| Message ID | 20241109044529.992935-1-himanshu.madhani@oracle.com (mailing list archive) |
|---|---|
| Headers | show |
| Series | scsi: Multipath support for scsi disk devices. | expand |
On 11/8/24 8:45 PM, himanshu.madhani@oracle.com wrote: > Here is a very early RFC for multipath support in the scsi layer. This patch series > implements native multipath support for scsi disks devices. > > In this series, I am providing conceptual changes which still needs work. However, > I wanted to get this RFC out to get community feedback on the direction of changes. > > This RFC follows NVMe multipath implementation closely for SCSI multipath. Currently, > SCSI multipath only supports disk devices which advertises ALUA (Asymmetric Logical > Unit Access) capability in the Inquiry response data. Something very important is missing from the cover letter, namely a motivation of why this initiative has been started. Why to add native multipath support to the SCSI core instead of using dm-multipath? Isn't one of the goals of the Linux kernel not to duplicate functionality that already exists? How does the new infrastructure compare with dm-multipath from the point of view of performance and functionality? Thanks, Bart.
Hi Bart, On 11/10/24 13:15, Bart Van Assche wrote: > > On 11/8/24 8:45 PM, himanshu.madhani@oracle.com wrote: >> Here is a very early RFC for multipath support in the scsi layer. This >> patch series >> implements native multipath support for scsi disks devices. >> >> In this series, I am providing conceptual changes which still needs >> work. However, >> I wanted to get this RFC out to get community feedback on the >> direction of changes. >> >> This RFC follows NVMe multipath implementation closely for SCSI >> multipath. Currently, >> SCSI multipath only supports disk devices which advertises ALUA >> (Asymmetric Logical >> Unit Access) capability in the Inquiry response data. > > Something very important is missing from the cover letter, namely a > motivation of why this initiative has been started. Why to add native > multipath support to the SCSI core instead of using dm-multipath? Isn't > one of the goals of the Linux kernel not to duplicate functionality that > already exists? How does the new infrastructure compare with > dm-multipath from the point of view of performance and functionality? > Sorry about missing motivation section in the cover letter. I'll add that in v2 when I am ready to send an updated version of this RFC. Here's motivation 1. Having native multipath provides a seamless configuration and setting of multipath with SCSI, which does not involve any other dependencies. Especially discovery and assembly of raid array. My motivation with native SCSI multipath is to avoid having any 3rd party daemon to do the discovery and assembly of multipath devices, which can sometimes create issues if devices are not discovered properly. The implementation of native multipath will avoid all that additional steps and by virtue will provide plug-n-play capability for SCSI multipath configurations. Also, having native support will help modernize SCSI code with respect to multipath support and provide tighter integration for SCSI stack. 2. On the performance point of view, I believe that switching to RCU based path selection logic will provide faster path fail-over and will improve overall IO latency. In this RFC, I have not spent time on performance collection. I am hoping to provide more comprehensive data with the next RFC update. I do not believe this is duplication of functionality since I am providing in-kernel multipath option which will provide users a choice of using native v/s out of kernel multipath implementation based on their needs. > Thanks, > > Bart. >
On 11/9/24 05:45, himanshu.madhani@oracle.com wrote: > From: Himanshu Madhani <himanshu.madhani@oracle.com> > > Hello Folks, > > Here is a very early RFC for multipath support in the scsi layer. This patch series > implements native multipath support for scsi disks devices. > > In this series, I am providing conceptual changes which still needs work. However, > I wanted to get this RFC out to get community feedback on the direction of changes. > > This RFC follows NVMe multipath implementation closely for SCSI multipath. Currently, > SCSI multipath only supports disk devices which advertises ALUA (Asymmetric Logical > Unit Access) capability in the Inquiry response data. > First of all, thank you for doing this. Had been on my to-do list for a long time. However, the one crucial thing why I kept pushing it back is: Residuals. NVMe native multipathing works because NVMe is a 'all-or-nothing' protocol, ie either the entire I/O had been completed, or nothing has happened. Which means for any failure we can safely retry the entire I/O on a different path (that's the 'steal_bio' thingie), knowing that it's safe to do so. For SCSI, however, this is not the case; it's perfectly valid for a target to do a partial completion, and ask the initiator to retry the remainders. And this partial completion might be at any position within the bvec, requiring us to resend the bio from a random starting position. Meaning we cannot do a blind 'steal_bio' thing. So: have you evaluated you series wrt to residuals? Have you _measured_ if residuals are happening? Have you considered your patchset how residuals could be treated? (It _might_ be possible to resend the entire I/O over to another path, even if the command had been partially completed. That's perfectly safe for reads, but for writes you have to be extremely careful to not cause a data corruption. We had some fun discussions here over at the NVMe side ...) And: please drop the device handler thingie for this, and concentrate on ALUA. No point in carrying legacy stuff around. _AND_ you have to evaluate the ALUA settings anyway to get a decent path selection. Cheers, Hannes
From: Himanshu Madhani <himanshu.madhani@oracle.com> Hello Folks, Here is a very early RFC for multipath support in the scsi layer. This patch series implements native multipath support for scsi disks devices. In this series, I am providing conceptual changes which still needs work. However, I wanted to get this RFC out to get community feedback on the direction of changes. This RFC follows NVMe multipath implementation closely for SCSI multipath. Currently, SCSI multipath only supports disk devices which advertises ALUA (Asymmetric Logical Unit Access) capability in the Inquiry response data. Patches are split as following Patch 1: Add new SCSI multipath files and makefile changes for enabling multipath support. Patch 2: Adds changes to scsi_host structure for multipath support Patch 3: Adds error handling capability to the multipath changes. Patch 4: Wires up commpletion path for the request Patch 5: Adds sysfs hooks for displaying iopolicy and state. Patch 6: Adds changes to use ALUA handler for multipath Patch 7: Adds changes in sd driver for multipath. Patch 8: Adds changes to scsi_debug driver for ALUA testing. Here's list of TO-DO that will be addressed in next RFC version 1. Cleanup sysfs directory structure and only show first multipath device. 2. Test failover scenario with multiple disks and injecting errors with IO. 3. Test updating iopolicy while running IO and make sure path failover happens. 4. cleanup ALUA code to integrate more closely with new multipath code. 5. Performance numbers for the multipath disks. 6. PR ops are not yet handled by this series and will be added in next RFC. Thanks, Himanshu Himanshu Madhani (8): scsi: Add multipath device support scsi: create multipath capable scsi host scsi: Add error handling capability for multipath scsi: Complete multipath request scsi: Add scsi multipath sysfs hooks scsi: Add multipath suppport for device handler scsi: Add multipath disk init code for sd driver scsi_debug: Add module parameter for ALUA multipath drivers/scsi/Kconfig | 12 + drivers/scsi/Makefile | 2 + drivers/scsi/device_handler/scsi_dh_alua.c | 15 + drivers/scsi/hosts.c | 12 + drivers/scsi/scsi_debug.c | 16 +- drivers/scsi/scsi_dh.c | 3 + drivers/scsi/scsi_error.c | 8 + drivers/scsi/scsi_lib.c | 25 + drivers/scsi/scsi_multipath.c | 896 +++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/scsi/scsi_sysfs.c | 104 +++ drivers/scsi/sd.c | 83 ++ include/scsi/scsi.h | 1 + include/scsi/scsi_device.h | 64 ++ include/scsi/scsi_host.h | 7 + include/scsi/scsi_multipath.h | 86 ++ 15 files changed, 1332 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) create mode 100644 drivers/scsi/scsi_multipath.c create mode 100644 include/scsi/scsi_multipath.h base-commit: 128faa1845a2d5b0178b986f3bd18fb38cc08cc2