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From: Gionatan Danti <g.danti@assyoma.it>
To: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org, g.danti@assyoma.it
Subject: Re: Reflink (cow) copy of busy files
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2018 23:57:32 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <711dd96e3c4b3e92d3fb38a01e77dc64@assyoma.it> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20180224220757.GC30854@dastard>

Il 24-02-2018 23:07 Dave Chinner ha scritto:
> Define "busy file", please.

Think about a running virtual machine. Maybe an XFS-based virtual image 
(ie: a CentOS 7 guest).

> If the file is being actively written, then the clone will not be
> consistent.
> 
> Yes, it's just like any other snapshot process - you have to quiesce
> everything that is writing to the file before cloning it. i.e. the
> data in the file needs to be in a stable, consistent, unchanging
> state if you want the clone to contain consistent data...

About *what* level of consistency are we speaking? I understand that 
application-level consistency requires a quiesced filesystem and, 
possibly, an application-level agent. But is it a quiesced filesystem a 
requisite for a *crash-consistent* ie: pull the plug) snapshot?

In other words: would a cp --reflink=always <vmdisk> <snapshot> of a 
runnig virtual machine produce an usable, crash-consistent snapshot, or 
it risks ending with binary garbage?

Thanks.

-- 
Danti Gionatan
Supporto Tecnico
Assyoma S.r.l. - www.assyoma.it
email: g.danti@assyoma.it - info@assyoma.it
GPG public key ID: FF5F32A8

  reply	other threads:[~2018-02-24 22:57 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2018-02-24 18:20 Reflink (cow) copy of busy files Gionatan Danti
2018-02-24 22:07 ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-24 22:57   ` Gionatan Danti [this message]
2018-02-25  2:47     ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-25 11:40       ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-25 21:13         ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-25 21:58           ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-26  0:25             ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-26  7:19               ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-26  7:58                 ` Amir Goldstein
2018-02-26  8:26                   ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-26 17:26                     ` Darrick J. Wong
2018-02-26 21:23                       ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-26 21:31                         ` Darrick J. Wong
2018-02-26 21:39                           ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-27  0:33                       ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-27  0:58                         ` Darrick J. Wong
2018-02-27  8:06                         ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-27 22:04                           ` Dave Chinner
2018-02-28  7:08                             ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-28 17:07                               ` Darrick J. Wong
2018-02-28 18:27                                 ` Gionatan Danti
2018-02-26 20:29                     ` Amir Goldstein
2018-02-26 21:28                       ` Gionatan Danti

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