Sunil Mushran wrote: > On 06/10/2010 04:47 PM, Paul Eggert wrote: >> On 06/09/2010 11:56 PM, jeff.liu wrote: >> >>> Yeah, I just realized that the behaviour I observed is caused by the >>> delay allocation mechanism of >>> the particular FS. >>> >> If the file system is using delayed allocation, then can >> the fiemap ioctl tell us that a file contains a hole (because nothing >> has been >> allocated there), but read() would tell us that the file contains >> nonzero data at the same location >> (because it's sitting in a buffer somewhere)? If so, we'd need to do >> something like invoke >> fdatasync() on the file before issuing the fiemap ioctl, to force >> allocation; or perhaps >> there's another ioctl that will do the allocation without having to >> actually do a sync. >> > > I guess we'll have to use FIEMAP_FLAG_SYNC. Hi Sunil, Thanks for the comments. So we can ensure the source file synced before mapping in this way. Hi Jim and Paul, How about the tiny patch below? >From d6d619a169ff68a9a310a69d8089b9fbf83b5f91 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jie Liu <jeff.liu@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:29:02 +0800 Subject: [PATCH 1/1] copy.c: add FIEMAP_FLAG_SYNC to fiemap ioctl * src/copy.c (fiemap_copy): Force kernel to sync the source file before mapping. Signed-off-by: Jie Liu <jeff.liu@xxxxxxxxxx> --- src/copy.c | 1 + 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/copy.c b/src/copy.c index f149be4..f48c74d 100644 --- a/src/copy.c +++ b/src/copy.c @@ -191,6 +191,7 @@ fiemap_copy (int src_fd, int dest_fd, size_t buf_size, do { fiemap->fm_length = FIEMAP_MAX_OFFSET; + fiemap->fm_flags = FIEMAP_FLAG_SYNC; fiemap->fm_extent_count = count; /* When ioctl(2) fails, fall back to the normal copy only if it -- 1.5.4.3 Thanks, -Jeff > >> There's also the issue of copying from a file at the same time that >> some other process >> is writing to it, but that is allowed to produce ill-defined >> behavior. I'm more worried >> about the case where some other process writes to the source file just >> before 'cp' starts. >> > > cp's behavior with active files is undefined. But we know it reads from > offset 0 to MAX. With fiemap it will continue to do the same with the > exception that it will skip reads (and thus writes) depending on the extent > map it gets at the very beginning. > >> (Sorry, I haven't had time yet to dive into the proposed change; I'm >> still trying to understand >> the environment.) >> >> One other thing: Solaris 10 supports lseek with the SEEK_HOLE and >> SEEK_DATA options, which >> are easier to use and which (as far as I can tell from the manual) >> shouldn't require anything >> fdatasync-ish. Any objection if I propose support for that too? It >> is supposed to work >> with ZFS, something I can test here. >> > > There is no plan to implement SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA in the kernel. > At most glibc will use fiemap to extend lseek(). BTW, SEEK_HOLE/DATA > also have the same problem with active files. > > ccing linux-ext4. > > > -- With Windows 7, Microsoft is asserting legal control over your computer and is using this power to abuse computer users. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html