[dm-devel] [RFC PATCH] blk-mq: fixup RESTART when queue becomes idle

[Ming Lei]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 10:38:41AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> On 1/19/18 9:37 AM, Ming Lei wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 09:27:46AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> >> On 1/19/18 9:26 AM, Ming Lei wrote:
> >>> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 09:19:24AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> >>>> On 1/19/18 9:05 AM, Ming Lei wrote:
> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 08:48:55AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
> >>>>>> On 1/19/18 8:40 AM, Ming Lei wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> Where does the dm STS_RESOURCE error usually come from - what's exact
> >>>>>>>>>> resource are we running out of?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> It is from blk_get_request(underlying queue), see
> >>>>>>>>> multipath_clone_and_map().
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> That's what I thought. So for a low queue depth underlying queue, it's
> >>>>>>>> quite possible that this situation can happen. Two potential solutions
> >>>>>>>> I see:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 1) As described earlier in this thread, having a mechanism for being
> >>>>>>>>    notified when the scarce resource becomes available. It would not
> >>>>>>>>    be hard to tap into the existing sbitmap wait queue for that.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 2) Have dm set BLK_MQ_F_BLOCKING and just sleep on the resource
> >>>>>>>>    allocation. I haven't read the dm code to know if this is a
> >>>>>>>>    possibility or not.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I'd probably prefer #1. It's a classic case of trying to get the
> >>>>>>>> request, and if it fails, add ourselves to the sbitmap tag wait
> >>>>>>>> queue head, retry, and bail if that also fails. Connecting the
> >>>>>>>> scarce resource and the consumer is the only way to really fix
> >>>>>>>> this, without bogus arbitrary delays.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Right, as I have replied to Bart, using mod_delayed_work_on() with
> >>>>>>> returning BLK_STS_NO_DEV_RESOURCE(or sort of name) for the scarce
> >>>>>>> resource should fix this issue.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It'll fix the forever stall, but it won't really fix it, as we'll slow
> >>>>>> down the dm device by some random amount.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> A simple test case would be to have a null_blk device with a queue depth
> >>>>>> of one, and dm on top of that. Start a fio job that runs two jobs: one
> >>>>>> that does IO to the underlying device, and one that does IO to the dm
> >>>>>> device. If the job on the dm device runs substantially slower than the
> >>>>>> one to the underlying device, then the problem isn't really fixed.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I remembered that I tried this test on scsi-debug & dm-mpath over scsi-debug,
> >>>>> seems not observed this issue, could you explain a bit why IO over dm-mpath
> >>>>> may be slower? Because both two IO contexts call same get_request(), and
> >>>>> in theory dm-mpath should be a bit quicker since it uses direct issue for
> >>>>> underlying queue, without io scheduler involved.
> >>>>
> >>>> Because if you lose the race for getting the request, you'll have some
> >>>> arbitrary delay before trying again, potentially. Compared to the direct
> >>>
> >>> But the restart still works, one request is completed, then the queue
> >>> is return immediately because we use mod_delayed_work_on(0), so looks
> >>> no such issue.
> >>
> >> There are no pending requests for this case, nothing to restart the
> >> queue. When you fail that blk_get_request(), you are idle, nothing
> >> is pending.
> > 
> > I think we needn't worry about that, once a device is attached to
> > dm-rq, it can't be mounted any more, and usually user don't use the device
> > directly and by dm-mpath at the same time.
> 
> Here's an example of that, using my current block tree (merged into
> master).  The setup is dm-mpath on top of null_blk, the latter having
> just a single request. Both are mq devices.
> 
> Fio direct 4k random reads on dm_mq: ~250K iops
> 
> Start dd on underlying device (or partition on same device), just doing
> sequential reads.
> 
> Fio direct 4k random reads on dm_mq with dd running: 9 iops
> 
> No schedulers involved.
> 
> https://i.imgur.com/WTDnnwE.gif

If null_blk's timer mode is used with a bit delay introduced, I guess
the effect from direct access to underlying queue shouldn't be so
serious. But it still won't be good as direct access.

Another way may be to introduce a variants blk_get_request(), such as
blk_get_request_with_notify(), then pass the current dm-rq's hctx to
it, and use the tag's waitqueue to handle that. But the change can be
a bit big.

-- 
Ming