Re: block layer copying user io vectors

From: Christoph Hellwig
Date: Mon Feb 02 2015 - 05:00:40 EST


On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 05:43:04PM +0000, Andy Falanga (afalanga) wrote:
> > > This function does something that seems rather strange. On line 859,
> > > a for loop determines the number of pages needed for the copying of
> > > the user data to kernel space. Then the memory is allocated (line
> > > 886 bio_kmalloc()). Then, strangely, on line 895, there is this
> > > conditional:
> >
> > This is because the function can also be used with preallocated pages,
> > a feature only used by the sg and tape drivers.
> >
> > Make sure your user memory is 4k aligned, and you should be able to
> > avoid the copy entirely (1).
>
> Where is this 4k alignment being enforced? When sg_start_req calls to
> blk_rq_map_user_iov, the only check for alignment is that the data buffers
> are 4-byte aligned (q->dma_alignment == 3). I have verified that they are.

Indeed, I though we had the more strict direct I/O alignment.

Still doesn't help because the sg driver refuses to directly map user
pages for vectored I/O.
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