From: Wouter Verhelst <w@uter.be>
To: Pavel Borzenkov <pborzenkov@virtuozzo.com>
Cc: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>,
nbd-general@lists.sourceforge.net, qemu-devel@nongnu.org,
Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>,
"Denis V. Lunev" <den@openvz.org>,
Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] [PATCH 2/2] NBD proto: add GET_LBA_STATUS extension
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 09:41:29 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20160324084129.GG1590@grep.be> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20160324082552.GB24831@phobos.sw.ru>
On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 11:25:52AM +0300, Pavel Borzenkov wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 07:14:54PM +0100, Kevin Wolf wrote:
> > Am 23.03.2016 um 18:58 hat Wouter Verhelst geschrieben:
> > > On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 05:16:02PM +0300, Denis V. Lunev wrote:
> > > > + the provisioning state of the device. The following provisionnig states
> > > > + are defined for the command:
> > > > +
> > > > + - `NBD_STATE_ALLOCATED` (0x0), LBA extent is present on the block device;
> > > > + - `NBD_STATE_ZEROED` (0x1), LBA extent is present on the block device
> > > > + and contains zeroes;
> > >
> > > Presumably this should be "contains only zeroes"?
> > >
> > > Also, this may end up being a fairly expensive call for the server to
> > > process. Is it really useful?
> >
> > I think we need to make clear that this is meant as an optimisation and
> > it's always a valid option for a server to return NBD_STATE_ALLOCATED
> > even if the contents is zeroed.
> >
> > It is definitely useful if the server has a means to efficiently find
> > out the allocation status (e.g. SEEK_HOLE). In that case the client may
> > be able to avoid reading the block and sending it over the network, or
> > when making a copy, it could use it to keep the target file sparse. If
> > the client can't take advantage, we didn't have much overhead, so it's
> > fine.
>
> Yes, that was the idea. I'll add a note that the server may return
> NBD_STATE_ALLOCATED instead of NBD_STATE_ZEROED if it has not means to
> efficiently differentiate allocated blocks with zeroes from allocated
> blocks with non-zeroed content.
Okay, that alleviates my concerns.
In that case it might be useful if the server could say something along
the lines of "I know it's allocated, but I didn't check whether there's
anything non-zero in there"? The client can then decide to do nothing
with that information; but the more useful information is sent along,
the better...
--
< ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen
people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules,
and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too.
-- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2016-03-24 8:41 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 54+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2016-03-23 14:16 [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/2] NBD protocol extensions: WRITE_ZEROES and GET_LBA_STATUS Denis V. Lunev
2016-03-23 14:16 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 1/2] NBD proto: add WRITE_ZEROES extension Denis V. Lunev
2016-03-23 15:14 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-23 17:40 ` [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] " Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 7:16 ` [Qemu-devel] " Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 7:36 ` [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] " Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-23 17:21 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 7:57 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 8:26 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 11:35 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 11:37 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 12:31 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 14:53 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-23 14:16 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 2/2] NBD proto: add GET_LBA_STATUS extension Denis V. Lunev
2016-03-23 16:27 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-24 12:30 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 15:04 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-24 16:36 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-23 17:58 ` [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] " Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-23 18:14 ` Kevin Wolf
2016-03-24 8:25 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 8:41 ` Wouter Verhelst [this message]
2016-03-24 11:36 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 12:32 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 8:43 ` Pavel Borzenkov
2016-03-24 9:33 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 10:32 ` Alex Bligh
2016-03-24 11:58 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 12:17 ` Alex Bligh
2016-03-24 12:32 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 13:31 ` Alex Bligh
2016-03-24 13:32 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 11:55 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 12:43 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 15:25 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-24 15:33 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 15:53 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-24 16:04 ` Eric Blake
2016-03-24 16:07 ` Kevin Wolf
2016-03-24 16:47 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-29 9:38 ` Kevin Wolf
2016-03-29 9:53 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-29 10:25 ` Paolo Bonzini
2016-03-24 22:08 ` [Qemu-devel] " Eric Blake
2016-03-25 8:49 ` [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] " Wouter Verhelst
2016-03-25 9:01 ` Alex Bligh
2016-03-28 15:58 ` Eric Blake
2016-04-04 10:32 ` Markus Pargmann
2016-04-04 10:18 ` Markus Pargmann
2016-04-04 16:54 ` Eric Blake
2016-04-04 22:17 ` Wouter Verhelst
2016-04-04 16:40 ` [Qemu-devel] " Eric Blake
2016-04-04 20:16 ` Denis V. Lunev
2016-04-04 20:36 ` [Qemu-devel] [Nbd] " Eric Blake
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