From: Dan Williams Subject: Re: Question about Experimental of Filesystem DAX. Date: Thu, 31 May 2018 18:03:45 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20180531112731.0CAC.E1E9C6FF@jp.fujitsu.com> <20180531150716.GA19764@linux.intel.com> <20180531174636.GA7825@magnolia> <20180531230550.GN10363@dastard> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Jan Kara , "Darrick J. Wong" , NVDIMM-ML , linux-xfs , Yasunori Goto , linux-ext4 To: Dave Chinner Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20180531230550.GN10363@dastard> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: linux-nvdimm-bounces-hn68Rpc1hR1g9hUCZPvPmw@public.gmane.org Sender: "Linux-nvdimm" List-Id: linux-ext4.vger.kernel.org On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 4:05 PM, Dave Chinner wrote: > On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 11:26:43AM -0700, Dan Williams wrote: >> On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Darrick J. Wong >> wrote: >> > On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 09:29:15AM -0700, Dan Williams wrote: >> >> On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 8:07 AM, Ross Zwisler >> >> wrote: >> >> > On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 11:27:33AM +0900, Yasunori Goto wrote: >> >> >> Hello, >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> I would like to know about the Experimental message of Filesystem DAX. >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------------- >> >> >> DAX enabled. Warning: EXPERIMENTAL, use at your own risk >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------------- >> >> >> >> >> >> AFAIK, the final issue of Filesystem DAX is metadata update problem, >> >> >> and it is(will be?) solved by great effort of MAP_SYNC and >> >> >> "fix dma vs truncate/hole-punch" patch set. >> >> >> So, I suppose that the Experimental message can be removed, >> >> >> but I'm not sure. >> >> >> >> >> >> Is it possible? >> >> >> Otherwise, are there any other issues in Filesystem DAX yet? >> >> >> >> >> >> If this is silly question, sorry for noise.... >> >> >> >> >> >> Thanks, >> >> >> --- >> >> >> Yasunori Goto >> >> > >> >> > Adding in the XFS and ext4 developers, as it's really their call when to >> >> > remove this notice. >> >> > >> >> > We've talked about this off and on for a long while, but IMHO we should remove >> >> > the EXPERIMENTAL warning. The last few things that we had on our TODO list >> >> > before this was removed were: >> >> > >> >> > 1) Get consistent handling of the DAX mount option. We currently have this, >> >> > as both filesystems will behave the same and fall back and remove the DAX >> >> > mount option if it is unsupported by the block device, etc. >> > >> > >> > >> > As an aside, I wonder if Christoph's musings about "just have the kernel >> > determine the appropriate dax/non-dax setting from the acpi tables and >> > skip the inode flag entirely" ever got resolved? >> > >> >> > 2) Get consistent handling of the DAX inode option. We currently have this, >> >> > as all DAX behavior now happens through the mount option. If/when we >> >> > re-enable the per-inode DAX flag we should do it consistently for all DAX >> >> > enabled filesystems. >> > >> > The behavior of the inode flag isn't all that consistent. ext4 doesn't >> > support it at all. On XFS, you can set or clear FS_XFLAG_DAX on a >> > directory which will propagate the setting to any files created in that >> > directory. >> > >> > However, if you set or clear it on a file we update the on-disk inode >> > but we can't change the in-core state flag (S_DAX) until the next >> > in-core inode instantiation. It's weird that users can change the flag >> > but the intended behavior changes won't happen until some ... time ... >> > in the future?? >> > >> >> > 3) Make DAX work with other XFS features like reflink, etc. This one isn't >> >> > done, but we at least disallow DAX with XFS features like reflink where it >> >> > could be an issue. Darrick, do you still feel like we need to get these >> >> > working together to remove EXPERIMENTAL, or are you happy enough that we're >> >> > keeping them separated and that we're keeping user data safe? >> > >> > Yes, reflink and dax still need to work together. I've not heard any >> > good arguments for why page sharing + copy on write are fundamentally >> > incompatible with the dax model, or why dax users will never, ever >> > require reflink. >> >> Right, but that's separate from DAX being scream in your face >> "EXPERIMENTAL!". It's just an additional feature that can be added on >> once all the normal expectations of a userspace mapping work. I think >> reliable rmap is the last of those requirements. >> >> > The recent thread between Jan and Dan make me wonder if making mappings >> > share struct pages is going to be a nightmare to add to the mm code, >> > though... >> >> It's going to be a bit messy because a singular page->mapping >> association is fundamentally incompatible with DAX. Perhaps a linked >> list of mapping "siblings"? > > I'd much prefer the filesystem allocate/control the struct page that > is inserted into mapping trees so we can have multiple struct pages > pointing at the one physical page. That way we can just insert > these dynamic struct pages into the relevant mappings and it works > the same way for both DAX and shared page cache pages. How would that work when there is a 1:1 pfn-to-page and file-block-to-pfn relationship? > i.e. the filesystem knows they are shared physical blocks, the > filesystem controls COW of physical blocks, the filesystem controls > truncate/invalidation of physical blocks, the filesystem controls > cache state of the physical blocks. So why are we designing > infrastructure around the virtual memory and caching infrastructure > that bypasses the layer that manages and arbitrates access to the > physical storage? Yes, because DAX broke the vm's assumptions that pages are not physical storage blocks. > This seems like we're well down the path of a architectural layering > violation that is backing us into a corner we're not going to be > able to get ourselves out of... I think it is solvable by teaching the vm more about dax pages and having it call back into the filesytem for some of these operations. >> > Also: ideally XFS would also be able to consume poison event >> > notifications from the pmem so that it can try to deal with metadata >> > loss, but that's probably a separate effort. > > If the design is such that the layer that manages the physical > storage isn't going to be told about physical storage failures > before anyone else is informed, it would seem to me like we really > have introduced a major architectural flaw in DAX.... It would be trivial to hook these notifications into the filesystem. This is something we've had on the backlog for a long time to circle back and address. This has been waiting for the xfs reverse-map work to settle and for one of us pmem developers to free up and do the work.