Re: [linux-lvm] Snapshot behavior on classic LVM vs ThinLVM

[Joe Thornber <thornber@redhat.com>]

On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 03:02:58PM +0200, Gionatan Danti wrote:
> On 02/05/2017 13:00, Gionatan Danti wrote:
> >>Anyway, I think (and maybe I am wrong...) that the better solution is to
> >>fail *all* writes to a full pool, even the ones directed to allocated
> >>space. This will effectively "freeze" the pool and avoid any
> >>long-standing inconsistencies.

I think dm-thin behaviour is fine given the semantics of write
and flush IOs.

A block device can complete a write even if it hasn't hit the physical
media, a flush request needs to come in at a later time which means
'flush all IOs that you've previously completed'.  So any software using
a block device (fs, database etc), tends to generate batches of writes,
followed by a flush to commit the changes.  For example if there was a
power failure between the batch of write io completing and the flush
completing you do not know how much of the writes will be visible when
the machine comes back.

When a pool is full it will allow writes to provisioned areas of a thin to
succeed.  But if any writes failed due to inability to provision then a
REQ_FLUSH io to that thin device will *not* succeed.

- Joe