diff mbox

qemu-img: Add cache command line option

Message ID 1308145570-18364-1-git-send-email-fsimonce@redhat.com
State New
Headers show

Commit Message

Federico Simoncelli June 15, 2011, 1:46 p.m. UTC
qemu-img currently writes disk images using writeback and filling
up the cache buffers which are then flushed by the kernel preventing
other processes from accessing the storage.
This is particularly bad in cluster environments where time-based
algorithms might be in place and accessing the storage within
certain timeouts is critical.
This patch adds the option to choose a cache method when writing
disk images.

Signed-off-by: Federico Simoncelli <fsimonce@redhat.com>
---
 qemu-img.c |   81 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
 1 files changed, 68 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

Comments

Christoph Hellwig June 16, 2011, 2:28 p.m. UTC | #1
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:46:10AM -0400, Federico Simoncelli wrote:
> qemu-img currently writes disk images using writeback and filling
> up the cache buffers which are then flushed by the kernel preventing
> other processes from accessing the storage.
> This is particularly bad in cluster environments where time-based
> algorithms might be in place and accessing the storage within
> certain timeouts is critical.
> This patch adds the option to choose a cache method when writing
> disk images.

Allowing to chose the mode is of course fine, but what about also
choosing a good default?  writethrough doesn't really make any sense
for qemu-img, given that we can trivially flush the cache at the end
of the operations.  I'd also say that using the buffer cache doesn't
make sense either, as there is little point in caching these operations.
Kevin Wolf June 16, 2011, 2:43 p.m. UTC | #2
Am 16.06.2011 16:28, schrieb Christoph Hellwig:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:46:10AM -0400, Federico Simoncelli wrote:
>> qemu-img currently writes disk images using writeback and filling
>> up the cache buffers which are then flushed by the kernel preventing
>> other processes from accessing the storage.
>> This is particularly bad in cluster environments where time-based
>> algorithms might be in place and accessing the storage within
>> certain timeouts is critical.
>> This patch adds the option to choose a cache method when writing
>> disk images.
> 
> Allowing to chose the mode is of course fine, but what about also
> choosing a good default?  writethrough doesn't really make any sense
> for qemu-img, given that we can trivially flush the cache at the end
> of the operations.  I'd also say that using the buffer cache doesn't
> make sense either, as there is little point in caching these operations.

Right, we need to keep the defaults as they are. That is, for convert
unsafe and for everything else writeback. The patch seems to make
writeback the default for everything.

Kevin
Federico Simoncelli June 16, 2011, 2:44 p.m. UTC | #3
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christoph Hellwig" <hch@lst.de>
> To: "Federico Simoncelli" <fsimonce@redhat.com>
> Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, kwolf@redhat.com, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, avi@redhat.com
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 4:28:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] qemu-img: Add cache command line option
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:46:10AM -0400, Federico Simoncelli wrote:
> > qemu-img currently writes disk images using writeback and filling
> > up the cache buffers which are then flushed by the kernel preventing
> > other processes from accessing the storage.
> > This is particularly bad in cluster environments where time-based
> > algorithms might be in place and accessing the storage within
> > certain timeouts is critical.
> > This patch adds the option to choose a cache method when writing
> > disk images.
> 
> Allowing to chose the mode is of course fine, but what about also
> choosing a good default? writethrough doesn't really make any sense
> for qemu-img, given that we can trivially flush the cache at the end
> of the operations. I'd also say that using the buffer cache doesn't
> make sense either, as there is little point in caching these
> operations.

I totally agree with you, I didn't change the default to increase the
chances for my patch to be accepted.
If we want cache=none as default we can easily change:

-#define BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE "writeback"
+#define BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE "none"
Kevin Wolf June 20, 2011, 2:47 p.m. UTC | #4
Am 16.06.2011 16:43, schrieb Kevin Wolf:
> Am 16.06.2011 16:28, schrieb Christoph Hellwig:
>> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:46:10AM -0400, Federico Simoncelli wrote:
>>> qemu-img currently writes disk images using writeback and filling
>>> up the cache buffers which are then flushed by the kernel preventing
>>> other processes from accessing the storage.
>>> This is particularly bad in cluster environments where time-based
>>> algorithms might be in place and accessing the storage within
>>> certain timeouts is critical.
>>> This patch adds the option to choose a cache method when writing
>>> disk images.
>>
>> Allowing to chose the mode is of course fine, but what about also
>> choosing a good default?  writethrough doesn't really make any sense
>> for qemu-img, given that we can trivially flush the cache at the end
>> of the operations.  I'd also say that using the buffer cache doesn't
>> make sense either, as there is little point in caching these operations.
> 
> Right, we need to keep the defaults as they are. That is, for convert
> unsafe and for everything else writeback. The patch seems to make
> writeback the default for everything.

Federico, are you going to fix this in a v4?

Kevin
diff mbox

Patch

diff --git a/qemu-img.c b/qemu-img.c
index 4f162d1..7609db5 100644
--- a/qemu-img.c
+++ b/qemu-img.c
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@  typedef struct img_cmd_t {
 
 /* Default to cache=writeback as data integrity is not important for qemu-tcg. */
 #define BDRV_O_FLAGS BDRV_O_CACHE_WB
+#define BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE "writeback"
 
 static void format_print(void *opaque, const char *name)
 {
@@ -64,6 +65,8 @@  static void help(void)
            "Command parameters:\n"
            "  'filename' is a disk image filename\n"
            "  'fmt' is the disk image format. It is guessed automatically in most cases\n"
+           "  'cache' is the cache mode used to write the output disk image, the valid\n"
+           "    options are: 'none', 'writeback' (default), 'writethrough' and 'unsafe'\n"
            "  'size' is the disk image size in bytes. Optional suffixes\n"
            "    'k' or 'K' (kilobyte, 1024), 'M' (megabyte, 1024k), 'G' (gigabyte, 1024M)\n"
            "    and T (terabyte, 1024G) are supported. 'b' is ignored.\n"
@@ -180,6 +183,27 @@  static int read_password(char *buf, int buf_size)
 }
 #endif
 
+static int set_cache_flag(const char *mode, int *flags)
+{
+    *flags &= ~BDRV_O_CACHE_MASK;
+
+    if (!strcmp(mode, "none") || !strcmp(mode, "off")) {
+        *flags |= BDRV_O_CACHE_WB;
+        *flags |= BDRV_O_NOCACHE;
+    } else if (!strcmp(mode, "writeback")) {
+        *flags |= BDRV_O_CACHE_WB;
+    } else if (!strcmp(mode, "unsafe")) {
+        *flags |= BDRV_O_CACHE_WB;
+        *flags |= BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH;
+    } else if (!strcmp(mode, "writethrough")) {
+        /* this is the default */
+    } else {
+        return -1;
+    }
+
+    return 0;
+}
+
 static int print_block_option_help(const char *filename, const char *fmt)
 {
     BlockDriver *drv, *proto_drv;
@@ -441,13 +465,14 @@  static int img_check(int argc, char **argv)
 
 static int img_commit(int argc, char **argv)
 {
-    int c, ret;
-    const char *filename, *fmt;
+    int c, ret, flags;
+    const char *filename, *fmt, *cache;
     BlockDriverState *bs;
 
     fmt = NULL;
+    cache = BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE;
     for(;;) {
-        c = getopt(argc, argv, "f:h");
+        c = getopt(argc, argv, "f:ht:");
         if (c == -1) {
             break;
         }
@@ -459,6 +484,9 @@  static int img_commit(int argc, char **argv)
         case 'f':
             fmt = optarg;
             break;
+        case 't':
+            cache = optarg;
+            break;
         }
     }
     if (optind >= argc) {
@@ -466,7 +494,14 @@  static int img_commit(int argc, char **argv)
     }
     filename = argv[optind++];
 
-    bs = bdrv_new_open(filename, fmt, BDRV_O_FLAGS | BDRV_O_RDWR);
+    flags = BDRV_O_RDWR;
+    ret = set_cache_flag(cache, &flags);
+    if (ret < 0) {
+        error_report("Invalid cache option: %s\n", cache);
+        return -1;
+    }
+
+    bs = bdrv_new_open(filename, fmt, flags);
     if (!bs) {
         return 1;
     }
@@ -591,8 +626,8 @@  static int compare_sectors(const uint8_t *buf1, const uint8_t *buf2, int n,
 static int img_convert(int argc, char **argv)
 {
     int c, ret = 0, n, n1, bs_n, bs_i, compress, cluster_size, cluster_sectors;
-    int progress = 0;
-    const char *fmt, *out_fmt, *out_baseimg, *out_filename;
+    int progress = 0, flags;
+    const char *fmt, *out_fmt, *cache, *out_baseimg, *out_filename;
     BlockDriver *drv, *proto_drv;
     BlockDriverState **bs = NULL, *out_bs = NULL;
     int64_t total_sectors, nb_sectors, sector_num, bs_offset;
@@ -608,10 +643,11 @@  static int img_convert(int argc, char **argv)
 
     fmt = NULL;
     out_fmt = "raw";
+    cache = BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE;
     out_baseimg = NULL;
     compress = 0;
     for(;;) {
-        c = getopt(argc, argv, "f:O:B:s:hce6o:p");
+        c = getopt(argc, argv, "f:O:B:s:hce6o:pt:");
         if (c == -1) {
             break;
         }
@@ -649,6 +685,9 @@  static int img_convert(int argc, char **argv)
         case 'p':
             progress = 1;
             break;
+        case 't':
+            cache = optarg;
+            break;
         }
     }
 
@@ -779,8 +818,14 @@  static int img_convert(int argc, char **argv)
         goto out;
     }
 
-    out_bs = bdrv_new_open(out_filename, out_fmt,
-        BDRV_O_FLAGS | BDRV_O_RDWR | BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH);
+    flags = BDRV_O_RDWR;
+    ret = set_cache_flag(cache, &flags);
+    if (ret < 0) {
+        error_report("Invalid cache option: %s\n", cache);
+        return -1;
+    }
+
+    out_bs = bdrv_new_open(out_filename, out_fmt, flags);
     if (!out_bs) {
         ret = -1;
         goto out;
@@ -1225,18 +1270,18 @@  static int img_rebase(int argc, char **argv)
     BlockDriverState *bs, *bs_old_backing = NULL, *bs_new_backing = NULL;
     BlockDriver *old_backing_drv, *new_backing_drv;
     char *filename;
-    const char *fmt, *out_basefmt, *out_baseimg;
+    const char *fmt, *cache, *out_basefmt, *out_baseimg;
     int c, flags, ret;
     int unsafe = 0;
     int progress = 0;
 
     /* Parse commandline parameters */
     fmt = NULL;
+    cache = BDRV_DEFAULT_CACHE;
     out_baseimg = NULL;
     out_basefmt = NULL;
-
     for(;;) {
-        c = getopt(argc, argv, "uhf:F:b:p");
+        c = getopt(argc, argv, "uhf:F:b:pt:");
         if (c == -1) {
             break;
         }
@@ -1256,10 +1301,14 @@  static int img_rebase(int argc, char **argv)
             break;
         case 'u':
             unsafe = 1;
+            flags |= BDRV_O_NO_BACKING;
             break;
         case 'p':
             progress = 1;
             break;
+        case 't':
+            cache = optarg;
+            break;
         }
     }
 
@@ -1271,13 +1320,19 @@  static int img_rebase(int argc, char **argv)
     qemu_progress_init(progress, 2.0);
     qemu_progress_print(0, 100);
 
+    flags = BDRV_O_RDWR;
+    ret = set_cache_flag(cache, &flags);
+    if (ret < 0) {
+        error_report("Invalid cache option: %s\n", cache);
+        return -1;
+    }
+
     /*
      * Open the images.
      *
      * Ignore the old backing file for unsafe rebase in case we want to correct
      * the reference to a renamed or moved backing file.
      */
-    flags = BDRV_O_FLAGS | BDRV_O_RDWR | (unsafe ? BDRV_O_NO_BACKING : 0);
     bs = bdrv_new_open(filename, fmt, flags);
     if (!bs) {
         return 1;