On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 11:27:34AM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote: > On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 10:54 AM, Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 10:31:02AM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote: > >> On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 06:29:54PM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote: > >> Yes, I considered that. With this V0 patch, copy_file_range() is > >> called inside the copy data 'killable loop' > >> but, unlike the slower splice, it tries to copy the entire remaining > >> len on every cycle and will most likely get all or nothing without > >> causing any major stalls. > >> So my options for V1 are: > >> 1. use the existing loop only fallback to splice on any > >> copy_file_range() failure. > >> 2. add another (non killable?) loop before the splice killable loop to > >> try and copy up as much data with copy_file_range() > >> 3. implement ovl_copy_up_file_range() and do the fallback near the > >> call site of ovl_copy_up_data() > > > > vfs_copy_file_range() already has a fallback to call > > do_splice_direct() itself if ->copy_file_range() is not supported. > > i.e. it will behave identically to the existing code if > > copy_file_range is not supported by the underlying fs. > > > > I though so initially, but existing code is not identical to the > vfs_copy_file_range() implementation because ovl_copy_up_data() > splices in small chunks allowing the user to kill the copying process. > This makes sense because the poor process only called open(), > so the app writer may not have been expecting a stall of copying > a large file... So call vfs_copy_file_range() iteratively, just like is being done right now for do_splice_direct() to limit latency on kill. > > If copy_file_range() fails, then it's for a reason that will cause > > do_splice_direct() to fail as well. > > > > vfs_copy_file_range() should really be a direct replacement for any > > code that calls do_splice_direct(). If it's not, we should make it > > so (e.g call do_splice direct for cross-fs copies automatically > > rather than returning EXDEV) > > But man page states that EXDEV will be returned if > "The files referred to by file_in and file_out are not on the > same mounted filesystem" That's the /syscall/ man page, not how we must implement the internal helper. Did you even /look/ at vfs_copy_file_range()? hint: /* this could be relaxed once a method supports cross-fs copies */ if (inode_in->i_sb != inode_out->i_sb) return -EXDEV; > > I guess that when API is updated to allow for non zero flags, > then vfs_copy_file_range() should do_splice() instead or returning > EXDEV, only if (flags == COPY_FR_COPY). Not necessary - just hoist the EXDEV check to the syscall layer. Then, as I've already said, make vfs_copy_file_range "call do_splice direct for cross-fs copies automatically". i.e. vfs_copy_file_range() should just copy the data in the most efficient way possible for the given src/dst inode pair. In future, if we add capability for offload of cross-fs copies, we can add the infrastructure to do that within vfs_copy_file_range() and not have to change a single caller to take advantage of it.... > > and then replace all the calls in the > > kernel to do_splice_direct() with vfs_copy_file_range().... > > So in this case, I could not have replaced do_splice_direct() with > vfs_copy_file_range(), because I would either break the killable loop > behavior, or call copy_file_range() in small chunks which is not > desirable - is it? Of course you can call vfs_copy_file_range() in small chunks. It's just not going to be as efficient as a single large copy offload. Worst case, it ends up being identical to what ovl is doing now. But the question here is this: why are you even trying to /copy/ the data? That's not guaranteed to do a fast, atomic, zero-data-movement operation. i.e. what we really want here first is an attempt to /clone/ the data: 1. try a fast, atomic, metadata clone operation like reflink 2. try a fast, optimised data copy 3. if all else fails, use do_splice_direct() to copy data. i.e first try vfs_clone_file_range() because: http://oss.sgi.com/archives/xfs/2015-12/msg00356.html [...] Note that clones are different from file copies in several ways: - they are atomic vs other writers - they support whole file clones - they support 64-bit legth clones - they do not allow partial success (aka short writes) - clones are expected to be a fast metadata operation i.e. if you want to use reflink type methods to optimise copy-up latency, then you need to be /cloning/ the file, not copying it. You can test whether this is supported at mount time, so you do a simply flag test at copyup to determine if a clone should be attempted or not. If cloning fails or is not supported, then try vfs_copy_file_range() to do an optimised iterative partial range file copy. Finally, try a slow, iterative partial range file copies using do_splice_direct(). This part can be wholly handled by vfs_copy_file_range() - this 'not supported' fallback doesn't need to be implemented every time someone wants to copy data between two files... Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Chinner david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-xfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html