On 04/05/2023 23:26, Dave Chinner wrote:
Hi Dave,
atomic_write_unit_max is largest application block size which we can
support, while atomic_write_max_bytes is the max size of an atomic operation
which the HW supports.
Why are these different? If the hardware supports 128kB atomic
writes, why limit applications to something smaller?
Two reasons:
a. If you see patch 6/16, we need to apply a limit on
atomic_write_unit_max from what is guaranteed we can fit in a bio
without it being required to be split when submitted.
Consider iomap generates an atomic write bio for a single userspace
block and submits to the block layer - if the block layer needs to split
due to block driver request_queue limits, like max_segments, then we're
in trouble. So we need to limit atomic_write_unit_max such that this
will not occur. That same limit should not apply to atomic_write_max_bytes.
b. For NVMe, atomic_write_unit_max and atomic_write_max_bytes which the
host reports will be the same (ignoring a.).
However for SCSI they may be different. SCSI has its own concept of
boundary and it is relevant here. This is confusing as it is very
different from NVMe boundary. NVMe is a media boundary really. For SCSI,
a boundary is a sub-segment which the device may split an atomic write
operation. For a SCSI device which only supports this boundary mode of
operation, we limit atomic_write_unit_max to the max boundary segment
size (such that we don't get splitting of an atomic write by the device)
and then limit atomic_write_max_bytes to what is known in the spec as
"maximum atomic transfer length with boundary". So in this device mode
of operation, atomic_write_max_bytes and atomic_write_unit_max should be
different.
From your review on the iomap patch, I assume that now you realise that we
are proposing a write which may include multiple application data blocks
(each limited in size to atomic_write_unit_max), and the limit in total size
of that write is atomic_write_max_bytes.
I still don't get it - you haven't explained why/what an application
atomic block write might be, nor why the block device should be
determining the size of application data blocks, etc. If the block
device can do 128kB atomic writes, why wouldn't the device allow the
application to do 128kB atomic writes if they've aligned the atomic
write correctly?
An application block needs to be:
- sized at a power-of-two
- sized between atomic_write_unit_min and atomic_write_unit_max, inclusive
- naturally aligned
Please consider that the application does not explicitly tell the kernel
the size of its data blocks, it's implied from the size of the write and
file offset. So, assuming that userspace follows the rules properly when
issuing a write, the kernel may deduce the application block size and
ensure only that each individual user data block is not split.
If userspace wants a guarantee of no splitting of all in its write, then
it may issue a write for a single userspace data block, e.g. userspace
block size is 16KB, then write at a file offset aligned to 16KB and a
total write size of 16KB will be guaranteed to be written atomically by
the device.
What happens we we get hardware that can do atomic writes at any
alignment, of any size up to atomic_write_max_bytes? Because this
interface defines atomic writes as "must be a multiple of 2 of
atomic_write_unit_min" then hardware that can do atomic writes of
any size can not be effectively utilised by this interface....
user applications should only pay attention to what we return from statx,
that being atomic_write_unit_min and atomic_write_unit_max.
atomic_write_max_bytes and atomic_write_boundary is only relevant to the
block layer.
If applications can issue an multi-atomic_write_unit_max-block
writes as a single, non-atomic, multi-bio RWF_ATOMIC pwritev2() IO
and such IO is constrainted to atomic_write_max_bytes, then
atomic_write_max_bytes is most definitely relevant to user
applications.
But we still do not guarantee that multi-atomic_write_unit_max-block
writes as a single, non-atomic, multi-bio RWF_ATOMIC pwritev2() IO and
such IO is constrained to atomic_write_max_bytes will be written
atomically by the device.
Three things may happen in the kernel:
- we may need to split due to atomic boundary
- we may need to split due to the write spanning discontig extents
- atomic_write_max_bytes may be much larger than what we could fit in a
bio, so may need multiple bios
And maybe more which does not come to mind.
So I am not sure what value there is in reporting atomic_write_max_bytes
to the user. The description would need to be something like "we
guarantee that if the total write length is greater than
atomic_write_max_bytes, then all data will never be submitted to the
device atomically. Otherwise it might be".
+What: /sys/block/<disk>/atomic_write_boundary
+Date: May 2023
+Contact: Himanshu Madhani<himanshu.madhani@xxxxxxxxxx>
+Description:
+ [RO] A device may need to internally split I/Os which
+ straddle a given logical block address boundary. In that
+ case a single atomic write operation will be processed as
+ one of more sub-operations which each complete atomically.
+ This parameter specifies the size in bytes of the atomic
+ boundary if one is reported by the device. This value must
+ be a power-of-two.
How are users/filesystems supposed to use this?
As above, this is not relevant to the user.
Applications will greatly care if their atomic IO gets split into
multiple IOs whose persistence order is undefined.
Sure, so maybe then we need to define and support persistence ordering
rules. But still, any atomic_write_boundary is already taken into
account when we report atomic_write_unit_min and atomic_write_unit_max
to the user.
I think it also
matters for filesystems when it comes to allocation, because we are
going to have to be very careful not to have extents straddle ranges
that will cause an atomic write to be split.
Note that block drivers need to ensure that they report the following:
- atomic_write_unit_max is a power-of-2
- atomic_write_boundary is a power-of-2 (and naturally it would need to
be greater or equal to atomic_write_unit_max)
[sidenote: I actually think that atomic_write_boundary needs to be just
a multiple of atomic_write_unit_max, but let's stick with these rules
for the moment]
As such, if we split a write due to a boundary, we would still always be
able to split such that we don't need to split an individual userspace
data block.
e.g. how does this work with striped devices? e.g. we have a stripe
unit of 16kB, but the devices support atomic_write_unit_max = 32kB.
Instantly, we have a configuration where atomic writes need to be
split at 16kB boundaries, and so the maximum atomic write size that
can be supported is actually 16kB - the stripe unit of RAID device.
OK, so in that case, I think that we would need to limit the reported
atomic_write_unit_max value to the stripe value in a RAID config.
This means the filesystem must, at minimum, align all allocations
for atomic IO to 16kB stripe unit alignment, and must not allow
atomic IOs that are not stripe unit aligned or sized to proceed
because they can't be processed as an atomic IO....
As above. Martin may be able to comment more on this.
/**
@@ -183,6 +186,59 @@ void blk_queue_max_discard_sectors(struct request_queue *q,
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(blk_queue_max_discard_sectors);
+/**
+ * blk_queue_atomic_write_max_bytes - set max bytes supported by
+ * the device for atomic write operations.
+ * @q: the request queue for the device
+ * @size: maximum bytes supported
+ */
+void blk_queue_atomic_write_max_bytes(struct request_queue *q,
+ unsigned int size)
+{
+ q->limits.atomic_write_max_bytes = size;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(blk_queue_atomic_write_max_bytes);
+
+/**
+ * blk_queue_atomic_write_boundary - Device's logical block address space
+ * which an atomic write should not cross.
I have no idea what "logical block address space which an atomic
write should not cross" means, especially as the unit is in bytes
and not in sectors (which are the units LBAs are expressed in).
It means that an atomic operation which straddles the atomic boundary is not
guaranteed to be atomic by the device, so we should (must) not cross it to
maintain atomic behaviour for an application block. That's one reason that
we have all these size and alignment rules.
Yes, That much is obvious. What I have no idea diea about is what
this means in practice. When is this ever going to be non-zero, and
what should be we doing at the filesystem allocation level when it
is non-zero to ensure that allocations for atomic writes never cross
such a boundary. i.e. how do we prevent applications from ever
needing this functionality to be triggered? i.e. so the filesystem
can guarantee a single RWF_ATOMIC user IO is actually dispatched
as a single REQ_ATOMIC IO....
We only guarantee that a single user data block will not be split. So to
avoid any splitting at all, all you can do is write a single user data
block. That's the best which we can offer.
As mentioned earlier, atomic boundary is only relevant to NVMe. If the
device does not support an atomic boundary which is not compliant with
the rules, then we cannot support atomic writes for that device.
...
+static inline unsigned int queue_atomic_write_unit_max(const struct request_queue *q)
+{
+ return q->limits.atomic_write_unit_max << SECTOR_SHIFT;
+}
+
+static inline unsigned int queue_atomic_write_unit_min(const struct request_queue *q)
+{
+ return q->limits.atomic_write_unit_min << SECTOR_SHIFT;
+}
Ah, what? This undocumented interface reports "unit limits" in
bytes, but it's not using the physical device sector size to convert
between sector units and bytes. This really needs some more
documentation and work to make it present all units consistently and
not result in confusion when devices have 4kB sector sizes and not
512 byte sectors...
ok, we'll look to fix this up to give a coherent and clear interface.
Also, I think all the byte ranges should support full 64 bit values,
otherwise there will be silent overflows in converting 32 bit sector
counts to byte ranges. And, eventually, something will want to do
larger than 4GB atomic IOs
ok, we can do that but would also then make statx field 64b. I'm fine with
that if it is wise to do so - I don't don't want to wastefully use up an
extra 2 x 32b in struct statx.
Why do we need specific varibles for DIO atomic write alignment
limits?
I guess that we don't
We already have direct IO alignment and size constraints in statx(),
so why wouldn't we just reuse those variables when the user requests
atomic limits for DIO?
i.e. if STATX_DIOALIGN is set, we return normal DIO alignment
constraints. If STATX_DIOALIGN_ATOMIC is set, we return the atomic
DIO alignment requirements in those variables.....
Yes, we probably need the dio max size to be added to statx for
this. Historically speaking, I wanted statx to support this in the
first place because that's what we were already giving userspace
with XFS_IOC_DIOINFO and we already knew that atomic IO when it came
along would require a bound maximum IO size much smaller than normal
DIO limits. i.e.:
struct dioattr {
__u32 d_mem; /* data buffer memory alignment */
__u32 d_miniosz; /* min xfer size */
__u32 d_maxiosz; /* max xfer size */
};
where d_miniosz defined the alignment and size constraints for DIOs.
If we simply document that STATX_DIOALIGN_ATOMIC returns minimum
(unit) atomic IO size and alignment in statx->dio_offset_align (as
per STATX_DIOALIGN) and the maximum atomic IO size in
statx->dio_max_iosize, then we don't burn up anywhere near as much
space in the statx structure....
ok, so you are saying to unionize them, right? That would seem
reasonable to me.
Thanks,
John
