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From: "J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org>
To: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <trondmy@hammerspace.com>,
	Anna Schumaker <anna.schumaker@netapp.com>,
	Steve French <sfrench@samba.org>,
	Dominique Martinet <asmadeus@codewreck.org>,
	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>,
	Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>,
	linux-afs@lists.infradead.org, Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>,
	David Wysochanski <dwysocha@redhat.com>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>,
	linux-cachefs@redhat.com, linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-cifs@vger.kernel.org, ceph-devel@vger.kernel.org,
	v9fs-developer@lists.sourceforge.net,
	linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 00/25] Network fs helper library & fscache kiocb API
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 12:43:06 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210121174306.GB20964@fieldses.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1794286.1611248577@warthog.procyon.org.uk>

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 05:02:57PM +0000, David Howells wrote:
> J. Bruce Fields <bfields@fieldses.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 10:21:24PM +0000, David Howells wrote:
> > >      Note that this uses SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA to locate the data available
> > >      to be read from the cache.  Whilst this is an improvement from the
> > >      bmap interface, it still has a problem with regard to a modern
> > >      extent-based filesystem inserting or removing bridging blocks of
> > >      zeros.
> > 
> > What are the consequences from the point of view of a user?
> 
> The cache can get both false positive and false negative results on checks for
> the presence of data because an extent-based filesystem can, at will, insert
> or remove blocks of contiguous zeros to make the extents easier to encode
> (ie. bridge them or split them).
> 
> A false-positive means that you get a block of zeros in the middle of your
> file that very probably shouldn't be there (ie. file corruption); a
> false-negative means that we go and reload the missing chunk from the server.
> 
> The problem exists in cachefiles whether we use bmap or we use
> SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA.  The only way round it is to keep track of what data is
> present independently of backing filesystem's metadata.
> 
> To this end, it shouldn't (mis)behave differently than the code already there
> - except that it handles better the case in which the backing filesystem
> blocksize != PAGE_SIZE (which may not be relevant on an extent-based
> filesystem anyway if it packs parts of different files together in a single
> block) because the current implementation only bmaps the first block in a page
> and doesn't probe for the rest.
> 
> Fixing this requires a much bigger overhaul of cachefiles than this patchset
> performs.

That sounds like "sometimes you may get file corruption and there's
nothing you can do about it".  But I know people actually use fscache,
so it must be reliable at least for some use cases.

Is it that those "bridging" blocks only show up in certain corner cases
that users can arrange to avoid?  Or that it's OK as long as you use
certain specific file systems whose behavior goes beyond what's
technically required by the bamp or seek interfaces?

--b.

> 
> Also, it works towards getting rid of this use of bmap, but that's not user
> visible.
> 
> David

  reply	other threads:[~2021-01-21 17:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 38+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-01-20 22:21 [RFC][PATCH 00/25] Network fs helper library & fscache kiocb API David Howells
2021-01-20 22:21 ` [PATCH 01/25] iov_iter: Add ITER_XARRAY David Howells
2021-01-21 13:34   ` Matthew Wilcox
2021-01-21 14:54   ` David Howells
2021-01-20 22:21 ` [PATCH 02/25] vm: Add wait/unlock functions for PG_fscache David Howells
2021-01-20 22:21 ` [PATCH 03/25] mm: Implement readahead_control pageset expansion David Howells
2021-01-20 22:22 ` [PATCH 04/25] vfs: Export rw_verify_area() for use by cachefiles David Howells
2021-01-20 22:22 ` [PATCH 05/25] cachefiles: Drop superfluous readpages aops NULL check David Howells
2021-01-20 22:22 ` [PATCH 06/25] netfs: Make a netfs helper module David Howells
2021-01-20 22:22 ` [PATCH 07/25] netfs: Provide readahead and readpage netfs helpers David Howells
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 08/25] netfs: Add tracepoints David Howells
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 09/25] netfs: Gather stats David Howells
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 10/25] netfs: Add write_begin helper David Howells
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 11/25] netfs: Define an interface to talk to a cache David Howells
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 12/25] fscache, cachefiles: Add alternate API to use kiocb for read/write to cache David Howells
2021-01-21  5:44   ` kernel test robot
2021-01-20 22:23 ` [PATCH 13/25] afs: Disable use of the fscache I/O routines David Howells
2021-01-20 22:24 ` [PATCH 14/25] afs: Pass page into dirty region helpers to provide THP size David Howells
2021-01-20 22:24 ` [PATCH 15/25] afs: Print the operation debug_id when logging an unexpected data version David Howells
2021-01-20 22:24 ` [PATCH 16/25] afs: Move key to afs_read struct David Howells
2021-01-20 22:24 ` [PATCH 17/25] afs: Don't truncate iter during data fetch David Howells
2021-01-20 22:24 ` [PATCH 18/25] afs: Log remote unmarshalling errors David Howells
2021-01-20 22:25 ` [PATCH 19/25] afs: Set up the iov_iter before calling afs_extract_data() David Howells
2021-01-20 22:25 ` [PATCH 20/25] afs: Use ITER_XARRAY for writing David Howells
2021-01-20 22:25 ` [PATCH 21/25] afs: Wait on PG_fscache before modifying/releasing a page David Howells
2021-01-20 22:25 ` [PATCH 22/25] afs: Extract writeback extension into its own function David Howells
2021-01-20 22:25 ` [PATCH 23/25] afs: Prepare for use of THPs David Howells
2021-01-20 22:26 ` [PATCH 24/25] afs: Use the fs operation ops to handle FetchData completion David Howells
2021-01-20 22:26 ` [PATCH 25/25] afs: Use new fscache read helper API David Howells
2021-01-21 16:46 ` [RFC][PATCH 00/25] Network fs helper library & fscache kiocb API J. Bruce Fields
2021-01-21 17:02 ` David Howells
2021-01-21 17:43   ` J. Bruce Fields [this message]
2021-01-21 18:55   ` David Howells
2021-01-21 19:09     ` J. Bruce Fields
2021-01-21 20:08     ` David Howells
2021-01-22 16:01       ` J. Bruce Fields
2021-01-22 16:06       ` David Howells
2021-01-22  8:23     ` Christoph Hellwig

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