Re: [RFC PATCH v5 2/4] block: add simple copy support

Damien Le Moal
2021-04-12T00:25:31Z

On 2021/04/07 20:33, Selva Jove wrote:
> Initially I started moving the dm-kcopyd interface to the block layer
> as a generic interface.
> Once I dig deeper in dm-kcopyd code, I figured that dm-kcopyd is
> tightly coupled with dm_io()
>
> To move dm-kcopyd to block layer, it would also require dm_io code to
> be moved to block layer.
> It would cause havoc in dm layer, as it is the backbone of the
> dm-layer and needs complete
> rewriting of dm-layer. Do you see any other way of doing this without
> having to move dm_io code
> or to have redundant code ?

Right. Missed that. So reusing dm-kcopyd and making it a common interface will
take some more efforts. OK, then. For the first round of commits, let's forget
about this. But I still think that your emulation could be a lot better than a
loop doing blocking writes after blocking reads.

[...]
>>> +int blkdev_issue_copy(struct block_device *src_bdev, int nr_srcs,
>>> + struct range_entry *src_rlist, struct block_device *dest_bdev,
>>> + sector_t dest, gfp_t gfp_mask, int flags)
>>> +{
>>> + struct request_queue *q = bdev_get_queue(src_bdev);
>>> + struct request_queue *dest_q = bdev_get_queue(dest_bdev);
>>> + struct blk_copy_payload *payload;
>>> + sector_t bs_mask, copy_size;
>>> + int ret;
>>> +
>>> + ret = blk_prepare_payload(src_bdev, nr_srcs, src_rlist, gfp_mask,
>>> + &payload, &copy_size);
>>> + if (ret)
>>> + return ret;
>>> +
>>> + bs_mask = (bdev_logical_block_size(dest_bdev) >> 9) - 1;
>>> + if (dest & bs_mask) {
>>> + return -EINVAL;
>>> + goto out;
>>> + }
>>> +
>>> + if (q == dest_q && q->limits.copy_offload) {
>>> + ret = blk_copy_offload(src_bdev, payload, dest, gfp_mask);
>>> + if (ret)
>>> + goto out;
>>> + } else if (flags & BLKDEV_COPY_NOEMULATION) {
>>
>> Why ? whoever calls blkdev_issue_copy() wants a copy to be done. Why would that
>> user say "Fail on me if the device does not support copy" ??? This is a weird
>> interface in my opinion.
>>
>
> BLKDEV_COPY_NOEMULATION flag was introduced to allow blkdev_issue_copy() callers
> to use their native copying method instead of the emulated copy that I
> added. This way we
> ensure that dm uses the hw-assisted copy and if that is not present,
> it falls back to existing
> copy method.
>
> The other users who don't have their native emulation can use this
> emulated-copy implementation.

I do not understand. Emulation or not should be entirely driven by the device
reporting support for simple copy (or not). It does not matter which component
is issuing the simple copy call: an FS to a real device, and FS to a DM device
or a DM target driver. If the underlying device reported support for simple
copy, use that. Otherwise, emulate with read/write. What am I missing here ?

[...]
>>> @@ -565,6 +569,12 @@ int blk_stack_limits(struct queue_limits *t, struct queue_limits *b,
>>> if (b->chunk_sectors)
>>> t->chunk_sectors = gcd(t->chunk_sectors, b->chunk_sectors);
>>>
>>> + /* simple copy not supported in stacked devices */
>>> + t->copy_offload = 0;
>>> + t->max_copy_sectors = 0;
>>> + t->max_copy_range_sectors = 0;
>>> + t->max_copy_nr_ranges = 0;
>>
>> You do not need this. Limits not explicitely initialized are 0 already.
>> But I do not see why you can't support copy on stacked devices. That should be
>> feasible taking the min() for each of the above limit.
>>
>
> Disabling stacked device support was feedback from v2.
>
> https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/patch/20201204094659.12732-2-selvakuma.s1@samsung.com/

Right. But the initialization to 0 is still not needed. The fields are already
initialized to 0.

--
Damien Le Moal
Western Digital Research