
>>> . Context ID
>>> Using the context information, it can sort out the data internally and improve the performance.
>>> The main problem is that it's needed to define "What's the context".
>>> Actually I expect cfq queue has own unique ID but it doesn't so decide to use the pid instead
>>>
>>> . Data Tag
>>> Using the Data Tag (1-bit information), It writes the data at SLC area when it's hot data. So it can make the chip more reliable.
>>> First I expect the REQ_META but current ext4 doesn't pass the WRITE_META. only use the READ_META. so it needs to investigate it.
>>>
>>> With these characteristics, it's helpful to teach the device. After some consideration. it's needed to pass out these information at request data structure.
>>>
>>> Sample usage is following in drivers/mmc/card/block.c
>>>
>>> struct elevator_queue *e = md->queue.queue->elevator;
>>> struct request_hint hint;
>>> int ret;
>>>
>>> if (e->ops->elevator_get_req_hint_fn && req)
>>> ret = e->ops->elevator_get_req_hint_fn(req, &hint);
>> please put this to blkdev.h or similar. directly using it here
>> is abnormal.
> BTW, we can add a (rq->cmd_flags & REQ_ELVPRIV) check here to make
> sure the request is at io scheduler.

Yep, that should all go inside elv_get_request_context() or whatever is
a good name. I don't want the hint structure, the caller can just check
the request flags himself.

So something like:

int elv_get_request_context(struct request_queue *q, struct request *rq)
{
struct elevator_queue *e = q->elevator;

if (!(rq->cmd_flags & REQ_ELVPRIV))
return -1;

if (e->ops->elevator_get_req_context_fn)
return e->ops->elevator_get_req_context_fn(q, rq);

return -1;
}

and then cfq/others adding that helper to provide the mapping.

Context is a bad name, but so is hint. Perhaps app_key would be better,
as it more direcly infers what is being returned.

--
Jens Axboe