[dm-devel] staged dm_internal_{suspend, resume} related changes for wider review

[Mike Snitzer]

On Wed, Nov 05 2014 at  9:37am -0500,
Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka at redhat.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2014, Mike Snitzer wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Nov 05 2014 at  8:05am -0500,
> > Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka at redhat.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, 5 Nov 2014, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> > > 
> > > > You can for example set the flag in the prison meaning that the prison is 
> > > > suspended and then call dm_internal_suspend immediatelly followed by 
> > > > dm_internal_resume - that will clear in-progress bios and prevent new bios 
> > > > from coming in (and we don't need to change dm_internal_suspend and 
> > > > dm_internal_resume to become so big).
> > 
> > It may _seem_ like they have gotten big given the code was refactored to
> > share code with dm_suspend and dm_resume.  BUT I know you see that the
> > actual code complexity isn't big.  I especially wanted you (and/or Bryn)
> > to evaluate the performance implications that my changes had on
> > dm-stats.  I'm pretty confident there won't be much if any performance
> > difference (given the code is identical to what you had, except some
> > extra checks are made but ultimately not used, e.g. lockfs/unlockfs).
> 
> This is not about performance, it is about unclear behavior.
> 
> If someone does internal_suspend followed by remove, what should be the 
> correct behavior? The current code deadlocks in this case.

You need to be specific, if internal suspend was used by the thin-pool
suspend to suspend thin devices you'll need the thin-pool resumed before
you can remove any thin device!

Like any interface there is a right way and a wrong way to use it.
dm_internal_suspend must always be followed by dm_internal_resume.
I cannot yet see a hole where properly written code is exposed here.

> The patch series introduces two suspend mechanisms and it is unclear how 
> should they interact with each other.
> 
> > The end result of the dm_internal_{suspend,resume} changes is an
> > interface that is useful for DM targets in addition to dm-stats.  That
> > is the kind of advancement DM needs.
> > 
> > Please focus on the performance impact of my changes, if any, and we'll
> > go from there.
> > 
> > > No, the correct sequence is this (do this in presuspend handler):
> > > 
> > > 1. call dm_internal_suspend on all thin devices
> > > 2. set the flag in the prison meaning that the prison is blocked
> > > 3. call dm_internal_resume on all thin devices
> > 
> > I really didn't like the idea of reusing the bio-prison to achieve the
> > suspend of all thins to begin with.  This proposal is even more suspect
> > given the desire to call dm_internal_suspend and dm_internal_resume from
> > pool_presuspend.
> > 
> > It just isn't code that I want to see making its way into the tree.
> > Sets bad precedent of hacking around problems within a target for
> > questionable gain (questionable in that there really isn't a
> > pattern/infrastructure for other more complex targets to follow so
> > they'd need to invent their own hack should they have a comparable
> > problem).
> 
> At least the hack stays within dm-thin and generic dm code isn't 
> contaminated by it.

I've improved dm_internal_suspend and dm_internal_resume to not be only
serving dm-stats.  And the complexity isn't as bad as you'd like others
to think.

Please stop with the FUD.. I won't accept FUD as the basis for
dismissing changes.