147 lines
6.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
147 lines
6.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
======================================
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Immutable biovecs and biovec iterators
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======================================
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Kent Overstreet <kmo@daterainc.com>
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As of 3.13, biovecs should never be modified after a bio has been submitted.
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Instead, we have a new struct bvec_iter which represents a range of a biovec -
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the iterator will be modified as the bio is completed, not the biovec.
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More specifically, old code that needed to partially complete a bio would
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update bi_sector and bi_size, and advance bi_idx to the next biovec. If it
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ended up partway through a biovec, it would increment bv_offset and decrement
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bv_len by the number of bytes completed in that biovec.
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In the new scheme of things, everything that must be mutated in order to
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partially complete a bio is segregated into struct bvec_iter: bi_sector,
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bi_size and bi_idx have been moved there; and instead of modifying bv_offset
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and bv_len, struct bvec_iter has bi_bvec_done, which represents the number of
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bytes completed in the current bvec.
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There are a bunch of new helper macros for hiding the gory details - in
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particular, presenting the illusion of partially completed biovecs so that
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normal code doesn't have to deal with bi_bvec_done.
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* Driver code should no longer refer to biovecs directly; we now have
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bio_iovec() and bio_iter_iovec() macros that return literal struct biovecs,
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constructed from the raw biovecs but taking into account bi_bvec_done and
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bi_size.
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bio_for_each_segment() has been updated to take a bvec_iter argument
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instead of an integer (that corresponded to bi_idx); for a lot of code the
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conversion just required changing the types of the arguments to
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bio_for_each_segment().
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* Advancing a bvec_iter is done with bio_advance_iter(); bio_advance() is a
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wrapper around bio_advance_iter() that operates on bio->bi_iter, and also
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advances the bio integrity's iter if present.
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There is a lower level advance function - bvec_iter_advance() - which takes
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a pointer to a biovec, not a bio; this is used by the bio integrity code.
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What's all this get us?
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=======================
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Having a real iterator, and making biovecs immutable, has a number of
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advantages:
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* Before, iterating over bios was very awkward when you weren't processing
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exactly one bvec at a time - for example, bio_copy_data() in block/bio.c,
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which copies the contents of one bio into another. Because the biovecs
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wouldn't necessarily be the same size, the old code was tricky convoluted -
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it had to walk two different bios at the same time, keeping both bi_idx and
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and offset into the current biovec for each.
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The new code is much more straightforward - have a look. This sort of
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pattern comes up in a lot of places; a lot of drivers were essentially open
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coding bvec iterators before, and having common implementation considerably
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simplifies a lot of code.
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* Before, any code that might need to use the biovec after the bio had been
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completed (perhaps to copy the data somewhere else, or perhaps to resubmit
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it somewhere else if there was an error) had to save the entire bvec array
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- again, this was being done in a fair number of places.
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* Biovecs can be shared between multiple bios - a bvec iter can represent an
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arbitrary range of an existing biovec, both starting and ending midway
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through biovecs. This is what enables efficient splitting of arbitrary
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bios. Note that this means we _only_ use bi_size to determine when we've
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reached the end of a bio, not bi_vcnt - and the bio_iovec() macro takes
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bi_size into account when constructing biovecs.
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* Splitting bios is now much simpler. The old bio_split() didn't even work on
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bios with more than a single bvec! Now, we can efficiently split arbitrary
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size bios - because the new bio can share the old bio's biovec.
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Care must be taken to ensure the biovec isn't freed while the split bio is
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still using it, in case the original bio completes first, though. Using
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bio_chain() when splitting bios helps with this.
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* Submitting partially completed bios is now perfectly fine - this comes up
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occasionally in stacking block drivers and various code (e.g. md and
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bcache) had some ugly workarounds for this.
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It used to be the case that submitting a partially completed bio would work
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fine to _most_ devices, but since accessing the raw bvec array was the
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norm, not all drivers would respect bi_idx and those would break. Now,
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since all drivers _must_ go through the bvec iterator - and have been
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audited to make sure they are - submitting partially completed bios is
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perfectly fine.
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Other implications:
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===================
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* Almost all usage of bi_idx is now incorrect and has been removed; instead,
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where previously you would have used bi_idx you'd now use a bvec_iter,
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probably passing it to one of the helper macros.
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I.e. instead of using bio_iovec_idx() (or bio->bi_iovec[bio->bi_idx]), you
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now use bio_iter_iovec(), which takes a bvec_iter and returns a
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literal struct bio_vec - constructed on the fly from the raw biovec but
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taking into account bi_bvec_done (and bi_size).
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* bi_vcnt can't be trusted or relied upon by driver code - i.e. anything that
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doesn't actually own the bio. The reason is twofold: firstly, it's not
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actually needed for iterating over the bio anymore - we only use bi_size.
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Secondly, when cloning a bio and reusing (a portion of) the original bio's
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biovec, in order to calculate bi_vcnt for the new bio we'd have to iterate
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over all the biovecs in the new bio - which is silly as it's not needed.
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So, don't use bi_vcnt anymore.
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* The current interface allows the block layer to split bios as needed, so we
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could eliminate a lot of complexity particularly in stacked drivers. Code
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that creates bios can then create whatever size bios are convenient, and
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more importantly stacked drivers don't have to deal with both their own bio
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size limitations and the limitations of the underlying devices. Thus
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there's no need to define ->merge_bvec_fn() callbacks for individual block
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drivers.
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Usage of helpers:
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=================
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* The following helpers whose names have the suffix of `_all` can only be used
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on non-BIO_CLONED bio. They are usually used by filesystem code. Drivers
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shouldn't use them because the bio may have been split before it reached the
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driver.
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::
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bio_for_each_segment_all()
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bio_first_bvec_all()
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bio_first_page_all()
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bio_last_bvec_all()
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* The following helpers iterate over single-page segment. The passed 'struct
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bio_vec' will contain a single-page IO vector during the iteration::
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bio_for_each_segment()
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bio_for_each_segment_all()
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* The following helpers iterate over multi-page bvec. The passed 'struct
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bio_vec' will contain a multi-page IO vector during the iteration::
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bio_for_each_bvec()
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rq_for_each_bvec()
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