----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Blake" <eblake@redhat.com> To: "Francesco Romani" <fromani@redhat.com> Cc: libvir-list@redhat.com, "Nir Soffer" <nsoffer@redhat.com>, "Peter Krempa" <pkrempa@redhat.com>, qemu-devel@nongnu.org Sent: Friday, May 22, 2015 6:33:01 AM Subject: Re: [libvirt] RFC: exposing qemu's block-set-write-threshold
[adding qemu]
I read the thread and I'm pretty sure this will be a silly question, but I want to make sure I am on the same page and I'm not somehow confused by the terminology.
Let's consider the simplest of the situation we face in oVirt:
(thin provisioned qcow2 disk on LV)
vda=[format=qcow2] -> lv=[path=/dev/mapper/$UUID]
Isn't the LV here the 'backing file' (actually, backing block device) of the disk?
Restating what you wrote into libvirt terminology, I think this means
that you have a <disk> where: <driver> is qcow2 <source> is a local file name <device> names vda <backingStore index='1'> describes the backing LV: <driver> is also qcow2 (as polling allocation growth in order to resize on demand only makes sense for qcow2 format) <source> is /dev/mapper/$UUID
Yes, exactly my point. I just want to be 100% sure that the three (slightly) different parlances of the three groups (oVirt/libvirt/QEMU) are aligned on the same meaning, and that we're not getting anything lost in translation
that you have a <disk> where: <driver> is qcow2 <source> is a local file name <device> names vda <backingStore index='1'> describes the backing LV: <driver> is also qcow2 (as polling allocation growth in order to resize on demand only makes sense for qcow2 format) <source> is /dev/mapper/$UUID
For the final confirmation, here's the actual XML we produce: <disk device="disk" snapshot="no" type="block"> <address bus="0x00" domain="0x0000" function="0x0" slot="0x05" type="pci"/> <source dev="/rhev/data-center/00000002-0002-0002-0002-00000000014b/12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44/images/ee1295ee-7ddc-4030-be5e-4557538bc4d2/05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5"/> <target bus="virtio" dev="vda"/> <serial>ee1295ee-7ddc-4030-be5e-4557538bc4d2</serial> <boot order="1"/> <driver cache="none" error_policy="stop" io="native" name="qemu" type="qcow2"/> </disk> For the sake of completeness: $ ls -lh /rhev/data-center/00000002-0002-0002-0002-00000000014b/12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44/images/ee1295ee-7ddc-4030-be5e-4557538bc4d2/05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 vdsm kvm 78 May 22 08:49 /rhev/data-center/00000002-0002-0002-0002-00000000014b/12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44/images/ee1295ee-7ddc-4030-be5e-4557538bc4d2/05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5 -> /dev/12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44/05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5 $ ls -lh /dev/12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44/ total 0 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 8 May 22 08:49 05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5 -> ../dm-11 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 8 May 22 08:49 54673e6d-207d-4a66-8f0d-3f5b3cda78e5 -> ../dm-12 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 ids -> ../dm-606 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 inbox -> ../dm-607 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 leases -> ../dm-605 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 master -> ../dm-608 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 metadata -> ../dm-603 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 May 22 08:49 outbox -> ../dm-604 lvs | grep 05a88a94 05a88a94-5bd6-4698-be69-39e78c84e1a5 12f68692-2a5a-4e48-af5e-4679bca7fd44 -wi-ao---- 14.12g
then indeed, "vda" is the local qcow2 file, and "vda[1]" is the backing file on the LV storage.
Normally, you only care about the write threshold at the active layer (the local file, with name "vda"), because that is the only image that will normally be allocating sectors. But in the case of active commit, where you are taking the thin-provisioned local file and writing its clusters back into the backing LV, the action of commit can allocate sectors in the backing file.
Right
Thus, libvirt wants to let you set a write-threshold on both parts of the backing chain (the active wrapper, and the LV backing file), where the event could fire on either node first. The existing libvirt virConnectDomainGetAllStats() can already be used to poll allocation growth (the block.N.allocation statistic in libvirt, or 'virtual-size' in QMP's 'ImageInfo'), but the event would let you drop polling.
Yes, exactly the intent
However, while starting to code the libvirt side of things, I've hit a couple of snags with interacting with the qemu design. First, the 'block-set-write-threshold' command is allowed to set a threshold by 'node-name' (any BDS, whether active or backing),
Yes, this emerged during the review of my patch. I first took the simplest approach (probably simplistic, in retrospect), but -IIRC- was pointed out that setting by node-name grants the most flexible approach, hence was required. See: http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2014-11/msg02503.html http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2014-11/msg02580.html http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2014-11/msg02831.html
but libvirt is not yet setting 'node-name' for backing files (so even though libvirt knows how to resolve "vda[1]" to the backing chain,
I had vague memories of this, hence my clumsy and poorly worded question about how to resolve 'vda[1]' before :\
it does not yet have a way to tell qemu to set the threshold on that BDS until libvirt starts naming all nodes). Second, querying for the current threshold value is only possible in struct 'BlockDeviceInfo', which is reported as the top-level of each disk in 'query-block', and also for 'query-named-block-nodes'. However, when it comes to collecting block.N.allocation, libvirt is instead getting information from the sub-struct 'ImageInfo', which is reported recursively for BlockDeviceInfo in 'query-block' but not reported for 'query-named-block-nodes'.
IIRC 'query-named-block-nodes' was the preferred way to extract this information (see also http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2014-11/msg02944.html )
So it is that much harder to call 'query-named-block-nodes' and then correlate that information back into the tree of information for anything but the active image. So it may be a while before thresholds on "vda[1]" actually work for block commit; my initial implementation will just focus on the active image "vda".
I'm wondering if qemu can make it easier by duplicating threshold information into 'ImageInfo' rather than just 'BlockDeviceInfo', so that a single call to 'query-block' rather than a second call to 'query-named-block-nodes' can scrape the threshold information for every BDS in the chain.
I think I've just not explored this option back in time, just had vague feeling that was better not to duplicate information, but I can't recall real solid reason on my side. Bests, -- Francesco Romani RedHat Engineering Virtualization R & D Phone: 8261328 IRC: fromani