Re: [PATCH v2] Support for write stream IDs

From: Jens Axboe
Date: Wed May 06 2015 - 13:25:46 EST


On 05/06/2015 08:26 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 06:09:18PM -0400, Martin K. Petersen wrote:
"Jens" == Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxx> writes:

Jens> I'm not trying to make a shortcut. I deliberately do not want to
Jens> make ID generation/assignment part of the kernel. There's no
Jens> reason that can't exist outside of the kernel, in a libstreamid or
Jens> similar.

That just perpetuates the broken model, though. Why wouldn't we want to
have stream ids readily available inside the kernel to tag journals,
filesystem metadata, data migration, who knows what?

The only sensible solution is for the kernel to manage the stream
IDs. And for them to be plentiful. The storage device is free to ignore
them, do LRU or whatever it pleases to manage them if it has an internal
limit on number of open streams, etc.

I agree; one of the primary tasks of an operating system kernel is
arbitrage and control of hardware resources.

Sure, that's what the kernel does, but the problem here includes that the IDs space and generation is currently being done by the device. So it's not a simple as divvying out an open space of resources.

--
Jens Axboe

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/