Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 2620:137:e000::1:20 as permitted sender) client-ip=2620:137:e000::1:20;
Date:   Tue, 30 May 2023 11:28:00 -0400
From:   Mike Snitzer <snitzer@kernel.org>
To:     Joe Thornber <thornber@redhat.com>
Cc:     Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
        Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>,
        Sarthak Kukreti <sarthakkukreti@chromium.org>,
        dm-devel@redhat.com, "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>,
        "Darrick J. Wong" <djwong@kernel.org>,
        Brian Foster <bfoster@redhat.com>,
        Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@google.com>,
        Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-block@vger.kernel.org,
        Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>,
        Andreas Dilger <adilger.kernel@dilger.ca>,
        Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>,
        linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org,
        Jason Wang <jasowang@redhat.com>,
        Alasdair Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 0/5] Introduce provisioning primitives
Message-ID: <ZHYWAGmKhwwmTjW/@redhat.com>
References: <ZGzIJlCE2pcqQRFJ@bfoster>
 <ZGzbGg35SqMrWfpr@redhat.com>
 <ZG1dAtHmbQ53aOhA@dread.disaster.area>
 <ZG+KoxDMeyogq4J0@bfoster>
 <ZHB954zGG1ag0E/t@dread.disaster.area>
 <CAJ0trDbspRaDKzTzTjFdPHdB9n0Q9unfu1cEk8giTWoNu3jP8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <ZHFEfngPyUOqlthr@dread.disaster.area>
 <CAJ0trDZJQwvAzngZLBJ1hB0XkQ1HRHQOdNQNTw9nK-U5i-0bLA@mail.gmail.com>
 <ZHYB/6l5Wi+xwkbQ@redhat.com>
 <CAJ0trDaUOevfiEpXasOESrLHTCcr=oz28ywJU+s+YOiuh7iWow@mail.gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
In-Reply-To: <CAJ0trDaUOevfiEpXasOESrLHTCcr=oz28ywJU+s+YOiuh7iWow@mail.gmail.com>
Precedence: bulk

On Tue, May 30 2023 at 10:55P -0400,
Joe Thornber <thornber@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 3:02 PM Mike Snitzer <snitzer@kernel.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Also Joe, for you proposed dm-thinp design where you distinquish
> > between "provision" and "reserve": Would it make sense for REQ_META
> > (e.g. all XFS metadata) with REQ_PROVISION to be treated as an
> > LBA-specific hard request?  Whereas REQ_PROVISION on its own provides
> > more freedom to just reserve the length of blocks? (e.g. for XFS
> > delalloc where LBA range is unknown, but dm-thinp can be asked to
> > reserve space to accomodate it).
> >
> 
> My proposal only involves 'reserve'.  Provisioning will be done as part of
> the usual io path.

OK, I think we'd do well to pin down the top-level block interfaces in
question. Because this patchset's block interface patch (2/5) header
says:

"This patch also adds the capability to call fallocate() in mode 0
on block devices, which will send REQ_OP_PROVISION to the block
device for the specified range,"

So it wires up blkdev_fallocate() to call blkdev_issue_provision(). A
user of XFS could then use fallocate() for user data -- which would
cause thinp's reserve to _not_ be used for critical metadata.

The only way to distinquish the caller (between on-behalf of user data
vs XFS metadata) would be REQ_META?

So should dm-thinp have a REQ_META-based distinction? Or just treat
all REQ_OP_PROVISION the same?

Mike