linux-ext4 - Re: [RFC 0/7] ext4: Allocator changes for atomic write support with DIO

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Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 14:44:36 +0000
From: John Garry <john.g.garry@...cle.com>
To: Ojaswin Mujoo <ojaswin@...ux.ibm.com>
Cc: linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
        Ritesh Harjani <ritesh.list@...il.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Darrick J . Wong" <djwong@...nel.org>, linux-block@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
        dchinner@...hat.com
Subject: Re: [RFC 0/7] ext4: Allocator changes for atomic write support with
 DIO

On 04/12/2023 13:38, Ojaswin Mujoo wrote:
>> So are we supposed to be doing atomic writes on unwritten ranges only in the
>> file to get the aligned allocations?
> If we do an atomic write on a hole, ext4 will give us an aligned extent
> provided the hole is big enough to accomodate it.
> 
> However, if we do an atomic write on a existing extent (written or
> unwritten) ext4 would check if it satisfies the alignment and length
> requirement and returns an error if it doesn't.

This seems a rather big drawback.

> Since we don't have cow
> like functionality afaik the only way we could let this kind of write go
> through is by punching the pre-existing extent which is not something we
> can directly do in the same write operation, hence we return error.

Well, as you prob saw, for XFS we were relying on forcing extent 
alignment, and not CoW (yet).

> 
>> I actually tried that, and I got a WARN triggered:
>>
>> # mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda
>> mke2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)
>> Creating filesystem with 358400 1k blocks and 89760 inodes
>> Filesystem UUID: 7543a44b-2957-4ddc-9d4a-db3a5fd019c9
>> Superblock backups stored on blocks:
>>          8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185
>>
>> Allocating group tables: done
>> Writing inode tables: done
>> Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
>> Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
>>
>> [   12.745889] mkfs.ext4 (150) used greatest stack depth: 13304 bytes left
>> # mount /dev/sda mnt
>> [   12.798804] EXT4-fs (sda): mounted filesystem
>> 7543a44b-2957-4ddc-9d4a-db3a5fd019c9 r/w with ordered data mode. Quota
>> mode: none.
>> # touch mnt/file
>> #
>> # /test-statx -a /root/mnt/file
>> statx(/root/mnt/file) = 0
>> dump_statx results=5fff
>>    Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 1024    regular file
>> Device: 08:00           Inode: 12          Links: 1
>> Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid:     0   Gid:     0
>> Access: 2023-12-04 10:27:40.002848720+0000
>> Modify: 2023-12-04 10:27:40.002848720+0000
>> Change: 2023-12-04 10:27:40.002848720+0000
>>   Birth: 2023-12-04 10:27:40.002848720+0000
>> stx_attributes_mask=0x703874
>>          STATX_ATTR_WRITE_ATOMIC set
>>          unit min: 1024
>>          uunit max: 524288
>> Attributes: 0000000000400000 (........ ........ ........ ........
>> ........ .?--.... ..---... .---.-..)
>> #
>>
>>
>>
>> looks ok so far, then write 4KB at offset 0:
>>
>> # /test-pwritev2 -a -d -p 0 -l 4096  /root/mnt/file
>> file=/root/mnt/file write_size=4096 offset=0 o_flags=0x4002 wr_flags=0x24

...

>> Please note that I tested on my own dev branch, which contains changes over
>> [1], but I expect it would not make a difference for this test.
> Hmm this should not ideally happen, can you please share your test
> script with me if possible?

It's doing nothing special, just RWF_ATOMIC flag is set for DIO write:

https://github.com/johnpgarry/linux/blob/236870d48ecb19c1cf89dc439e188182a0524cd4/samples/vfs/test-pwritev2.c

>>>
>>> Script to test using pwritev2() can be found here:
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gist.github.com/OjaswinM/e67accee3cbb7832bd3f1a9543c01da9__;!!ACWV5N9M2RV99hQ!Lr0j4iDHrfXisXOGZ82HNPefBtVDDGe9zbLhey7rRDfPE7A_tsrrQ9Dw_4Ng_qS7xTGCZaEWBKtd6pqA_LIBfA$  
>> Please note that the posix_memalign() call in the program should PAGE align.
> Why do you say that? direct IO seems to be working when the userspace
> buffer is 512 byte aligned, am I missing something?

ah, sorry, if you just use 1x IOV vector then no special alignment are 
required, so ignore this. Indeed, I need to improve kernel checks for 
alignment anyway.

Thanks,
John