Re: [PATCH 0/6] detect online disk resize

[Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>]

On Thu, Sep 04 2008, Andrew Patterson wrote:
> Resubmitting this patch against Jens's linux-2.6-block:for-2.6.28 repo.
> 
> This patch series handles online disk resizes that are currently not
> completely recognized by the kernel using the existing revalidate_disk
> routines.  An online resize can occur when growing or shrinking a
> Fibre Channel LUN or perhaps by adding a disk to an existing RAID
> volume.
> 
> The kernel currently recognizes a device size change when the
> lower-level revalidate_disk routines are called; however, the block
> layer does not use the new size while it has any current openers on
> the device. So, for example, if LVM has an volume open on the device,
> you will generally not see the size change until after a reboot. We
> fix this problem by creating a wrapper to be used with lower-level
> revalidate_disk routines.  This wrapper first calls the lower-level
> driver's revalidate_disk routine. It then compares the gendisk
> capacity to the block devices inode size. If there is a difference, we
> adjust the block device's size. If the size has changed, we then flush
> the disk for safety. The size is also checked in rescan_partitions
> which is called when the device is opened or when the BLKRRPART ioctl
> is called.
> 
> There are several ways to "kick off" a device size change:
> 
> 1. For SCSI devices do:
> 
>   # echo 1 > /sys/class/scsi_device/<device>/device/rescan
> 
>   or
> 
>   # blockdev --rereadpt <device file>
> 
> 2. Other devices (not device mapper)
> 
>   # blockdev --rereadpt <device file>
> 
> I have tested this patch on SCSI and SmartArray (cciss)
> devices. Device mapper still does not recognize device size changes
> until the device is restarted.
> 
> 
> Diff stats:
> 
>  drivers/scsi/sd.c     |    4 +-
>  fs/block_dev.c        |   91 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>  fs/partitions/check.c |    3 +-
>  include/linux/fs.h    |    3 ++
>  4 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
> 
> Commits:
> 
>  - Wrapper for lower-level revalidate_disk routines.
>  - Adjust block device size after an online resize of a disk.
>  - Check for device resize in rescan_partitions.
>  - SCSI sd driver calls revalidate_disk wrapper.
>  - Added flush_disk to factor out common buffer cache flushing code.
>  - Call flush_disk() after detecting an online resize.

Thanks Andrew, applied.

-- 
Jens Axboe