Re: [RFC PATCH v5 2/4] block: add simple copy support

[Selva Jove]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 5:55 AM Damien Le Moal <Damien.LeMoal@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 2021/04/07 20:33, Selva Jove wrote:
> > Initially I started moving the dm-kcopyd interface to the block layer
> > as a generic interface.
> > Once I dig deeper in dm-kcopyd code, I figured that dm-kcopyd is
> > tightly coupled with dm_io()
> >
> > To move dm-kcopyd to block layer, it would also require dm_io code to
> > be moved to block layer.
> > It would cause havoc in dm layer, as it is the backbone of the
> > dm-layer and needs complete
> > rewriting of dm-layer. Do you see any other way of doing this without
> > having to move dm_io code
> > or to have redundant code ?
>
> Right. Missed that. So reusing dm-kcopyd and making it a common interface will
> take some more efforts. OK, then. For the first round of commits, let's forget
> about this. But I still think that your emulation could be a lot better than a
> loop doing blocking writes after blocking reads.
>

Current implementation issues read asynchronously and once all the reads are
completed, then the write is issued as whole to reduce the IO traffic
in the queue.
I agree that things can be better. Will explore another approach of
sending writes
immediately once reads are completed and with  plugging to increase the chances
of merging.

> [...]
> >>> +int blkdev_issue_copy(struct block_device *src_bdev, int nr_srcs,
> >>> +             struct range_entry *src_rlist, struct block_device *dest_bdev,
> >>> +             sector_t dest, gfp_t gfp_mask, int flags)
> >>> +{
> >>> +     struct request_queue *q = bdev_get_queue(src_bdev);
> >>> +     struct request_queue *dest_q = bdev_get_queue(dest_bdev);
> >>> +     struct blk_copy_payload *payload;
> >>> +     sector_t bs_mask, copy_size;
> >>> +     int ret;
> >>> +
> >>> +     ret = blk_prepare_payload(src_bdev, nr_srcs, src_rlist, gfp_mask,
> >>> +                     &payload, &copy_size);
> >>> +     if (ret)
> >>> +             return ret;
> >>> +
> >>> +     bs_mask = (bdev_logical_block_size(dest_bdev) >> 9) - 1;
> >>> +     if (dest & bs_mask) {
> >>> +             return -EINVAL;
> >>> +             goto out;
> >>> +     }
> >>> +
> >>> +     if (q == dest_q && q->limits.copy_offload) {
> >>> +             ret = blk_copy_offload(src_bdev, payload, dest, gfp_mask);
> >>> +             if (ret)
> >>> +                     goto out;
> >>> +     } else if (flags & BLKDEV_COPY_NOEMULATION) {
> >>
> >> Why ? whoever calls blkdev_issue_copy() wants a copy to be done. Why would that
> >> user say "Fail on me if the device does not support copy" ??? This is a weird
> >> interface in my opinion.
> >>
> >
> > BLKDEV_COPY_NOEMULATION flag was introduced to allow blkdev_issue_copy() callers
> > to use their native copying method instead of the emulated copy that I
> > added. This way we
> > ensure that dm uses the hw-assisted copy and if that is not present,
> > it falls back to existing
> > copy method.
> >
> > The other users who don't have their native emulation can use this
> > emulated-copy implementation.
>
> I do not understand. Emulation or not should be entirely driven by the device
> reporting support for simple copy (or not). It does not matter which component
> is issuing the simple copy call: an FS to a real device, and FS to a DM device
> or a DM target driver. If the underlying device reported support for simple
> copy, use that. Otherwise, emulate with read/write. What am I missing here ?
>

blkdev_issue_copy() api will generally complete the copy-operation,
either by using
offloaded-copy or by using emulated-copy. The caller of the api is not
required to
figure the type of support. However, it can opt out of emulated-copy
by specifying
the flag BLKDEV_NOEMULATION. This is helpful for the case when the
caller already
has got a sophisticated emulation (e.g. dm-kcopyd users).

>
> [...]
> >>> @@ -565,6 +569,12 @@ int blk_stack_limits(struct queue_limits *t, struct queue_limits *b,
> >>>       if (b->chunk_sectors)
> >>>               t->chunk_sectors = gcd(t->chunk_sectors, b->chunk_sectors);
> >>>
> >>> +     /* simple copy not supported in stacked devices */
> >>> +     t->copy_offload = 0;
> >>> +     t->max_copy_sectors = 0;
> >>> +     t->max_copy_range_sectors = 0;
> >>> +     t->max_copy_nr_ranges = 0;
> >>
> >> You do not need this. Limits not explicitely initialized are 0 already.
> >> But I do not see why you can't support copy on stacked devices. That should be
> >> feasible taking the min() for each of the above limit.
> >>
> >
> > Disabling stacked device support was feedback from v2.
> >
> > https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/patch/20201204094659.12732-2-selvakuma.s1@xxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> Right. But the initialization to 0 is still not needed. The fields are already
> initialized to 0.
>
>
> --
> Damien Le Moal
> Western Digital Research