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Date:   Wed, 8 Jul 2020 01:53:42 +0530
From:   Kanchan Joshi <joshi.k@samsung.com>
To:     Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc:     Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>, viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk,
        bcrl@kvack.org, hch@infradead.org, Damien.LeMoal@wdc.com,
        asml.silence@gmail.com, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
        mb@lightnvm.io, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-aio@kvack.org,
        io-uring@vger.kernel.org, linux-block@vger.kernel.org,
        Selvakumar S <selvakuma.s1@samsung.com>,
        Nitesh Shetty <nj.shetty@samsung.com>,
        Javier Gonzalez <javier.gonz@samsung.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] io_uring: add support for zone-append
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On Tue, Jul 07, 2020 at 04:52:37PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 07, 2020 at 08:41:05PM +0530, Kanchan Joshi wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 03:32:08PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>> > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 08:27:17AM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> > > On 7/6/20 8:10 AM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>> > > > On Sun, Jul 05, 2020 at 03:12:50PM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> > > >> On 7/5/20 3:09 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>> > > >>> On Sun, Jul 05, 2020 at 03:00:47PM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> > > >>>> On 7/5/20 12:47 PM, Kanchan Joshi wrote:
>> > > >>>>> From: Selvakumar S <selvakuma.s1@samsung.com>
>> > > >>>>>
>> > > >>>>> For zone-append, block-layer will return zone-relative offset via ret2
>> > > >>>>> of ki_complete interface. Make changes to collect it, and send to
>> > > >>>>> user-space using cqe->flags.
>> > > >
>> > > >>> I'm surprised you aren't more upset by the abuse of cqe->flags for the
>> > > >>> address.
>>
>> Documentation (https://protect2.fireeye.com/url?k=297dbcbf-74aee030-297c37f0-0cc47a31ce52-632d3561909b91fc&q=1&u=https%3A%2F%2Fkernel.dk%2Fio_uring.pdf) mentioned cqe->flags can carry
>> the metadata for the operation. I wonder if this should be called abuse.
>>
>> > > >> Yeah, it's not great either, but we have less leeway there in terms of
>> > > >> how much space is available to pass back extra data.
>> > > >>
>> > > >>> What do you think to my idea of interpreting the user_data as being a
>> > > >>> pointer to somewhere to store the address?  Obviously other things
>> > > >>> can be stored after the address in the user_data.
>> > > >>
>> > > >> I don't like that at all, as all other commands just pass user_data
>> > > >> through. This means the application would have to treat this very
>> > > >> differently, and potentially not have a way to store any data for
>> > > >> locating the original command on the user side.
>> > > >
>> > > > I think you misunderstood me.  You seem to have thought I meant
>> > > > "use the user_data field to return the address" when I actually meant
>> > > > "interpret the user_data field as a pointer to where userspace
>> > > > wants the address stored".
>> > >
>> > > It's still somewhat weird to have user_data have special meaning, you're
>> > > now having the kernel interpret it while every other command it's just
>> > > an opaque that is passed through.
>> > >
>> > > But it could of course work, and the app could embed the necessary
>> > > u32/u64 in some other structure that's persistent across IO. If it
>> > > doesn't have that, then it'd need to now have one allocated and freed
>> > > across the lifetime of the IO.
>> > >
>> > > If we're going that route, it'd be better to define the write such that
>> > > you're passing in the necessary information upfront. In syscall terms,
>> > > then that'd be something ala:
>> > >
>> > > ssize_t my_append_write(int fd, const struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt,
>> > > 			off_t *offset, int flags);
>> > >
>> > > where *offset is copied out when the write completes. That removes the
>> > > need to abuse user_data, with just providing the storage pointer for the
>> > > offset upfront.
>> >
>> > That works for me!  In io_uring terms, would you like to see that done
>> > as adding:
>> >
>> >        union {
>> >                __u64   off;    /* offset into file */
>> > +		__u64   *offp;	/* appending writes */
>> >                __u64   addr2;
>> >        };
>> But there are peformance implications of this approach?
>> If I got it right, the workflow is: - Application allocates 64bit of space,
>> writes "off" into it and pass it
>>  in the sqe->addr2
>> - Kernel first reads sqe->addr2, reads the value to know the intended
>>  write-location, and stores the address somewhere (?) to be used during
>>  completion. Storing this address seems tricky as this may add one more
>>  cacheline (in io_kiocb->rw)?
>
>io_kiocb is:
>        /* size: 232, cachelines: 4, members: 19 */
>        /* forced alignments: 1 */
>        /* last cacheline: 40 bytes */
>so we have another 24 bytes before io_kiocb takes up another cacheline.
>If that's a serious problem, I have an idea about how to shrink struct
>kiocb by 8 bytes so struct io_rw would have space to store another
>pointer.
Yes, io_kiocb has room. Cache-locality wise whether that is fine or
it must be placed within io_rw - I'll come to know once I get to
implement this. Please share the idea you have, it can come handy.

>> - During completion cqe res/flags are written as before, but extra step
>>  to copy the append-completion-result into that user-space address.
>> Extra steps are due to the pointer indirection.
>
>... we've just done an I/O.  Concern about an extra pointer access
>seems misplaced?

I was thinking about both read-from (submission) and write-to
(completion) from user-space pointer, and all those checks APIs
(get_user, copy_from_user) perform.....but when seen against I/O (that
too direct), it does look small. Down the line it may matter for cached-IO
but I get your point. 

>> And it seems application needs to be careful about managing this 64bit of
>> space for a cluster of writes, especially if it wants to reuse the sqe
>> before the completion.
>> New one can handle 64bit result cleanly, but seems slower than current
>> one.
>
>But userspace has to _do_ something with that information anyway.  So
>it must already have somewhere to put that information.

Right. But it is part of SQE/CQE currently, and in new scheme it gets
decoupled and needs to be managed separately. 
>I do think that interpretation of that field should be a separate flag
>from WRITE_APPEND so apps which genuinely don't care about where the I/O
>ended up don't have to allocate some temporary storage.  eg a logging
>application which just needs to know that it managed to append to the
>end of the log and doesn't need to do anything if it's successful.
Would you want that new flag to do what RWF_APPEND does as well? 
In v2, we had a separate flag RWF_ZONE_APPEND and did not use
file-append infra at all. Thought was: apps using the new flag will
always look at where write landed.

In v3, I've been looking at this as: 
zone-append = file-append + something-extra-to-know-where-write-landed.
We see to it that something-extra does not get executed for regular
files/block-dev append (ref: FMODE_ZONE_APPEND patch1)....and existing
behavior (the one you described for logging application) is retained.
But on a zoned-device/file, file-append becomes zone-append, all the
time. 

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