Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] increase BlockConf.min_io_size type from uint16_t to uint32_t

[Kevin Wolf]

Am 02.05.2012 12:08, schrieb Michael Tokarev:
> 02.05.2012 13:57, Kevin Wolf пишет:
>> Am 30.04.2012 17:52, schrieb Michael Tokarev:
>>> This value is used currently for virtio-blk only.  It was defined
>>> as uint16_t before, which is the same as in kernel<=>user interface
>>> (in virtio_blk.h, struct virtio_blk_config).  But the problem is
>>> that in kernel<=>user interface the units are sectors (which is
>>> usually 512 bytes or more), while in qemu it is in bytes.  However,
>>> for, say, md raid5 arrays, it is typical to have actual min_io_size
>>> of a host device to be large.  For example, for raid5 device of
>>> 3 drives with 64Kb chunk size, that value will be 128Kb, which does
>>> not fit in a uint16_t anymore.
>>>
>>> Increase the value size from 16bits to 32bits for now.
>>>
>>> But apparently, the kernel<=>user interface needs to be fixed too
>>> (while it is much more difficult due to compatibility issues),
>>> because even with 512byte units, the 16bit value there will overflow
>>> too with quite normal MD RAID configuration.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Michael Tokarev <address@hidden>
>>> ---
>>>  block.h |    4 ++--
>>>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/block.h b/block.h
>>> index f163e54..cd5ae79 100644
>>> --- a/block.h
>>> +++ b/block.h
>>> @@ -425,7 +425,7 @@ typedef struct BlockConf {
>>>      BlockDriverState *bs;
>>>      uint16_t physical_block_size;
>>>      uint16_t logical_block_size;
>>> -    uint16_t min_io_size;
>>> +    uint32_t min_io_size;
>>>      uint32_t opt_io_size;
>>>      int32_t bootindex;
>>>      uint32_t discard_granularity;
>>> @@ -450,7 +450,7 @@ static inline unsigned int 
>>> get_physical_block_exp(BlockConf *conf)
>>>                            _conf.logical_block_size, 512),               \
>>>      DEFINE_PROP_BLOCKSIZE("physical_block_size", _state,                \
>>>                            _conf.physical_block_size, 512),              \
>>> -    DEFINE_PROP_UINT16("min_io_size", _state, _conf.min_io_size, 0),  \
>>> +    DEFINE_PROP_UINT32("min_io_size", _state, _conf.min_io_size, 0),  \
>>>      DEFINE_PROP_UINT32("opt_io_size", _state, _conf.opt_io_size, 0),    \
>>>      DEFINE_PROP_INT32("bootindex", _state, _conf.bootindex, -1),        \
>>>      DEFINE_PROP_UINT32("discard_granularity", _state, \
>>
>> Don't you need an additional check in virtio-blk now so that you don't
>> overflow the 16 bit field in the virtio protocol? And I guess the same
>> for SCSI, where INQUIRY reports only a 16 bits sector count as well.
> 
> That probably should be added too, but I'm not sure I agree these should be
> added into virtio-blk.
> 
> As I already mentioned, the virtio protocol has the same defect (but there
> it is less serious due to usage of larger units).  And that's where the
> additional overflow needs to be ELIMINATED, not just checked.  Ie, the
> protocol should be changed somehow - the only issue is that I don't know
> how to do that now, once it has been in use for quite some time.

Even if you create a new version of the protocol (introduce a new
feature flag or whatever), newer qemus will still have to deal with
older guests and vice versa.

> Note that now, we don't have ANY checks of this theme whatsoever, at all:
> I tried using 128K as min_io_size, and the guest sees it as 0 currently, --
> the limits (at least the fact that the value fits in the defined number
> of bits) should be checked in the common function which implements these
> DEFINE_PROP_UINT* defines.

Looks like a bug in the qdev property parser to me. 128k is obviously an
invalid value for a 16 bit property.

But now that you're extending the property value to 32 bits, but only 25
bits can be really used, the property type doesn't even theoretically
suffice as a check.

> I'm not sure I can fix all of this in one go, so I went on and fixed the
> most specific bug first, without any additional bad side effects.
> 
> Besides, as I also already mentioned, this whole structure is used in
> virtio-blk *only*, so only virtio driver passes this information into
> guest, scsi does not use it.  And again, in case of scsi, the units are
> *sectors*, not bytes.

Yes, same as for virtio-blk.

But I can't see which structure is only used by virtio-blk, though. The
min_io_size property is contained in DEFINE_BLOCK_PROPERTIES(), which is
used by every qdevified block device. Most of them ignore min_io_size,
but virtio-blk and scsi-disk don't.

> So maybe the solution is to keep this as 16bits but switch to sectors.
> But for this, DEFINE_PROP_UINT can't be used anymore, unless we agree
> to change user interface TOO and require the user to specify these
> values in sectors to start with.

That wouldn't be a good interface. Let's just take a 32 bit number and
add the checks in the devices.

> And yes, if SCSI uses 16bit value here, it will have the same issue
> as virtio currently have -- pretty normal MD RAID array can't be
> expressed using 16bit number of sectors already...  Oh well, but we
> at least have a (small) chance to fix virtio.

Just curious... What values do you want to use? The 32 MB minimum I/O
size that are possible with 16 bits and 512 byte sectors already sounds
insanely large.

Kevin