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author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2014-01-30 11:19:05 -0800 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2014-01-30 11:19:05 -0800 |
commit | f568849edac8611d603e00bd6cbbcfea09395ae6 (patch) | |
tree | b9472d640fe5d87426d38c9d81d946cf197ad3fb /Documentation/block/biovecs.txt | |
parent | d9894c228b11273e720bb63ba120d1d326fe9d94 (diff) | |
parent | 675675ada486dde5bf9aa51665e90706bff11a35 (diff) | |
download | linux-f568849edac8611d603e00bd6cbbcfea09395ae6.tar.bz2 |
Merge branch 'for-3.14/core' of git://git.kernel.dk/linux-block
Pull core block IO changes from Jens Axboe:
"The major piece in here is the immutable bio_ve series from Kent, the
rest is fairly minor. It was supposed to go in last round, but
various issues pushed it to this release instead. The pull request
contains:
- Various smaller blk-mq fixes from different folks. Nothing major
here, just minor fixes and cleanups.
- Fix for a memory leak in the error path in the block ioctl code
from Christian Engelmayer.
- Header export fix from CaiZhiyong.
- Finally the immutable biovec changes from Kent Overstreet. This
enables some nice future work on making arbitrarily sized bios
possible, and splitting more efficient. Related fixes to immutable
bio_vecs:
- dm-cache immutable fixup from Mike Snitzer.
- btrfs immutable fixup from Muthu Kumar.
- bio-integrity fix from Nic Bellinger, which is also going to stable"
* 'for-3.14/core' of git://git.kernel.dk/linux-block: (44 commits)
xtensa: fixup simdisk driver to work with immutable bio_vecs
block/blk-mq-cpu.c: use hotcpu_notifier()
blk-mq: for_each_* macro correctness
block: Fix memory leak in rw_copy_check_uvector() handling
bio-integrity: Fix bio_integrity_verify segment start bug
block: remove unrelated header files and export symbol
blk-mq: uses page->list incorrectly
blk-mq: use __smp_call_function_single directly
btrfs: fix missing increment of bi_remaining
Revert "block: Warn and free bio if bi_end_io is not set"
block: Warn and free bio if bi_end_io is not set
blk-mq: fix initializing request's start time
block: blk-mq: don't export blk_mq_free_queue()
block: blk-mq: make blk_sync_queue support mq
block: blk-mq: support draining mq queue
dm cache: increment bi_remaining when bi_end_io is restored
block: fixup for generic bio chaining
block: Really silence spurious compiler warnings
block: Silence spurious compiler warnings
block: Kill bio_pair_split()
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/block/biovecs.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/block/biovecs.txt | 111 |
1 files changed, 111 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/block/biovecs.txt b/Documentation/block/biovecs.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..74a32ad52f53 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/block/biovecs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ + +Immutable biovecs and biovec iterators: +======================================= + +Kent Overstreet <kmo@daterainc.com> + +As of 3.13, biovecs should never be modified after a bio has been submitted. +Instead, we have a new struct bvec_iter which represents a range of a biovec - +the iterator will be modified as the bio is completed, not the biovec. + +More specifically, old code that needed to partially complete a bio would +update bi_sector and bi_size, and advance bi_idx to the next biovec. If it +ended up partway through a biovec, it would increment bv_offset and decrement +bv_len by the number of bytes completed in that biovec. + +In the new scheme of things, everything that must be mutated in order to +partially complete a bio is segregated into struct bvec_iter: bi_sector, +bi_size and bi_idx have been moved there; and instead of modifying bv_offset +and bv_len, struct bvec_iter has bi_bvec_done, which represents the number of +bytes completed in the current bvec. + +There are a bunch of new helper macros for hiding the gory details - in +particular, presenting the illusion of partially completed biovecs so that +normal code doesn't have to deal with bi_bvec_done. + + * Driver code should no longer refer to biovecs directly; we now have + bio_iovec() and bio_iovec_iter() macros that return literal struct biovecs, + constructed from the raw biovecs but taking into account bi_bvec_done and + bi_size. + + bio_for_each_segment() has been updated to take a bvec_iter argument + instead of an integer (that corresponded to bi_idx); for a lot of code the + conversion just required changing the types of the arguments to + bio_for_each_segment(). + + * Advancing a bvec_iter is done with bio_advance_iter(); bio_advance() is a + wrapper around bio_advance_iter() that operates on bio->bi_iter, and also + advances the bio integrity's iter if present. + + There is a lower level advance function - bvec_iter_advance() - which takes + a pointer to a biovec, not a bio; this is used by the bio integrity code. + +What's all this get us? +======================= + +Having a real iterator, and making biovecs immutable, has a number of +advantages: + + * Before, iterating over bios was very awkward when you weren't processing + exactly one bvec at a time - for example, bio_copy_data() in fs/bio.c, + which copies the contents of one bio into another. Because the biovecs + wouldn't necessarily be the same size, the old code was tricky convoluted - + it had to walk two different bios at the same time, keeping both bi_idx and + and offset into the current biovec for each. + + The new code is much more straightforward - have a look. This sort of + pattern comes up in a lot of places; a lot of drivers were essentially open + coding bvec iterators before, and having common implementation considerably + simplifies a lot of code. + + * Before, any code that might need to use the biovec after the bio had been + completed (perhaps to copy the data somewhere else, or perhaps to resubmit + it somewhere else if there was an error) had to save the entire bvec array + - again, this was being done in a fair number of places. + + * Biovecs can be shared between multiple bios - a bvec iter can represent an + arbitrary range of an existing biovec, both starting and ending midway + through biovecs. This is what enables efficient splitting of arbitrary + bios. Note that this means we _only_ use bi_size to determine when we've + reached the end of a bio, not bi_vcnt - and the bio_iovec() macro takes + bi_size into account when constructing biovecs. + + * Splitting bios is now much simpler. The old bio_split() didn't even work on + bios with more than a single bvec! Now, we can efficiently split arbitrary + size bios - because the new bio can share the old bio's biovec. + + Care must be taken to ensure the biovec isn't freed while the split bio is + still using it, in case the original bio completes first, though. Using + bio_chain() when splitting bios helps with this. + + * Submitting partially completed bios is now perfectly fine - this comes up + occasionally in stacking block drivers and various code (e.g. md and + bcache) had some ugly workarounds for this. + + It used to be the case that submitting a partially completed bio would work + fine to _most_ devices, but since accessing the raw bvec array was the + norm, not all drivers would respect bi_idx and those would break. Now, + since all drivers _must_ go through the bvec iterator - and have been + audited to make sure they are - submitting partially completed bios is + perfectly fine. + +Other implications: +=================== + + * Almost all usage of bi_idx is now incorrect and has been removed; instead, + where previously you would have used bi_idx you'd now use a bvec_iter, + probably passing it to one of the helper macros. + + I.e. instead of using bio_iovec_idx() (or bio->bi_iovec[bio->bi_idx]), you + now use bio_iter_iovec(), which takes a bvec_iter and returns a + literal struct bio_vec - constructed on the fly from the raw biovec but + taking into account bi_bvec_done (and bi_size). + + * bi_vcnt can't be trusted or relied upon by driver code - i.e. anything that + doesn't actually own the bio. The reason is twofold: firstly, it's not + actually needed for iterating over the bio anymore - we only use bi_size. + Secondly, when cloning a bio and reusing (a portion of) the original bio's + biovec, in order to calculate bi_vcnt for the new bio we'd have to iterate + over all the biovecs in the new bio - which is silly as it's not needed. + + So, don't use bi_vcnt anymore. |