Re: [PATCH 09/21] xfs: add version 3 inode format with CRCs

Ben Myers
2013-04-02T22:44:37Z

Hey Dave,

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 12:48:28PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 07:53:07PM -0500, Ben Myers wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 09:56:00AM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 12:11:04PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 11:03:21AM -0500, Ben Myers wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:30:42PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > > > > xfs_buf_zero(fbuf, 0, ninodes << mp->m_sb.sb_inodelog);
> > > > > > for (i = 0; i < ninodes; i++) {
> > > > > > int ioffset = i << mp->m_sb.sb_inodelog;
> > > > > > - uint isize = sizeof(struct xfs_dinode);
> > > > > > + uint isize = xfs_dinode_size(version);
> > > > > >
> > > > > > free = xfs_make_iptr(mp, fbuf, i);
> > > > > > free->di_magic = cpu_to_be16(XFS_DINODE_MAGIC);
> > > > > > free->di_version = version;
> > > > > > free->di_gen = cpu_to_be32(gen);
> > > > > > free->di_next_unlinked = cpu_to_be32(NULLAGINO);
> > > > > > +
> > > > > > + if (version == 3) {
> > > > > > + free->di_ino = cpu_to_be64(ino);
> > > > > > + ino++;
> > > > > > + uuid_copy(&free->di_uuid, &mp->m_sb.sb_uuid);
> > > > > > + xfs_dinode_calc_crc(mp, free);
> > > > > > + }
> > > > > > +
> > > > > > xfs_trans_log_buf(tp, fbuf, ioffset, ioffset + isize - 1);
> > > > >
> > > > > If I have it right, it's ok not to log the literal are here (even though the
> > > > > crc was calculated including the literal area) because the log is protected by
> > > > > its own crcs and recovery will recalculate the crc.
> > > >
> > > > Prior to CRCs it's OK not to log the literal areas because the
> > > > contents really don't matter. The entire buffer is zeroed because
> > > > it's faster than zeroing individual inode cores one by one and it
> > > > ensures that we can always tell a freshly allocated inode block with
> > > > xfs_db because the literal areas are all zero (i.e. good for
> > > > debugging). But these are conveniences, not a necessity, and hence
> > > > the advantage of not logging the literal areas reduces the overhead
> > > > of logging inode allocations *significantly*.
> > > >
> > > > > What do we have in the
> > > > > literal area after log replay in that case?
> > > >
> > > > For non-CRC inode buffers, it doesn't matter.
> > > >
> > > > But you are right that it does matter for CRC enabled inode buffers
> > > > as it will result in the CRC in the inode core being incorrect. I'l
> > > > havea think about this - there are a couple of potential ways of
> > > > solving the problem, and I need to think about them a bit first.
> > >
> > > Ben, FYI: I've taken the easy way out for this - log the entire
> > > inode buffer rather than just the inode core. The CRC means we are
> > > dependent on having all the inode logged so that seems to be the
> > > simplest way to deal with this problem overall, even though it
> > > increases the amount of metadata logged for inode creates
> > > substantially.
> > >
> > > I'll address this potential performance issue in future with new
> > > inode create and unlink transactions that allow us to avoid logging
> > > buffers for all inode modifications. There are other good reasons
> > > for doing this as well (e.g. avoid the subtly broken special
> > > handling of physical inode buffer logging vs logical inode logging
> > > in log recovery), so I think this is best to just take the simple
> > > option here....
> >
> > It seems like this is a more general problem with fresh on-disk
> > structures. When we calculate crc and log only part of a buffer we are
> > prone to the crc being incorrect after log replay because the unlogged
> > portions of the buffer are still undefined. They aren't the 0s we
> > calculated crcs with.
>
> But it doesn't matter for all other metadata as we don't log CRC
> fields except in the inode/dquot at allocation. It is the exception
> rather than the rule.
>
> > I have a couple suggestions:
> >
> > 1) We could read the undefined garbage from disk before we initialize
> > the structure and then calculate the crc. That way if we log only parts
> > of the result the crc would still match after a crash.
>
> The overhead of reading every inode cluster from disk during
> allocation will drop create performance by orders of magnitude. i.e.
> far worse in terms of performance than logging the entire buffer.

I didn't say it was a *good* suggestion. ;)

> > 2) Create a new transaction to write a known pattern over the
> > entire buffer, then initialize the buffer with that pattern,
> > calculate the crc, and still log only the parts of the buffer
> > which were modified. In the non-crash case we still need to
> > arrange for the buffer to be patterned after the log wraps, but it
> > has the advantage of not having to log large structures just to
> > zero them.
>
> We need to ensure we log the entire object if we are logging the CRC
> of the object.

We don't need to log the entire object if we can arrange for the contents of
the buffer to be a known pattern after recovery and then calculate the CRC
against that. It's just the initialization that is problematic. The rest of
the time the contents are already cached anyway.

> In this case, the initialisation and calculation of
> the CRC needs to be atomic, so it needs to be a single transactions.

I agree that the initialisation of the block and the calculation of the crc
must be in the same transaction. It would need to be a new log item type that
specifies a pattern (normally zero) and a length to be written to the buffer.
I used the wrong terminology, as usual.

> That's what logging the entire buffer does.

Yep. I'm just pointing out that if logging the entire structure becomes an
issue we have some other options. This could be useful for other reasons too,
e.g. to prevent stale data exposure after a crash.

Regards,
Ben