Re: [PATCH 00/17] Parent Pointers V3

["Darrick J. Wong" <darrick.wong@oracle.com>]

On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 12:06:20PM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 09:48:24AM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> >> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 07:30:01AM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> >> >> If there is no such reason I would like to propose to store parent
> >> >> pointers of directory inodes with an xattr name that is diroffset agnostic,
> >> >> namely:
> >> >>
> >> >> struct xfs_dir_parent_name_rec {
> >> >>       __be64  p_ino;
> >> >>       __be32  p_gen;
> >> >> } __attribute__((packed));
> >> >>
> >> >> It makes sense for metadata consistency anyway, but the reason I am
> >> >> proposing this is so xfs_fs_get_name() could be implemented at O(1).
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> But you missed my question completely. I understand why diroffset
> >> is needed for non-dir. But directories are not allowed to have 2 differnt
> >> parents nor 2 entries in the parent dir, so I was asking if we can
> >> special case parent pointer stored in *directory inodes*.
> >
> > I did answer it - not directly, but the answers are there.
> >
> >> Am I missing something?
> >
> > Because you are just looking at it from a "reverse lookup"
> > perspective, I suspect you're not seeing the "detect and
> > reconstruct" broken directory structure side of the picture.
> >
> > The directory offset is redundant information which needed to fully
> > cross-check and, if necessary, reconstruct broken direcotry
> > structures. E.g. if a directory is missing a block due to a bad
> > sector, we can reconstruct that block exactly from the parent
> > pointer information because we know exactly what inodes had dirents
> > in the block that was lost, and we know exactly what order they
> > appeared in the directory block...
> >
> > If we don't have that info for all child inodes (directory or
> > regular file), we can't tell the difference between "lost/stale
> > child that we should ignore" and "child that was referenced by the
> > block we lost". So even directories need to have the diroffset in
> > their parent pointer....
> >
> 
> I see. Thanks for explaining that point.
> In that case, I would like to re-phrase my proposal to store parent
> diroffset in the value rather than in the key of xattr, i.e.:
>         name={parent inode #, parent inode generation}
>         value={dirent filename, dirent offset}
> OR   value={dirent offset, dirent filename}

Not possible, because the attribute name must be unique:

$ cd /root
$ echo hi > a
$ ln a b

Produces in a:

(rootino, rootinogen) -> (0, 'a')
(rootino, rootinogen) -> (1, 'b')

We must store both pptrs, but we're not allowed to have duplicate attr
names.

In reference to where this thread went over the weekend -- I don't look
favorably on the idea of having two different parent pointer disk
formats -- there has to be a very good justification for forcing
everyone to remember which format applies in which cases.

--D

> 
> I guess you do see the value of my proposal to the "reverse lookup"
> workload. The question is what is the cost (in code complexity/
> maintainability) of special casing directory parent pointer format
> and whether it is worth the benefits of "reverse lookup" performance.
> 
> Thanks,
> Amir.
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