Re: [RFC PATCH] ubd: add io_uring based userspace block driver

Stefan Hajnoczi
2022-05-16T19:31:29Z

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Hi,
This looks interesting! I have some questions:

1. What is the ubdsrv permission model?

A big usability challenge for *-in-userspace interfaces is the balance
between security and allowing unprivileged processes to use these
features.

- Does /dev/ubd-control need to be privileged? I guess the answer is
yes since an evil ubdsrv can hang I/O and corrupt data in hopes of
triggering file system bugs.
- Can multiple processes that don't trust each other use UBD at the same
time? I guess not since ubd_index_idr is global.
- What about containers and namespaces? They currently have (write)
access to the same global ubd_index_idr.
- Maybe there should be a struct ubd_device "owner" (struct
task_struct *) so only devices created by the current process can be
modified?

2. io_uring_cmd design

The rationale for the io_uring_cmd design is not explained in the cover
letter. I think it's worth explaining the design. Here are my guesses:

The same thing can be achieved with just file_operations and io_uring.
ubdsrv could read I/O submissions with IORING_OP_READ and write I/O
completions with IORING_OP_WRITE. That would require 2 sqes per
roundtrip instead of 1, but the same number of io_uring_enter(2) calls
since multiple sqes/cqes can be batched per syscall:

- IORING_OP_READ, addr=(struct ubdsrv_io_desc*) (for submission)
- IORING_OP_WRITE, addr=(struct ubdsrv_io_cmd*) (for completion)

Both operations require a copy_to/from_user() to access the command
metadata.

The io_uring_cmd approach works differently. The IORING_OP_URING_CMD sqe
carries a 40-byte payload so it's possible to embed struct ubdsrv_io_cmd
inside it. The struct ubdsrv_io_desc mmap gets around the fact that
io_uring cqes contain no payload. The driver therefore needs a
side-channel to transfer the request submission details to ubdsrv. I
don't see much of a difference between IORING_OP_READ and the mmap
approach though.

It's not obvious to me how much more efficient the io_uring_cmd approach
is, but taking fewer trips around the io_uring submission/completion
code path is likely to be faster. Something similar can be done with
file_operations ->ioctl(), but I guess the point of using io_uring is
that is composes. If ubdsrv itself wants to use io_uring for other I/O
activity (e.g. networking, disk I/O, etc) then it can do so and won't be
stuck in a blocking ioctl() syscall.

It would be nice if you could write 2 or 3 paragraphs explaining why the
io_uring_cmd design and the struct ubdsrv_io_desc mmap was chosen.

3. Miscellaneous stuff

- There isn't much in the way of memory ordering in the code. I worry a
little that changes to the struct ubdsrv_io_desc mmap may not be
visible at the expected time with respect to the io_uring cq ring.

Thanks,
Stefan

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