Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] Discuss least bad options for resolving longterm-GUP usage by RDMA

[Dan Williams]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 10:07 AM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 09:22:58AM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
>
> > I honestly don't like the idea that random subsystems can pin down
> > file blocks as a side effect of gup on the result of mmap. Recall that
> > it's not just RDMA that wants this guarantee. It seems safer to have
> > the file be in an explicit block-allocation-immutable-mode so that the
> > fallocate man page can describe this error case. Otherwise how would
> > you describe the scenarios under which FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE fails?
>
> I rather liked CL's version of this - ftruncate/etc is simply racing
> with a parallel pwrite - and it doesn't fail.
>
> But it also doesnt' trucate/create a hole. Another thread wrote to it
> right away and the 'hole' was essentially instantly reallocated. This
> is an inherent, pre-existing, race in the ftrucate/etc APIs.

If options are telling the truth with a potentially unexpected error,
or lying that operation succeeded when it will be immediately undone,
I'd choose the former.