On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 09:03:57AM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote: > On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 3:42 AM Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > [...] > > .... and what is annoying is that that the new i_version just a > > glorified ctime change counter. What we should be fixing is ctime - > > integrating this change counting into ctime would allow us to make > > i_version go away entirely. i.e. We don't need a persistent ctime > > change counter if the ctime has sufficient resolution or persistent > > encoding that it does not need an external persistent change > > counter. > > > > That was reasoning behind the multi-grain timestamps. While the mgts > > implementation was flawed, the reasoning behind it certainly isn't. > > We should be trying to get rid of i_version by integrating it into > > ctime updates, not arguing how atime vs i_version should work. > > > > > So I don't think the issue here is "i_version" per se. I think in a > > > vacuum, the best option of i_version is pretty obvious. But if you > > > want i_version to track di_changecount, *then* you end up with that > > > situation where the persistence of atime matters, and i_version needs > > > to update whenever a (persistent) atime update happens. > > > > Yet I don't want i_version to track di_changecount. > > > > I want to *stop supporting i_version altogether* in XFS. > > > > I want i_version as filesystem internal metadata to die completely. > > > > I don't want to change the on disk format to add a new i_version > > field because we'll be straight back in this same siutation when the > > next i_version bug is found and semantics get changed yet again. > > > > Hence if we can encode the necessary change attributes into ctime, > > we can drop VFS i_version support altogether. Then the "atime bumps > > i_version" problem also goes away because then we *don't use > > i_version*. > > > > But if we can't get the VFS to do this with ctime, at least we have > > the abstractions available to us (i.e. timestamp granularity and > > statx change cookie) to allow XFS to implement this sort of > > ctime-with-integrated-change-counter internally to the filesystem > > and be able to drop i_version support.... > > > > I don't know if it was mentioned before in one of the many threads, > but there is another benefit of ctime-with-integrated-change-counter > approach - it is the ability to extend the solution with some adaptations > also to mtime. > > The "change cookie" is used to know if inode metadata cache should > be invalidated and mtime is often used to know if data cache should > be invalidated, or if data comparison could be skipped (e.g. rsync). > > The difference is that mtime can be set by user, so using lower nsec > bits for modification counter would require to truncate the user set > time granularity to 100ns - that is probably acceptable, but only as > an opt-in behavior. > > The special value 0 for mtime-change-counter could be reserved for > mtime that was set by the user or for upgrade of existing inode, > where 0 counter means that mtime cannot be trusted as an accurate > data modification-cookie. > > This feature is going to be useful for the vfs HSM implementation [1] > that I am working on and it actually rhymes with the XFS DMAPI > patches that were never fully merged upstream. > > Speaking on behalf of my employer, we would love to see the data > modification-cookie feature implemented, whether in vfs or in xfs. > > *IF* the result on this thread is that the chosen solution is > ctime-with-change-counter in XFS > *AND* if there is agreement among XFS developers to extend it with > an opt-in mkfs/mount option to 100ns-mtime-with-change-counter in XFS > *THEN* I think I will be able to allocate resources to drive this xfs work. If it can be solved within XFS then this would be preferable.
