[dm-devel] [PATCH 3/3] dm-thin: fix discard_granularity

[Mikulas Patocka]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2012, Mike Snitzer wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 16 2012 at  2:35pm -0400,
> Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > dm-thin: fix discard_granularity
> > 
> > The kernel expects that limits->discard_granularity is a power of two.
> > Set this limit only if we use a power of two block size.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka at redhat.com>
> > 
> > ---
> >  drivers/md/dm-thin.c |    3 ++-
> >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > 
> > Index: linux-3.5-rc6-fast/drivers/md/dm-thin.c
> > ===================================================================
> > --- linux-3.5-rc6-fast.orig/drivers/md/dm-thin.c	2012-07-16 20:07:49.000000000 +0200
> > +++ linux-3.5-rc6-fast/drivers/md/dm-thin.c	2012-07-16 20:08:01.000000000 +0200
> > @@ -2502,7 +2502,8 @@ static void set_discard_limits(struct po
> >  	 * bios cover a block partially.  A discard that spans a block boundary
> >  	 * is not sent to this target.
> >  	 */
> > -	limits->discard_granularity = pool->sectors_per_block << SECTOR_SHIFT;
> > +	if (pool->sectors_per_block_shift >= 0)
> > +		limits->discard_granularity = pool->sectors_per_block << SECTOR_SHIFT;
> >  	limits->discard_zeroes_data = pool->pf.zero_new_blocks;
> >  }
> 
> Given the block layer's assumption that discard_granularity is always a
> power of 2: thinp should disable discard if the thinp blocksize is a non
> power of 2.  So this patch isn't correct (discard support should be
> disabled in pool_ctr based on the specified blocksize).

discard_granularity is just a hint (and IMHO quite useless hint).

The documentation says that it indicates a size of internal allocation 
unit that may be larger than the block size. The code doesn't use it this 
way - it is used in FITRIM ioctl where it specifies the minimum request 
size to be sent. It is also used in blkdev_issue_discard where it is used 
to round down the number of sectors to discard on discard_granularity 
boundary - this is wrong, it aligns request size on discard_granularity 
boundary, but it doesn't align request start on this boundary.

I don't see a reason why we should disable discard because of an a rarely 
used hint.

Mikulas

> Future work should be:
> 1) explore/eliminate the block layer's power of 2 constraints
> 2) divorce thinp's discard limits (for discard passdown) from the pool's
>    blocksize
>