Re: [Qemu-block] [PATCH v3 6/7] block/backup: teach backup_cow_with_bounce_buffer to copy more at once

[Max Reitz]

On 13.08.19 17:32, Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy wrote:
> 13.08.2019 18:02, Max Reitz wrote:
>> On 13.08.19 17:00, Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy wrote:
>>> 13.08.2019 17:57, Max Reitz wrote:
>>>> On 13.08.19 16:39, Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy wrote:
>>>>> 13.08.2019 17:23, Max Reitz wrote:
>>>>>> On 13.08.19 16:14, Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy wrote:

[...]

>>>>>>> But still..
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Synchronous mirror allocates full-request buffers on guest write. Is it 
>>>>>>> correct?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If we assume that it is correct to double memory usage of guest 
>>>>>>> operations, than for backup
>>>>>>> the problem is only in write_zero and discard where guest-assumed 
>>>>>>> memory usage should be zero.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, but that is the problem.  I didn’t say anything in v2, because I
>>>>>> only thought of normal writes and I found it fine to double the memory
>>>>>> usage there (a guest won’t issue huge write requests in parallel).  But
>>>>>> discard/write-zeroes are a different matter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And if we should distinguish writes from write_zeroes and discard, it's 
>>>>>>> better to postpone this
>>>>>>> improvement to be after backup-top filter merged.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But do you need to distinguish it?  Why not just keep track of memory
>>>>>> usage and put the current I/O coroutine to sleep in a CoQueue or
>>>>>> something, and wake that up at the end of backup_do_cow()?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. Because if we _can_ allow doubling of memory, it's more effective to 
>>>>> not restrict allocations on
>>>>> guest writes. It's just seems to be more effective technique.
>>>>
>>>> But the problem with backup and zero writes/discards is that the memory
>>>> is not doubled.  The request doesn’t need any memory, but the CBW
>>>> operation does, and maybe lots of it.
>>>>
>>>> So the guest may issue many zero writes/discards in parallel and thus
>>>> exhaust memory on the host.
>>>
>>> So this is the reason to separate writes from write-zeros/discrads. So at 
>>> least write will be happy. And I
>>> think that write is more often request than write-zero/discard
>>
>> But that makes it complicated for no practical gain whatsoever.
>>
>>>>
>>>>> 2. Anyway, I'd allow some always-available size to allocate - let it be 
>>>>> one cluster, which will correspond
>>>>> to current behavior and prevent guest io hang in worst case.
>>>>
>>>> The guest would only hang if it we have to copy more than e.g. 64 MB at
>>>> a time.  At which point I think it’s not unreasonable to sequentialize
>>>> requests.
>>
>> Because of this.  How is it bad to start sequentializing writes when the
>> data exceeds 64 MB?
>>
> 
> So you want total memory limit of 64 MB? (with possible parameter like in 
> mirror)
> 
> And allocation algorithm to copy count bytes:
> 
> if free_mem >= count: allocate count bytes
> else if free_mem >= cluster: allocate cluster and copy in a loop
> else wait in co-queue until some memory available and retry
> 
> Is it OK for you?

Sounds good to me, although I don’t know whether the second branch is
necessary.  As I’ve said, the total limit is just an insurance against a
guest that does some crazy stuff.

Max

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