Hi Ted, thank you for providing some historical context. :)
On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 06:44:35PM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 12:06:24PM -0800, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> > Hi Ted, I was hoping you might resolve a question for us:
> > > And there is a bug that block group which has backup super block
> > > and group descriptor block are not write out to device in wrtie_bitmaps()
> > > when BLOCK_UNINIT is set.
> > > So at this time, I attempted to fix this by cleaning BLOCK_UNIIT.
> >
> > Is it the case that a group should only have BLOCK_UNINIT set if the group is
> > totally empty (no group metadata, no blocks allocated to files) as Akira says?
> >
> > Or is it the case that a group can have BLOCK_UNINIT set if the group contains
> > group metadata but no blocks are allocated to files?
>
> The meaning of BLOCK_UNINIT is that the contents of that block group's
> block allocation bitmap is not initialized. This causes libext2fs to
> skip writing the block allocation bitmap, and to also skip reading the
> block allocation bitmap (which is why it substitutes all zero's
> instead of reading the allocation bitmap block).
>
> Before allocating a block from a block group that has the BLOCK_UNINIT
> flag set, it is important that the kernel or the userspace library
> first initialize the block allocation bitmap and clear the
> BLOCK_UNINIT flag.
>
> When allocating blocks, implementations MUST be able to initiaize the
> allocation bitmap for block groups which has the block group's own
> metadata blocks (backup superblock and bg descriptor blocks if any,
> reserved bg blocks, the allocation bitmaps, and inode table blocks) in
> use.
I'll call this ^^^^^ (B).
> Implementations SHOULD be able to initialize bitmaps for block groups
> that have metadata blocks from other block groups if the case of
> flex_bg. However, historically there were some implementations that
> didn't handle this correctly, which is why mke2fs initializes the
> block bitmap and clears BLOCK_UNINIT in block groups that have
> metadata blocks for other block groups.
>
> Optionally, implementations MAY set the BLOCK_UNINIT bit after data
> blocks have been deallocated from a block group such that the only
> blocks in use are the block group's metadata groups.
For the record, neither e2fsprogs nor the kernel do this -- the only code that
sets BLOCK_UNINIT is the fs grow code in resize2fs.
> Also, some implementations MAY clear the BLOCK_UNINIT bit and
> initialize the block allocation bitmap early --- for example, when
> allocating an inode in the block group. This shouldn't be required,
> however, and so implementations SHOULD correctly handle a situation
> where an inode has been allocated in the inode table, but BLOCK_UNINIT
> is set.
>
> All of this basically boils down to the two rules of thumb:
>
> 1) The BLOCK_UNINIT bit is fundamentally about whether the block
> allocation bitmap is valid, and whether mke2fs can skip needing to
> initialize the block, and whether e2fsck, dumpe2fs, debugfs, etc. can
> skip reading said allocation bitmap.
Right now, e2fsck and resize2fs take care of (B) on their own.
One of my patches fixes everything else (debugfs, dumpe2fs, fuse2fs, tune2fs)
to take care of (B) by doing it in the library. I can't think of a scenario
where it'd be useful to run around with something like this:
# mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/vda -O ^resize_inode,meta_bg
# dumpe2fs /dev/vda
<snip>
Group 1: (Blocks 32768-65535) [INODE_UNINIT, BLOCK_UNINIT]
Checksum 0xa85c, unused inodes 8192
Backup superblock at 32768, Group descriptor at 32769
^^^^^ ^^^^^
Block bitmap at 3 (bg #0 + 3), Inode bitmap at 19 (bg #0 + 19)
Inode table at 546-1057 (bg #0 + 546)
32766 free blocks, 8192 free inodes, 0 directories, 8192 unused inodes
Free blocks: 32768-65535
^^^^^ <------------------ HEY!
Free inodes: 8193-16384
<snip>
# debugfs /dev/vda -R 'testb 32768'
Block 32768 not in use
Notice that blocks 32768-32769 are claimed by the group, but fs->block_map
thinks those blocks are free. ext2fs_open() hands back to client programs a fs
handle in which the block bitmap is in that broken state.
> 2) The IETF rule of "be conservative in what you send, and liberal in
> what you accept" applies.
I'm not convinced that we /need/ Akira's patch to clear BLOCK_UNINIT on any
group containing its own metadata, but I doubt it'd harm anything other than
make e2fsck slower.
It would certainly be the conservative-send route though.
--D
>
> Does that help?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Ted
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