Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 20:43:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Andre Hedrick <andre@linux-ide.org>
To: Christophe Saout <christophe@saout.de>
cc: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl>,
       linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: CPRM ?? Re: Possibly wrong BIO usage in ide_multwrite
In-Reply-To: <1073013643.20163.51.camel@leto.cs.pocnet.net>
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Christophe,

I am sorry but adding in a splitter to CPRM is not acceptable.
Digital Rights Management in the kernel is not acceptable to me, period.

Maybe I have misread your intent and the contents on your website.

Device-Mappers are one thing, intercepting buffers in the taskfile FSM
transport is another.  This stinks of CPRM at this level, regardless of
your intent.  Do correct me if I am wrong.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Christophe Saout wrote:

> Am Fr, den 02.01.2004 schrieb Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz um 02:27:
> 
> > > I was just investigating where bio->bi_idx gets modified in the kernel.
> > >
> > > I found these lines in ide-disk.c in ide_multwrite (DMA off, TASKFILE_IO
> > >
> > > off):
> > > > if (++bio->bi_idx >= bio->bi_vcnt) {
> > > >     bio->bi_idx = 0;
> > > >     bio = bio->bi_next;
> > > > }
> > >
> > > (rq->bio also gets changed but it's protected by the scratch buffer)
> > >
> > > I think changing the bi_idx here is dangerous because
> > > end_that_request_first needs this value to be unchanged because it
> > > tracks the progress of the bio processing and updates bi_idx itself.
> > 
> > This is not a problem here because ide_multwrite() walks rq->bio chain itself.
> > It also updates current_nr_sectors and hard_cur_sectors fields of drive->wrq.
> 
> Yes, I've seen this. That looks okay.
> 
> > > And bio->bi_idx = 0 is probably wrong because the bio can be submitted
> > > with bio->bi_idx > 0 (if the bio was splitted and there are clones that
> > > share the bio_vec array, like raid or device-mapper code).
> > >
> > > If it really needs to play with bi_idx itself care should be taken to
> > > reset bi_idx to the original value, not to zero.
> > 
> > RAID or device-mapper code doesn't seem to care about bio->bi_idx
> > value after bio has been submitted to the block layer, so the current
> > code is safe enough. 
> 
> Yes, that's right. But I'd like to. I see that the code works this way,
> but still it's somewhat incorrect and I'll run into trouble if I want to
> do a certain thing. Well, you could simply say "then don't do it", but
> hey. ;)
> 
> I'm working on a dm encryption target. So I need to allocate and manager
> buffers. Under memory pressure (or if dm decided before thta) it can
> happen that a bio is split up. But then to avoid deadlocks due to memory
> shortage I need to free my buffers up as soon as possible. If a bio
> returns (it doesn't even need to be a partial completion) I need to know
> which pages I can free.
> 
> The way I would prefer is that when someone calls bio_endio the bi_idx
> and bv_offset just point where the processed data begins.
> 
> Most drivers complete a bio at once and leave bi_idx where it was.
> That's fine. With a very small modification end_that_request_first can
> also follow the rule that I just outlined.
> 
> I implemented the buffer free mechanism this way and it works fine. I
> added a lot of debug to make sure all pages get freed correctly and
> funny enough everything works fine, I'm not even able to trigger
> problems where I expect them. But I still don't trust this.
> 
> >  Also there is no place to store original bi_idx.
> 
> That seems to be the key problem, sometimes. The other thing I could do
> is to use bi_vcnt and bi_size and then go backwards through the bvecs to
> find the pages and ignore the whole bi_idx issue. But this is ugly.
> 
> > After finishing data transfer multwrite_intr() calls ide_end_request()
> > with rq->nr_sectors argument (where rq is hwgroup->rq not drive->wrq),
> > so only whole bios are completed.  There are no partial completions
> > and code depending on bio->bi_idx inside __end_that_request_first()
> > is not executed.
> 
> Yes, I suspected this. This part hardly seems to be ever used.
> 
> > The real (generic) problem is that atomic block segment for a block device
> > (in this case ATA disk) can be composed of bvecs, bios or bios+bvecs and
> > driver can obtain information about next bvec from block layer (from rq->bio)
> > only after previous bvec has been acknowledgment by end_that_request_first().
> 
> Does it? end_that_request_first can deal with nr_bytes that span bvecs
> and even bios. The only thing the driver has to do then is to walk the
> bvecs and bios itself, what it is already doing, but it should do this
> without modifying the indexes. Since it is working on a copy of the
> request, the bio pointer doesn't move. But the bvec index does. It is
> set to zero after a bio is finished, which is where it most probably was
> at the beginning, but might not be.
> 
> I know, end_that_request_first doesn't care in this case, and it can't
> be called for every bvec because the transfer only ends after the drive
> acknowledged it (everything else would be wrong), but still.
> 
> Can't another (some local) variable be used as bvec index instead of
> bi_idx in the original bio? (except from ide_map_buffer using exactly
> this index...)
> 
> Still, I see, mcount could go to zero before the bio is finished and we
> would need to store the bvec index somewhere, I see the problem.
> 
> What about doing a partial bio completion in multwrite_intr? If there is
> data left you know you've finished multcount sectors, right?
> 
> > In situation when information about previously processed bios/bvecs is needed
> > (ie. error condition) this information is already lost.
> 
> Sure.
> 
> > There are 2 solutions for this problem:
> > 
> > - Use separate bio lists (rq->cbio) and temporary data
> >   (rq->nr_cbio_segments and rq->nr_cbio_sectors) for submission/completion.
> 
> That would be somewhat similar to what I just proposed, right?
> 
> Would you be interested in a small patch (well, if I can come up with
> one)?
> 
> >   Please look at process_that_request_first() and its usage in TASKFILE code.
> 
> I'll do. I already noticed that it used the other fields and obviously
> doesn't use bi_idx the same way.
> 
> >   You are then required to do partial bio completion.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > - Do not use struct request fields directly and store information needed by
> >   driver in separate data structures
> >   (ie. scatter-gather data stored by SCSI layer).
> > 
> >   You are then not allowed (and shouldn't need) to do partial bio completions.
> > 
> > IDE multi-sector code uses first method because second one was too
> > invasive/risky to be done (required serious rewrite of IDE transport code).
> 
> I can understand that. The IDE layer seems to somewhat somewhat be a
> victim of adding new features and adapting it to new layers.
> 
> > I hope generic block transport layer in 2.7.x will make life simpler.
> 
> Well, I hope so. And I hope the ide devices don't end up being treated
> as scsi devices. ;)
> 
> 
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