This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled md/raid5: disable 'DISCARD' by default due to safety concerns. to the 3.10-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: md-raid5-disable-discard-by-default-due-to-safety-concerns.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.10 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 8e0e99ba64c7ba46133a7c8a3e3f7de01f23bd93 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: NeilBrown <neilb@xxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2014 13:45:00 +1000 Subject: md/raid5: disable 'DISCARD' by default due to safety concerns. From: NeilBrown <neilb@xxxxxxx> commit 8e0e99ba64c7ba46133a7c8a3e3f7de01f23bd93 upstream. It has come to my attention (thanks Martin) that 'discard_zeroes_data' is only a hint. Some devices in some cases don't do what it says on the label. The use of DISCARD in RAID5 depends on reads from discarded regions being predictably zero. If a write to a previously discarded region performs a read-modify-write cycle it assumes that the parity block was consistent with the data blocks. If all were zero, this would be the case. If some are and some aren't this would not be the case. This could lead to data corruption after a device failure when data needs to be reconstructed from the parity. As we cannot trust 'discard_zeroes_data', ignore it by default and so disallow DISCARD on all raid4/5/6 arrays. As many devices are trustworthy, and as there are benefits to using DISCARD, add a module parameter to over-ride this caution and cause DISCARD to work if discard_zeroes_data is set. If a site want to enable DISCARD on some arrays but not on others they should select DISCARD support at the filesystem level, and set the raid456 module parameter. raid456.devices_handle_discard_safely=Y As this is a data-safety issue, I believe this patch is suitable for -stable. DISCARD support for RAID456 was added in 3.7 Cc: Shaohua Li <shli@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Heinz Mauelshagen <heinzm@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (3.7+) Acked-by: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@xxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@xxxxxxxxxx> Fixes: 620125f2bf8ff0c4969b79653b54d7bcc9d40637 Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@xxxxxxx> [bwh: Backported to 3.10: adjust context] Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/md/raid5.c | 18 +++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/drivers/md/raid5.c +++ b/drivers/md/raid5.c @@ -60,6 +60,10 @@ #include "raid0.h" #include "bitmap.h" +static bool devices_handle_discard_safely = false; +module_param(devices_handle_discard_safely, bool, 0644); +MODULE_PARM_DESC(devices_handle_discard_safely, + "Set to Y if all devices in each array reliably return zeroes on reads from discarded regions"); /* * Stripe cache */ @@ -5611,7 +5615,7 @@ static int run(struct mddev *mddev) mddev->queue->limits.discard_granularity = stripe; /* * unaligned part of discard request will be ignored, so can't - * guarantee discard_zerors_data + * guarantee discard_zeroes_data */ mddev->queue->limits.discard_zeroes_data = 0; @@ -5636,6 +5640,18 @@ static int run(struct mddev *mddev) !bdev_get_queue(rdev->bdev)-> limits.discard_zeroes_data) discard_supported = false; + /* Unfortunately, discard_zeroes_data is not currently + * a guarantee - just a hint. So we only allow DISCARD + * if the sysadmin has confirmed that only safe devices + * are in use by setting a module parameter. + */ + if (!devices_handle_discard_safely) { + if (discard_supported) { + pr_info("md/raid456: discard support disabled due to uncertainty.\n"); + pr_info("Set raid456.devices_handle_discard_safely=Y to override.\n"); + } + discard_supported = false; + } } if (discard_supported && Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from neilb@xxxxxxx are queue-3.10/md-raid5-disable-discard-by-default-due-to-safety-concerns.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html