On 2017年11月27日 17:41, Lu Fengqi wrote: > Hi all, > > As we all know, under certain circumstances, it is more appropriate to > create some subvolumes rather than keep everything in the same > subvolume. As the condition of demand change, the user may need to > convert a previous directory to a subvolume. For this reason，how about > adding an ioctl to convert a directory to a subvolume?
The idea seems interesting.
However in my opinion, this can be done quite easily in (mostly) user
space, thanks to btrfs support of relink.
The method from Hugo or Chris is quite good, maybe it can be enhanced a
little.
Use the following layout as an example:
root_subv
|- subvolume_1
| |- dir_1
| | |- file_1
| | |- file_2
| |- dir_2
| |- file_3
|- subvolume_2
If we want to convert dir_1 into subvolume, we can do it like:
1) Create a temporary readonly snapshot of parent subvolume containing
the desired dir
# btrfs sub snapshot -r root_subv/subvolume_1 \
root_subv/tmp_snapshot_1
2) Create a new subvolume, as destination.
# btrfs sub create root_subv/tmp_dest/
3) Copy the content and sync the fs
Use of reflink is necessary.
# cp -r --reflink=always root_subv/tmp_snapshot_1/dir_1 \
root_subv/tmp_dest
# btrfs sync root_subv/tmp_dest
4) Delete temporary readonly snapshot
# btrfs subvolume delete root_subv/tmp_snapshot_1
5) Remove the source dir
# rm -rf root_subv/subvolume_1/dir_1
5) Create a final destination snapshot of "root_subv/temporary_dest"
# btrfs subvolume snapshot root_subv/tmp_dest \
root_subv/subvolume_1/dir_1
6) Remove the temporary destination
# btrfs subvolume delete root_subv/tmp_dest
The main challenge is in step 3).
In fact above method can only handle normal dir/files.
If there is another subvolume inside the desired dir, current "cp -r" is
a bad idea.
We need to skip subvolume dir, and create snapshot for it.
But it's quite easy to write a user space program to handle it.
Maybe using "find" command can already handle it well.
Anyway, doing it in user space is already possible and much easier than
doing it in kernel.
>
> Users can convert by the scripts mentioned in this
> thread(https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-btrfs/msg33252.html), but is
> it easier to use the off-the-shelf btrfs subcommand?
If you just want to integrate the functionality into btrfs-progs, maybe
it's possible.
But if you insist in providing a new ioctl for this, I highly doubt if
the extra hassle is worthy.
>
> After an initial consideration, our implementation is broadly divided
> into the following steps:
> 1. Freeze the filesystem or set the subvolume above the source directory
> to read-only;
Not really need to freeze the whole fs.
Just create a readonly snapshot of the parent subvolume which contains
the dir.
That's how snapshot is designed for.
> 2. Perform a pre-check, for example, check if a cross-device link
> creation during the conversion;
This can be done in-the-fly.
As the check is so easy (only needs to check if the inode number is 256).
We only need a mid-order iteration of the source dir (in temporary
snapshot), and for normal file, use reflink.
For subvolume dir, create a snapshot for it.
And for such iteration, a python script less than 100 lines would be
sufficient.
Thanks,
Qu
> 3. Perform conversion, such as creating a new subvolume and moving the
> contents of the source directory;
> 4. Thaw the filesystem or restore the subvolume writable property.
>
> In fact, I am not so sure whether this use of freeze is appropriate
> because the source directory the user needs to convert may be located
> at / or /home and this pre-check and conversion process may take a long
> time, which can lead to some shell and graphical application suspended.
>
> Please give your comments if any.
>
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