[libvirt] virsh blockresize syntax is inconsistent with vol-resize and somewhat dangerous
Hello, virsh has two commands which can be used to resize block devices - "blockresize" for volumes in use by and active guest, and "vol-resize" for volumes which are not in use. The vol-resize syntax allows to specify the size as a delta (increase or decrease vs. the current size), and also refuses to shrink a volume unless the "--shrink" argument is also passed. Most other tools which can be used for block device resizing (outside of libvirt) also have similar "--shrink" argument requirements when reducing the size of an existing block device. e.g. ceph requires "--allow-shrink" when using the "rbd resize" command. The lack of such a safety device makes "blockresize" a foot-gun (which I recently found to great effect when I typoed the domain name to another valid domain). It seems I am not alone in making this error e.g. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=902171 One possible solution would be to make a new command e.g. "domblkresize" or perhaps "live-resize", which implement the "--shrink" and "--delta" behaviour to make it consistent with "vol-resize" syntax, and mark the "blockresize" command as deprecated in the documentation and help (so that existing automation which depends on the current behaviour doesn't break). Any thoughts? Should I open this as an RFE? Thanks, Tim. -- South East Open Source Solutions Limited Registered in England and Wales with company number 06134732. Registered Office: 2 Powell Gardens, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1TQ VAT number: 900 6633 53 http://seoss.co.uk/ +44-(0)1273-808309
Hi Tim, I recently stumbled on the same thing, accidentally shrinking a blockdevice. I have written a patch for virsh that will force the user to append a '--force' flag if shrinking is desired. The behavior is somewhat still inconsistent with the vol-resize command, however a bigger rewrite is needed to make both commands operate exactly the same, which I don't know if actually needed. Previous discussion can be found below, - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg00258.html - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg01437.html Best regards, Patrik On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:04 PM Tim Small <tim@seoss.co.uk> wrote:
Hello,
virsh has two commands which can be used to resize block devices - "blockresize" for volumes in use by and active guest, and "vol-resize" for volumes which are not in use.
The vol-resize syntax allows to specify the size as a delta (increase or decrease vs. the current size), and also refuses to shrink a volume unless the "--shrink" argument is also passed.
Most other tools which can be used for block device resizing (outside of libvirt) also have similar "--shrink" argument requirements when reducing the size of an existing block device. e.g. ceph requires "--allow-shrink" when using the "rbd resize" command.
The lack of such a safety device makes "blockresize" a foot-gun (which I recently found to great effect when I typoed the domain name to another valid domain).
It seems I am not alone in making this error e.g. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=902171
One possible solution would be to make a new command e.g. "domblkresize" or perhaps "live-resize", which implement the "--shrink" and "--delta" behaviour to make it consistent with "vol-resize" syntax, and mark the "blockresize" command as deprecated in the documentation and help (so that existing automation which depends on the current behaviour doesn't break).
Any thoughts? Should I open this as an RFE?
Thanks,
Tim.
-- South East Open Source Solutions Limited Registered in England and Wales with company number 06134732. Registered Office: 2 Powell Gardens, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1TQ VAT number: 900 6633 53 http://seoss.co.uk/ +44-(0)1273-808309
-- libvir-list mailing list libvir-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvir-list
-- Best regards, Patrik Martinsson
On 10/25/19 4:28 AM, Patrik Martinsson wrote:
Hi Tim,
I recently stumbled on the same thing, accidentally shrinking a blockdevice.
I have written a patch for virsh that will force the user to append a '--force' flag if shrinking is desired.
The behavior is somewhat still inconsistent with the vol-resize command, however a bigger rewrite is needed to make both commands operate exactly the same, which I don't know if actually needed.
Previous discussion can be found below, - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg00258.html - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg01437.html
Best regards, Patrik
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:04 PM Tim Small <tim@seoss.co.uk> wrote:
Hello,
virsh has two commands which can be used to resize block devices - "blockresize" for volumes in use by and active guest, and "vol-resize" for volumes which are not in use.
The vol-resize syntax allows to specify the size as a delta (increase or decrease vs. the current size), and also refuses to shrink a volume unless the "--shrink" argument is also passed.
Most other tools which can be used for block device resizing (outside of libvirt) also have similar "--shrink" argument requirements when reducing the size of an existing block device. e.g. ceph requires "--allow-shrink" when using the "rbd resize" command.
The lack of such a safety device makes "blockresize" a foot-gun (which I recently found to great effect when I typoed the domain name to another valid domain).
It seems I am not alone in making this error e.g. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=902171
One possible solution would be to make a new command e.g. "domblkresize" or perhaps "live-resize", which implement the "--shrink" and "--delta" behaviour to make it consistent with "vol-resize" syntax, and mark the "blockresize" command as deprecated in the documentation and help (so that existing automation which depends on the current behaviour doesn't break).
Any thoughts? Should I open this as an RFE?
Considering there's been multiple people hitting it, I think it's something we should fix in libvirt. Just need buy in from other devs. To summarize: 'virsh blockresize' will online resize an image path for a running VM. It does this with the qemu block_resize monitor command via the virDomainBlockResize API. The API doesn't provide any protection against shrinking the disk image though, which I presume is both the less common intention of the operation, and much less often safe to do for a running VM. And a user typo can mean data loss virsh vol-resize, which is storage API virStorageVolResize, is for offline image resizing, mostly using qemu-img. It has had a SHRINK API flag from the outset, rejecting requests to reduce the image size unless the flag is passed. Seems like a safe pattern to follow. Can we change existing blockresize behavior? I think it's reasonable; we've added flags to other APIs that are required to restore old behavior, UNDEFINE_NVRAM for one example. danpb, pkrempa, eblake, thoughts? Thanks, Cole
On 11/18/19 3:16 PM, Cole Robinson wrote:
On 10/25/19 4:28 AM, Patrik Martinsson wrote:
Hi Tim,
I recently stumbled on the same thing, accidentally shrinking a blockdevice.
I have written a patch for virsh that will force the user to append a '--force' flag if shrinking is desired.
The behavior is somewhat still inconsistent with the vol-resize command, however a bigger rewrite is needed to make both commands operate exactly the same, which I don't know if actually needed.
Previous discussion can be found below, - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg00258.html - https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-October/msg01437.html
Best regards, Patrik
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:04 PM Tim Small <tim@seoss.co.uk> wrote:
Hello,
virsh has two commands which can be used to resize block devices - "blockresize" for volumes in use by and active guest, and "vol-resize" for volumes which are not in use.
The vol-resize syntax allows to specify the size as a delta (increase or decrease vs. the current size), and also refuses to shrink a volume unless the "--shrink" argument is also passed.
Most other tools which can be used for block device resizing (outside of libvirt) also have similar "--shrink" argument requirements when reducing the size of an existing block device. e.g. ceph requires "--allow-shrink" when using the "rbd resize" command.
The lack of such a safety device makes "blockresize" a foot-gun (which I recently found to great effect when I typoed the domain name to another valid domain).
It seems I am not alone in making this error e.g. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=902171
One possible solution would be to make a new command e.g. "domblkresize" or perhaps "live-resize", which implement the "--shrink" and "--delta" behaviour to make it consistent with "vol-resize" syntax, and mark the "blockresize" command as deprecated in the documentation and help (so that existing automation which depends on the current behaviour doesn't break).
Any thoughts? Should I open this as an RFE?
Considering there's been multiple people hitting it, I think it's something we should fix in libvirt. Just need buy in from other devs. To summarize:
'virsh blockresize' will online resize an image path for a running VM. It does this with the qemu block_resize monitor command via the virDomainBlockResize API. The API doesn't provide any protection against shrinking the disk image though, which I presume is both the less common intention of the operation, and much less often safe to do for a running VM. And a user typo can mean data loss
virsh vol-resize, which is storage API virStorageVolResize, is for offline image resizing, mostly using qemu-img. It has had a SHRINK API flag from the outset, rejecting requests to reduce the image size unless the flag is passed. Seems like a safe pattern to follow.
Can we change existing blockresize behavior? I think it's reasonable; we've added flags to other APIs that are required to restore old behavior, UNDEFINE_NVRAM for one example.
I brought this question up in this thread: https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2019-December/msg00817.html danpb suggested making this a protection that lives in virsh only. So, change blockresize to reject shrinking, but add a --shrink option to override that behavior, and all the code lives in tools/ so the old API behavior is preserved. You can CC me on a patch and I'll review it (but I'll be offline until January) Thanks, Cole
participants (3)
-
Cole Robinson -
Patrik Martinsson -
Tim Small