Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-07 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 7:18 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:37:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
  On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
  I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
  wiki
  page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
  
  It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases 
  (while we
  make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
  The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since 
  the
  implementation seems to be converging.
  
  Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
  current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
  the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
  
  Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
  already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
  trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
  using live block copy.
  
  It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
  current are copied to.
  
  This is similar with image streaming.
 
  Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:
 
  Let's suppose we have this COW chain:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2
 
  Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 
  Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.
 
  With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
    base -- s1 -- newSnap
 
  When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
  The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
  storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
  expensive.
 
  My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:
 
  before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
  after:  base -- s1 -- s2
 
  If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
  long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
  execution.
  Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
  management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.
 
  Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
  image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:
 
  base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n
 
  When n reaches a limit, you do:
 
  base - merge-1
 
  You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
  a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).
 
  If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
  leave a new external file around:
 
  base - merge-1 - sn-1 - sn-2 ... - sn-n
  to
  base - merge-1 - merge-2
 
  
  It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
  the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
  base image.
  
  A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
  merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
  snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge
 
  Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
  image.

 One use case I have in mind is the Live Backup approach that Jagane
 has been developing.  Here the backup solution only creates a snapshot
 for the period of time needed to read out the dirty blocks.  Then the
 snapshot is deleted again and probably contains very little new data
 relative to the base image.  The backup solution does this operation
 every day.

 This is the pathalogical case for any approach that copies the entire
 base into a new file.  We could have avoided a lot of I/O by doing an
 in-place update.

 I want to make sure this works well.

 This use case does not fit the streaming scheme that has come up. Its a
 completly different operation.

 IMO it should be implemented separately.

Okay, not everything can fit into this one grand unified block
copy/image streaming mechanism :).

Stefan
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-06 Thread Kevin Wolf
Am 05.07.2011 20:18, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:37:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
 wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration

 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases 
 (while we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since 
 the
 implementation seems to be converging.

 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.

 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.

 It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
 current are copied to.

 This is similar with image streaming.

 Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:

 Let's suppose we have this COW chain:

   base -- s1 -- s2

 Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3

 Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.

 With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
   base -- s1 -- newSnap

 When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
 The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
 storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
 expensive.

 My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:

 before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 after:  base -- s1 -- s2

 If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
 long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
 execution.
 Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
 management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.

 Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
 image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:

 base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n

 When n reaches a limit, you do:

 base - merge-1

 You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
 a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).

 If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
 leave a new external file around:

 base - merge-1 - sn-1 - sn-2 ... - sn-n
 to
 base - merge-1 - merge-2


 It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
 the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
 base image.

 A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
 merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
 snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge

 Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
 image.

 One use case I have in mind is the Live Backup approach that Jagane
 has been developing.  Here the backup solution only creates a snapshot
 for the period of time needed to read out the dirty blocks.  Then the
 snapshot is deleted again and probably contains very little new data
 relative to the base image.  The backup solution does this operation
 every day.

 This is the pathalogical case for any approach that copies the entire
 base into a new file.  We could have avoided a lot of I/O by doing an
 in-place update.

 I want to make sure this works well.
 
 This use case does not fit the streaming scheme that has come up. Its a
 completly different operation.
 
 IMO it should be implemented separately.

I agree, this is a case for a live commit operation.

Kevin
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Dor Laor
I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
wiki page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration


It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while 
we make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since 
the implementation seems to be converging.


Cheers,
Dor

On 06/30/2011 09:38 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 04:52:00PM +0200, Kevin Wolf wrote:

Am 30.06.2011 16:36, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:

4. Live block copy API and high-level control - the main code that
adds the live block copy feature.  Existing patches by Marcelo, can be
restructured to use common core by Marcelo.


Can use your proposed block_stream interface, with a block_switch
command on top, so:

1) management creates copy.img with backing file current.img, allows
access
2) management issues block_switch dev copy.img
3) management issues block_stream dev base


Isn't this block_switch command the same as the existing snapshot_blkdev?


Yep.


Thought of implementing block_stream command by reopening device with

blkstream:imagename.img

Then:

AIO_READ:
- for each cluster in request:
 - if allocated-or-in-final-base, read.
 - check write queue, if present wait on it, if not, add copy
   entry to write queue.
 - issue cluster sized read from source.
 - on completion:
 - copy data to original read buffer, complete it.
 - if not cancelled, write cluster to destination.

AIO_WRITE
for each cluster in request:
 - check write queue, cancel/wait for copy entry.
 - add guest entry to write queue.
 - issue write to destination.
 - on completion:
 - remove write queue entry.


With the 0...END background read, once it completes write final base
file for image.

So block_stream/block_stream_cancel/block_stream_status commands, the
background read and the rebase -u update can be separate from the block
driver.


The way how it works looks good to me, I'm just not entirely sure about
the right place to implement it. I think request queueing and copy on
read could be useful outside blkstream, too.


They could be lifted later, when there are other users.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laor dl...@redhat.com wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration

 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
 implementation seems to be converging.

Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
the destination image and essentially do image streaming.

Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
using live block copy.

It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
base image.

A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
snapshot (base) - cow - merge

All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
snapshot.

Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?

Stefan
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laor dl...@redhat.com wrote:
  I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this wiki
  page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
 
  It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while we
  make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
  The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
  implementation seems to be converging.
 
 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
 
 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.

It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
current are copied to.

This is similar with image streaming.

 It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
 the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
 base image.
 
 A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
 merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
 snapshot (base) - cow - merge
 
 All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
 and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
 copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
 snapshot.

Management can set a higher limit on the size of data that is merged,
and create a new base once exceeded. This avoids copying excessive
amounts of data.

 Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?
 
 Stefan
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Dor Laor

On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:

I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this wiki
page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration

It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while we
make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
implementation seems to be converging.


Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
the destination image and essentially do image streaming.

Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
using live block copy.


It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
current are copied to.

This is similar with image streaming.


Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:

Let's suppose we have this COW chain:

  base -- s1 -- s2

Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:

  base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3

Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.

With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:

  base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
  base -- s1 -- newSnap

When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary storage. 
I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are expensive.


My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:

before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
after:  base -- s1 -- s2

If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as long 
as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the execution.
Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the management 
will keep using s3 until it gets success event.





It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
base image.

A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge

All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
snapshot.


Management can set a higher limit on the size of data that is merged,
and create a new base once exceeded. This avoids copying excessive
amounts of data.


Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?

Stefan





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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
 
 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
 implementation seems to be converging.
 
 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
 
 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.
 
 It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
 current are copied to.
 
 This is similar with image streaming.
 
 Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:
 
 Let's suppose we have this COW chain:
 
   base -- s1 -- s2
 
 Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:
 
   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 
 Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.
 
 With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:
 
   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
   base -- s1 -- newSnap
 
 When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
 The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
 storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
 expensive.
 
 My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:
 
 before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 after:  base -- s1 -- s2
 
 If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
 long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
 execution.
 Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
 management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.

Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:

base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n

When n reaches a limit, you do:

base - merge-1

You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).

If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
leave a new external file around:

base - merge-1 - sn-1 - sn-2 ... - sn-n
to
base - merge-1 - merge-2

 
 It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
 the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
 base image.
 
 A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
 merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
 snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge

Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
image.

 
 All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
 and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
 copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
 snapshot.
 
 Management can set a higher limit on the size of data that is merged,
 and create a new base once exceeded. This avoids copying excessive
 amounts of data.
 
 Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?
 
 Stefan
 
 
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Kevin Wolf
Am 05.07.2011 16:32, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
 wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration

 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while 
 we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
 implementation seems to be converging.

 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.

 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.

 It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
 current are copied to.

 This is similar with image streaming.

 Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:

 Let's suppose we have this COW chain:

   base -- s1 -- s2

 Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3

 Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.

 With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
   base -- s1 -- newSnap

 When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
 The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
 storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
 expensive.

 My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:

 before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 after:  base -- s1 -- s2

 If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
 long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
 execution.
 Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
 management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.
 
 Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
 image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:
 
 base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n
 
 When n reaches a limit, you do:
 
 base - merge-1

Hm, I would expect that a case like this is important, too:

base - sn-1 - ... - sn-n-1 - sn-n - ... - sn-m

Which should be merged so that we get the following (i.e. deleting older
snapshots but retaining more recent ones):

base - sn-merged - sn-n - ... - sn-m

Kevin
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Dor Laor

On 07/05/2011 05:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:

On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com   wrote:

I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this wiki
page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration

It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while we
make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
implementation seems to be converging.


Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
the destination image and essentially do image streaming.

Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
using live block copy.


It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
current are copied to.

This is similar with image streaming.


Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:

Let's suppose we have this COW chain:

   base-- s1-- s2

Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:

   base-- s1-- s2-- s3

Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.

With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:

   base-- s1-- s2-- s3
   base-- s1-- newSnap

When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
expensive.

My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:

before: base-- s1-- s2-- s3
after:  base-- s1-- s2

If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
execution.
Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.


Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:

base -  sn-1 -  sn-2 -  ... -  sn-n

When n reaches a limit, you do:

base -  merge-1

You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).

If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
leave a new external file around:

base -  merge-1 -  sn-1 -  sn-2 ... -  sn-n
to
base -  merge-1 -  merge-2


Sometimes one will want to merge the snapshot immediately post the base 
was backed-up







It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
base image.

A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
snapshot (base) -   cow -   merge


Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
image.


Not always, the image might be raw file/device -

1. raw image
2. live snapshot it and use COW above it
   raw - s1
3. backup the raw image using 3rd party mechanism
4. live merge (copy) s1 into raw





All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
snapshot.


Management can set a higher limit on the size of data that is merged,
and create a new base once exceeded. This avoids copying excessive
amounts of data.


Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?

Stefan





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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 06:04:34PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 05:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com   wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
 wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
 
 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while 
 we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
 implementation seems to be converging.
 
 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
 
 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.
 
 It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
 current are copied to.
 
 This is similar with image streaming.
 
 Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:
 
 Let's suppose we have this COW chain:
 
base-- s1-- s2
 
 Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:
 
base-- s1-- s2-- s3
 
 Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.
 
 With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:
 
base-- s1-- s2-- s3
base-- s1-- newSnap
 
 When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
 The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
 storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
 expensive.
 
 My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:
 
 before: base-- s1-- s2-- s3
 after:  base-- s1-- s2
 
 If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
 long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
 execution.
 Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
 management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.
 
 Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
 image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:
 
 base -  sn-1 -  sn-2 -  ... -  sn-n
 
 When n reaches a limit, you do:
 
 base -  merge-1
 
 You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
 a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).
 
 If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
 leave a new external file around:
 
 base -  merge-1 -  sn-1 -  sn-2 ... -  sn-n
 to
 base -  merge-1 -  merge-2
 
 Sometimes one will want to merge the snapshot immediately post the
 base was backed-up

Well, ok, this needs a separate interface for management, needs write
mirroring, and must mind crash handling.

 It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
 the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
 base image.
 
 A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
 merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
 snapshot (base) -   cow -   merge
 
 Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
 image.
 
 Not always, the image might be raw file/device -
 
 1. raw image
 2. live snapshot it and use COW above it
raw - s1
 3. backup the raw image using 3rd party mechanism
 4. live merge (copy) s1 into raw
 
 
 
 All data from snapshot and cow is copied into merge and then snapshot
 and cow can be deleted.  But this approach is results in full data
 copying and uses potentially 3x space if cow is close to the size of
 snapshot.
 
 Management can set a higher limit on the size of data that is merged,
 and create a new base once exceeded. This avoids copying excessive
 amounts of data.
 
 Any other ideas that reuse live block copy for snapshot merge?
 
 Stefan
 
 
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
 On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
 I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
 wiki
 page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
 
 It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases (while 
 we
 make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
 The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since the
 implementation seems to be converging.
 
 Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
 current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
 the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
 
 Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
 already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
 trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
 using live block copy.
 
 It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
 current are copied to.
 
 This is similar with image streaming.

 Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:

 Let's suppose we have this COW chain:

   base -- s1 -- s2

 Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3

 Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.

 With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:

   base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
   base -- s1 -- newSnap

 When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
 The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
 storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
 expensive.

 My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:

 before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 after:  base -- s1 -- s2

 If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
 long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
 execution.
 Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
 management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.

 Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
 image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:

 base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n

 When n reaches a limit, you do:

 base - merge-1

 You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
 a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).

 If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
 leave a new external file around:

 base - merge-1 - sn-1 - sn-2 ... - sn-n
 to
 base - merge-1 - merge-2

 
 It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
 the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
 base image.
 
 A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
 merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
 snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge

 Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
 image.

One use case I have in mind is the Live Backup approach that Jagane
has been developing.  Here the backup solution only creates a snapshot
for the period of time needed to read out the dirty blocks.  Then the
snapshot is deleted again and probably contains very little new data
relative to the base image.  The backup solution does this operation
every day.

This is the pathalogical case for any approach that copies the entire
base into a new file.  We could have avoided a lot of I/O by doing an
in-place update.

I want to make sure this works well.

Stefan
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-07-05 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:37:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 04:39:06PM +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
  On 07/05/2011 03:58 PM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 01:40:08PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
  On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Dor Laordl...@redhat.com  wrote:
  I tried to re-arrange all of the requirements and use cases using this 
  wiki
  page: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LiveBlockMigration
  
  It would be the best to agree upon the most interesting use cases 
  (while we
  make sure we cover future ones) and agree to them.
  The next step is to set the interface for all the various verbs since 
  the
  implementation seems to be converging.
  
  Live block copy was supposed to support snapshot merge.  I think the
  current favored approach is to make the source image a backing file to
  the destination image and essentially do image streaming.
  
  Using this mechanism for snapshot merge is tricky.  The COW file
  already uses the read-only snapshot base image.  So now we cannot
  trivally copy the COW file contents back into the snapshot base image
  using live block copy.
  
  It never did. Live copy creates a new image were both snapshot and
  current are copied to.
  
  This is similar with image streaming.
 
  Not sure I realize what's bad to do in-place merge:
 
  Let's suppose we have this COW chain:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2
 
  Now a live snapshot is created over s2, s2 becomes RO and s3 is RW:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
 
  Now we've done with s2 (post backup) and like to merge s3 into s2.
 
  With your approach we use live copy of s3 into newSnap:
 
    base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
    base -- s1 -- newSnap
 
  When it is over s2 and s3 can be erased.
  The down side is the IOs for copying s2 data and the temporary
  storage. I guess temp storage is cheap but excessive IO are
  expensive.
 
  My approach was to collapse s3 into s2 and erase s3 eventually:
 
  before: base -- s1 -- s2 -- s3
  after:  base -- s1 -- s2
 
  If we use live block copy using mirror driver it should be safe as
  long as we keep the ordering of new writes into s3 during the
  execution.
  Even a failure in the the middle won't cause harm since the
  management will keep using s3 until it gets success event.
 
  Well, it is more complicated than simply streaming into a new
  image. I'm not entirely sure it is necessary. The common case is:
 
  base - sn-1 - sn-2 - ... - sn-n
 
  When n reaches a limit, you do:
 
  base - merge-1
 
  You're potentially copying similar amount of data when merging back into
  a single image (and you can't easily merge multiple snapshots).
 
  If the amount of data thats not in 'base' is large, you create
  leave a new external file around:
 
  base - merge-1 - sn-1 - sn-2 ... - sn-n
  to
  base - merge-1 - merge-2
 
  
  It seems like snapshot merge will require dedicated code that reads
  the allocated clusters from the COW file and writes them back into the
  base image.
  
  A very inefficient alternative would be to create a third image, the
  merge image file, which has the COW file as its backing file:
  snapshot (base) -  cow -  merge
 
  Remember there is a 'base' before snapshot, you don't copy the entire
  image.
 
 One use case I have in mind is the Live Backup approach that Jagane
 has been developing.  Here the backup solution only creates a snapshot
 for the period of time needed to read out the dirty blocks.  Then the
 snapshot is deleted again and probably contains very little new data
 relative to the base image.  The backup solution does this operation
 every day.
 
 This is the pathalogical case for any approach that copies the entire
 base into a new file.  We could have avoided a lot of I/O by doing an
 in-place update.
 
 I want to make sure this works well.

This use case does not fit the streaming scheme that has come up. Its a
completly different operation.

IMO it should be implemented separately.

 Stefan
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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:08:23AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 In the future we could add a 'base' argument to block_stream.  If base
 is specified then data contained in the base image will not be copied.

 This is a present requirement.

It's not one that I have had in the past but it is a reasonable requirement.

One interesting thing about this requirement is that it makes
copy-on-read seem like the wrong primitive for image streaming.  If
there is a base image which should not be streamed then a plain loop
that calls bdrv_is_allocated_chain(bs, base, sector, pnum) and copies
sectors into bs is more straightforward than passing base to a
copy-on-read operation somehow (through a variable that stashes the
base away somewhere?).

  This can be used to merge data from an intermediate image without
 merging the base image.  When streaming completes the backing file
 will be set to the base image.  The backing file relationship would
 typically look like this:

 1. Before block_stream -a -b base.img ide0-hd completion:

 base.img - sn1 - ... - ide0-hd.qed

 2. After streaming completes:

 base.img - ide0-hd.qed

 This describes the image streaming use cases that I, Adam, and Anthony
 propose to support.  In the course of the discussion we've sometimes
 been distracted with the internals of what a unified live block
 copy/image streaming implementation should do.  I wanted to post this
 summary of image streaming to refocus us on the use case and the APIs
 that users will see.

 Stefan

 OK, with an external COW file for formats that do not support it the
 interface can be similar. Also there is no need to mirror writes,
 no switch operation, always use destination image.

Yep.

Stefan
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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Kevin Wolf
Am 30.06.2011 13:48, schrieb Stefan Hajnoczi:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:08:23AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 In the future we could add a 'base' argument to block_stream.  If base
 is specified then data contained in the base image will not be copied.

 This is a present requirement.
 
 It's not one that I have had in the past but it is a reasonable requirement.
 
 One interesting thing about this requirement is that it makes
 copy-on-read seem like the wrong primitive for image streaming.  If
 there is a base image which should not be streamed then a plain loop
 that calls bdrv_is_allocated_chain(bs, base, sector, pnum) and copies
 sectors into bs is more straightforward than passing base to a
 copy-on-read operation somehow (through a variable that stashes the
 base away somewhere?).

You don't even have to look at the implementation to say that COR is a
useful optimisation. It basically means that you reuse data read by the
guest instead of reading it a second time in your loop. (And this is
equally true for block copy and image streaming)

If this means adding a new field in BlockDriverState, so be it.

Kevin
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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:08:23AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
  This can be used to merge data from an intermediate image without
 merging the base image.  When streaming completes the backing file
 will be set to the base image.  The backing file relationship would
 typically look like this:

 1. Before block_stream -a -b base.img ide0-hd completion:

 base.img - sn1 - ... - ide0-hd.qed

 2. After streaming completes:

 base.img - ide0-hd.qed

 This describes the image streaming use cases that I, Adam, and Anthony
 propose to support.  In the course of the discussion we've sometimes
 been distracted with the internals of what a unified live block
 copy/image streaming implementation should do.  I wanted to post this
 summary of image streaming to refocus us on the use case and the APIs
 that users will see.

 Stefan

 OK, with an external COW file for formats that do not support it the
 interface can be similar. Also there is no need to mirror writes,
 no switch operation, always use destination image.

Marcelo, does this mean you are happy with how management deals with
power failure/crash during streaming?

Are we settled on the approach where the destination file always has
the source file as its backing file?

Here are the components that I can identify:

1. blkmirror - used by live block copy to keep source and destination
in sync.  Already implemented as a block driver by Marcelo.

2. External COW overlay - can be used to add backing file (COW)
support on top of any image, including raw.  Currently unimplemented,
needs to be a block driver.  Kevin, do you want to write this?

3. Unified background copy - image format-independent mechanism for
copy contents of a backing file chain into the image file (with
exception of backing files chained below base).  Needs to play nice
with blkmirror.  Stefan can write this.

4. Live block copy API and high-level control - the main code that
adds the live block copy feature.  Existing patches by Marcelo, can be
restructured to use common core by Marcelo.

5. Image streaming API and high-level control - the main code that
adds the image streaming feature.  Existing patches by Stefan, Adam,
Anthony, can be restructured to use common core by Stefan.

I previously posted a proposed API for the unified background copy
mechanism.  I'm thinking that background copy is not the best name
since it is limited to copying the backing file into the image file.

/**
 * Start a background copy operation
 *
 * Unallocated clusters in the image will be populated with data
 * from its backing file.  This operation runs in the background and a
 * completion function is invoked when it is finished.
 */
BackgroundCopy *background_copy_start(
   BlockDriverState *bs,

   /**
* Note: Kevin suggests we migrate this into BlockDriverState
*   in order to enable copy-on-read.
*
* Base image that both source and destination have as a
* backing file ancestor.  Data will not be copied from base
* since both source and destination will have access to base
* image.  This may be NULL to copy all data.
*/
   BlockDriverState *base,

   BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);

/**
 * Cancel a background copy operation
 *
 * This function marks the background copy operation for cancellation and the
 * completion function is invoked once the operation has been cancelled.
 */
void background_copy_cancel(BackgroundCopy *bgc,
BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);

/**
 * Get progress of a running background copy operation
 */
void background_copy_get_status(BackgroundCopy *bgc,
BackgroundCopyStatus *status);

Stefan
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Anthony Liguori

On 06/28/2011 08:48 AM, Avi Kivity wrote:

On 06/28/2011 04:43 PM, Anthony Liguori wrote:

FYI, I'm in an all-day meeting so I can't attend.


Did you do something really bad?


I named some variables with a leading underscore and now have to be 
re-educated.


Regards,

Anthony Liguori


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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 01:54:09PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
  On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:08:23AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
   This can be used to merge data from an intermediate image without
  merging the base image.  When streaming completes the backing file
  will be set to the base image.  The backing file relationship would
  typically look like this:
 
  1. Before block_stream -a -b base.img ide0-hd completion:
 
  base.img - sn1 - ... - ide0-hd.qed
 
  2. After streaming completes:
 
  base.img - ide0-hd.qed
 
  This describes the image streaming use cases that I, Adam, and Anthony
  propose to support.  In the course of the discussion we've sometimes
  been distracted with the internals of what a unified live block
  copy/image streaming implementation should do.  I wanted to post this
  summary of image streaming to refocus us on the use case and the APIs
  that users will see.
 
  Stefan
 
  OK, with an external COW file for formats that do not support it the
  interface can be similar. Also there is no need to mirror writes,
  no switch operation, always use destination image.
 
 Marcelo, does this mean you are happy with how management deals with
 power failure/crash during streaming?

Yep.

 Are we settled on the approach where the destination file always has
 the source file as its backing file?

Yep.

 Here are the components that I can identify:
 
 1. blkmirror - used by live block copy to keep source and destination
 in sync.  Already implemented as a block driver by Marcelo.

No need for it anymore, now you switch to the destination before
the operation starts. And always use destination from there on.

 2. External COW overlay - can be used to add backing file (COW)
 support on top of any image, including raw.  Currently unimplemented,
 needs to be a block driver.  Kevin, do you want to write this?
 
 3. Unified background copy - image format-independent mechanism for
 copy contents of a backing file chain into the image file (with
 exception of backing files chained below base).  Needs to play nice
 with blkmirror.  Stefan can write this.

Note the background copy itself is to simply read from 0...END. The bulk
is in the block driver.

 4. Live block copy API and high-level control - the main code that
 adds the live block copy feature.  Existing patches by Marcelo, can be
 restructured to use common core by Marcelo.

Can use your proposed block_stream interface, with a block_switch
command on top, so:

1) management creates copy.img with backing file current.img, allows
access
2) management issues block_switch dev copy.img
3) management issues block_stream dev base

 5. Image streaming API and high-level control - the main code that
 adds the image streaming feature.  Existing patches by Stefan, Adam,
 Anthony, can be restructured to use common core by Stefan.
 
 I previously posted a proposed API for the unified background copy
 mechanism.  I'm thinking that background copy is not the best name
 since it is limited to copying the backing file into the image file.
 
 /**
  * Start a background copy operation
  *
  * Unallocated clusters in the image will be populated with data
  * from its backing file.  This operation runs in the background and a
  * completion function is invoked when it is finished.
  */
 BackgroundCopy *background_copy_start(
BlockDriverState *bs,
 
/**
 * Note: Kevin suggests we migrate this into BlockDriverState
 *   in order to enable copy-on-read.
 *
 * Base image that both source and destination have as a
 * backing file ancestor.  Data will not be copied from base
 * since both source and destination will have access to base
 * image.  This may be NULL to copy all data.
 */
BlockDriverState *base,
 
BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);
 
 /**
  * Cancel a background copy operation
  *
  * This function marks the background copy operation for cancellation and the
  * completion function is invoked once the operation has been cancelled.
  */
 void background_copy_cancel(BackgroundCopy *bgc,
 BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);
 
 /**
  * Get progress of a running background copy operation
  */
 void background_copy_get_status(BackgroundCopy *bgc,
 BackgroundCopyStatus *status);
 
 Stefan

Thought of implementing block_stream command by reopening device with

blkstream:imagename.img

Then:

AIO_READ:
- for each cluster in request:
- if allocated-or-in-final-base, read.
- check write queue, if present wait on it, if not, add copy
  entry to write queue.
- issue cluster sized read from source.
- on completion:
- copy data to original read buffer, complete it.
- if not cancelled, write cluster to destination.

AIO_WRITE
for each cluster in request:
- check write queue, cancel/wait for copy entry.
- add guest 

Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Kevin Wolf
Am 30.06.2011 16:36, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
 4. Live block copy API and high-level control - the main code that
 adds the live block copy feature.  Existing patches by Marcelo, can be
 restructured to use common core by Marcelo.
 
 Can use your proposed block_stream interface, with a block_switch
 command on top, so:
 
 1) management creates copy.img with backing file current.img, allows
 access
 2) management issues block_switch dev copy.img
 3) management issues block_stream dev base

Isn't this block_switch command the same as the existing snapshot_blkdev?

 Thought of implementing block_stream command by reopening device with
 
 blkstream:imagename.img
 
 Then:
 
 AIO_READ:
 - for each cluster in request:
 - if allocated-or-in-final-base, read.
 - check write queue, if present wait on it, if not, add copy
   entry to write queue.
 - issue cluster sized read from source.
 - on completion:
 - copy data to original read buffer, complete it.
 - if not cancelled, write cluster to destination.
 
 AIO_WRITE
 for each cluster in request:
 - check write queue, cancel/wait for copy entry.
 - add guest entry to write queue.
 - issue write to destination.
 - on completion:
 - remove write queue entry.
 
 
 With the 0...END background read, once it completes write final base
 file for image.
 
 So block_stream/block_stream_cancel/block_stream_status commands, the
 background read and the rebase -u update can be separate from the block
 driver.

The way how it works looks good to me, I'm just not entirely sure about
the right place to implement it. I think request queueing and copy on
read could be useful outside blkstream, too.

Kevin
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-30 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 04:52:00PM +0200, Kevin Wolf wrote:
 Am 30.06.2011 16:36, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
  4. Live block copy API and high-level control - the main code that
  adds the live block copy feature.  Existing patches by Marcelo, can be
  restructured to use common core by Marcelo.
  
  Can use your proposed block_stream interface, with a block_switch
  command on top, so:
  
  1) management creates copy.img with backing file current.img, allows
  access
  2) management issues block_switch dev copy.img
  3) management issues block_stream dev base
 
 Isn't this block_switch command the same as the existing snapshot_blkdev?

Yep.

  Thought of implementing block_stream command by reopening device with
  
  blkstream:imagename.img
  
  Then:
  
  AIO_READ:
  - for each cluster in request:
  - if allocated-or-in-final-base, read.
  - check write queue, if present wait on it, if not, add copy
entry to write queue.
  - issue cluster sized read from source.
  - on completion:
  - copy data to original read buffer, complete it.
  - if not cancelled, write cluster to destination.
  
  AIO_WRITE
  for each cluster in request:
  - check write queue, cancel/wait for copy entry.
  - add guest entry to write queue.
  - issue write to destination.
  - on completion:
  - remove write queue entry.
  
  
  With the 0...END background read, once it completes write final base
  file for image.
  
  So block_stream/block_stream_cancel/block_stream_status commands, the
  background read and the rebase -u update can be separate from the block
  driver.
 
 The way how it works looks good to me, I'm just not entirely sure about
 the right place to implement it. I think request queueing and copy on
 read could be useful outside blkstream, too.

They could be lifted later, when there are other users.

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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-29 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:08:23AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Kevin Wolf kw...@redhat.com wrote:
  Am 28.06.2011 21:41, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
  stream
  --
 
  1) base - remote
  2) base - remote - local
  3) base - local
 
  local image is always valid. Requires backing file support.
 
  With the above, this restriction wouldn't apply any more.
 
  Also I don't think we should mix approaches. Either both block copy and
  image streaming use backing files, or none of them do. Mixing means
  duplicating more code, and even worse, that you can't stop a block copy
  in the middle and continue with streaming (which I believe is a really
  valuable feature to have).
 
 Here is how the image streaming feature is used from HMP/QMP:
 
 The guest is running from an image file with a backing file.  The aim
 is to pull the data from the backing file and populate the image file
 so that the dependency on the backing file can be eliminated.
 
 1. Start a background streaming operation:
 
 (qemu) block_stream -a ide0-hd
 
 2. Check the status of the operation:
 
 (qemu) info block-stream
 Streaming device ide0-hd: Completed 512 of 34359738368 bytes
 
 3. The status changes when the operation completes:
 
 (qemu) info block-stream
 No active stream
 
 On completion the image file no longer has a backing file dependency.
 When streaming completes QEMU updates the image file metadata to
 indicate that no backing file is used.
 
 The QMP interface is similar but provides QMP events to signal
 streaming completion and failure.  Polling to query the streaming
 status is only used when the management application wishes to refresh
 progress information.
 
 If guest execution is interrupted by a power failure or QEMU crash,
 then the image file is still valid but streaming may be incomplete.
 When QEMU is launched again the block_stream command can be issued to
 resume streaming.
 
 In the future we could add a 'base' argument to block_stream.  If base
 is specified then data contained in the base image will not be copied.

This is a present requirement.

  This can be used to merge data from an intermediate image without
 merging the base image.  When streaming completes the backing file
 will be set to the base image.  The backing file relationship would
 typically look like this:
 
 1. Before block_stream -a -b base.img ide0-hd completion:
 
 base.img - sn1 - ... - ide0-hd.qed
 
 2. After streaming completes:
 
 base.img - ide0-hd.qed
 
 This describes the image streaming use cases that I, Adam, and Anthony
 propose to support.  In the course of the discussion we've sometimes
 been distracted with the internals of what a unified live block
 copy/image streaming implementation should do.  I wanted to post this
 summary of image streaming to refocus us on the use case and the APIs
 that users will see.
 
 Stefan

OK, with an external COW file for formats that do not support it the
interface can be similar. Also there is no need to mirror writes,
no switch operation, always use destination image.

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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-29 Thread Kevin Wolf
Am 28.06.2011 21:41, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
 On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 02:38:15PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juan Quintela quint...@redhat.com wrote:
 Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.

 Live block copy and image streaming:
  * The differences between Marcelo and Kevin's approaches
  * Which approach to choose and who can help implement it
 
 After more thinking, i dislike the image metadata approach. Management
 must carry the information anyway, so its pointless to duplicate it
 inside an image format.
 
 After the discussion today, i think the internal mechanism and interface
 should be different for copy and stream:
 
 block copy
 --
 
 With backing files:
 
 1) base - sn1 - sn2
 2) base - copy
 
 Without:
 
 1) source
 2) destination
 
 Copy is only valid after switch has been performed. Same interface and
 crash recovery characteristics for all image formats.
 
 If management wants to support continuation, it must specify
 blkcopy:sn2:copy on startup.

We can use almost the same interface and still have an image that is
always valid (assuming that you provide the right format on the command
line, which is already a requirement today).

base - sn1 - sn2 - copy.raw

You just add the file name for an external COW file, like
blkcopy:sn2:copy.raw:copy.cow (we can even have a default filename for
HMP instead of requiring to specify it, like $IMAGE.cow) and if the
destination doesn't support backing files by itself, blkcopy creates the
COW overlay BlockDriverState that uses this file.

No difference for management at all, except that it needs to allow
access to another file.

 stream
 --
 
 1) base - remote
 2) base - remote - local
 3) base - local
 
 local image is always valid. Requires backing file support.

With the above, this restriction wouldn't apply any more.

Also I don't think we should mix approaches. Either both block copy and
image streaming use backing files, or none of them do. Mixing means
duplicating more code, and even worse, that you can't stop a block copy
in the middle and continue with streaming (which I believe is a really
valuable feature to have).

Kevin
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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-29 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Kevin Wolf kw...@redhat.com wrote:
 Am 28.06.2011 21:41, schrieb Marcelo Tosatti:
 stream
 --

 1) base - remote
 2) base - remote - local
 3) base - local

 local image is always valid. Requires backing file support.

 With the above, this restriction wouldn't apply any more.

 Also I don't think we should mix approaches. Either both block copy and
 image streaming use backing files, or none of them do. Mixing means
 duplicating more code, and even worse, that you can't stop a block copy
 in the middle and continue with streaming (which I believe is a really
 valuable feature to have).

Here is how the image streaming feature is used from HMP/QMP:

The guest is running from an image file with a backing file.  The aim
is to pull the data from the backing file and populate the image file
so that the dependency on the backing file can be eliminated.

1. Start a background streaming operation:

(qemu) block_stream -a ide0-hd

2. Check the status of the operation:

(qemu) info block-stream
Streaming device ide0-hd: Completed 512 of 34359738368 bytes

3. The status changes when the operation completes:

(qemu) info block-stream
No active stream

On completion the image file no longer has a backing file dependency.
When streaming completes QEMU updates the image file metadata to
indicate that no backing file is used.

The QMP interface is similar but provides QMP events to signal
streaming completion and failure.  Polling to query the streaming
status is only used when the management application wishes to refresh
progress information.

If guest execution is interrupted by a power failure or QEMU crash,
then the image file is still valid but streaming may be incomplete.
When QEMU is launched again the block_stream command can be issued to
resume streaming.

In the future we could add a 'base' argument to block_stream.  If base
is specified then data contained in the base image will not be copied.
 This can be used to merge data from an intermediate image without
merging the base image.  When streaming completes the backing file
will be set to the base image.  The backing file relationship would
typically look like this:

1. Before block_stream -a -b base.img ide0-hd completion:

base.img - sn1 - ... - ide0-hd.qed

2. After streaming completes:

base.img - ide0-hd.qed

This describes the image streaming use cases that I, Adam, and Anthony
propose to support.  In the course of the discussion we've sometimes
been distracted with the internals of what a unified live block
copy/image streaming implementation should do.  I wanted to post this
summary of image streaming to refocus us on the use case and the APIs
that users will see.

Stefan
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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-28 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juan Quintela quint...@redhat.com wrote:
 Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.

Live block copy and image streaming:
 * The differences between Marcelo and Kevin's approaches
 * Which approach to choose and who can help implement it
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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-28 Thread Anthony Liguori

On 06/27/2011 09:32 AM, Juan Quintela wrote:

Hi

Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.


FYI, I'm in an all-day meeting so I can't attend.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori



Later, Juan.



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Re: [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-28 Thread Avi Kivity

On 06/28/2011 04:43 PM, Anthony Liguori wrote:

FYI, I'm in an all-day meeting so I can't attend.


Did you do something really bad?

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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-28 Thread Marcelo Tosatti
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 02:38:15PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juan Quintela quint...@redhat.com wrote:
  Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.
 
 Live block copy and image streaming:
  * The differences between Marcelo and Kevin's approaches
  * Which approach to choose and who can help implement it

After more thinking, i dislike the image metadata approach. Management
must carry the information anyway, so its pointless to duplicate it
inside an image format.

After the discussion today, i think the internal mechanism and interface
should be different for copy and stream:

block copy
--

With backing files:

1) base - sn1 - sn2
2) base - copy

Without:

1) source
2) destination

Copy is only valid after switch has been performed. Same interface and
crash recovery characteristics for all image formats.

If management wants to support continuation, it must specify
blkcopy:sn2:copy on startup.

stream
--

1) base - remote
2) base - remote - local
3) base - local

local image is always valid. Requires backing file support.


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Re: KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-28 Thread Stefan Hajnoczi
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 8:41 PM, Marcelo Tosatti mtosa...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 02:38:15PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
 On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juan Quintela quint...@redhat.com wrote:
  Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.

 Live block copy and image streaming:
  * The differences between Marcelo and Kevin's approaches
  * Which approach to choose and who can help implement it

 After more thinking, i dislike the image metadata approach. Management
 must carry the information anyway, so its pointless to duplicate it
 inside an image format.

I agree with you.  It would be a significant change for QEMU users to
deal with block state files just in case they want to use live block
copy/image streaming.  Not only would existing management layers need
to be updated but also custom management or provisioning scripts.

 After the discussion today, i think the internal mechanism and interface
 should be different for copy and stream:

 block copy
 --

 With backing files:

 1) base - sn1 - sn2
 2) base - copy

 Without:

 1) source
 2) destination

 Copy is only valid after switch has been performed. Same interface and
 crash recovery characteristics for all image formats.

 If management wants to support continuation, it must specify
 blkcopy:sn2:copy on startup.

 stream
 --

 1) base - remote
 2) base - remote - local
 3) base - local

 local image is always valid. Requires backing file support.

I agree that the modes of operation are different and we should
provide different HMP/QMP APIs for them.  Internally I still think
they can share code for the source - destination copy operation.

Stefan
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KVM call agenda for June 28

2011-06-27 Thread Juan Quintela
Hi

Please send in any agenda items you are interested in covering.

Later, Juan.
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