Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-03-11 Thread Greg Smith

On 3/9/13 11:39 PM, Jonathan Rogers wrote:

In an earlier implementation, I did call cp --reflink=auto once per
regular file, preserving the behavior of copydir. On Btrfs, this works
well, though slightly slower due to extra processes. AFAIK, there's no
way to do something equivalent on ZFS without coming up with a much more
complicated scheme involving both links and clones.


Chasing after the performance win of the copy acceleration seems worth 
it.  We can't really do that if it results in an obvious behavior change 
though.  If it takes a bit longer to do it file at a time, but that's 
the right thing to do, as long as it's still a net win this idea is 
still worthwhile.



I don't think it will be possible to implement a scheme that works on
ZFS and addresses your concerns about file and directory handling that
is not many times more complex than what I have so far. OTOH, I think
the approach I have already implemented which calls an external command
for each regular file to copy might be acceptable. Since I don't
personally have much interest in using ZFS, I think I'm going to just
focus on Btrfs for now.


Just be aware that OS specific features like this are a lot more likely 
to be accepted if they're demonstrated to work on two OSes.  That's much 
better evidence that the API for the OS specific work is a good one.


--
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant USg...@2ndquadrant.com   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support www.2ndQuadrant.com


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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-03-09 Thread Greg Smith

On 3/1/13 1:40 AM, Jonathan Rogers wrote:

I've been thinking about both of these issues and decided to try a
different approach. This patch adds GUC options for two external
commands


This is a reasonable approach for a proof of concept patch.  I like the 
idea you're playing with here, as a useful boost for both production 
deployments and development synchronization jobs.  There are some major 
coding hurdles for this idea to go beyond proof of concept into 
committed feature though, so I'm just going to dump all the obvious ones 
I can see on you too.  Feel free to ignore those and focus on the fun 
usability / capability parts for a while first.  Just want you to 
realize what work is in your way, but not visible to you necessarily.


With so many GUCs already, adding more of them to support something with 
a fairly narrow user base will be hard to justify committing.  This sort 
of thing seems like you could load it as an extension instead.  I don't 
think this is worth doing yet.  For now the GUC approach is fine, and it 
keeps your code sample small.


I'm going to start with how to continue validating this idea is useful 
without worrying about those, to get some more testing/benchmarking 
samples, and for all of that job what you're doing so far is fine.  The 
road toward something to commit is going to take a lot more complicated 
code eventually though.  There's no big conceptual leap involved, it's 
just where the changes need to go and how much they need to touch to do 
this accurately in all cases isn't as simple as your demo.  Handling 
unusual situations and race conditions turns out to be almost all the 
code in what you're replacing, and you'll need similar work in the 
replacements.


 I have just been experimenting with ZFS and it does not seem to have any
 capability or interface for cloning ordinary files or directories so the
 configuration is not as straightforward. However, I was able to set up a
 Postgres cluster as a hierarchy of ZFS file systems in the same pool
 with each directory under base being a separate file system and
 configure Postgres to call shell scripts which call zfs snapshot and
 clone commands to do the cloning and deleting.

To make things easier for a reviewer, it's useful to include working 
examples like this as part of your submission.  For this one that would 
include:


-A sample script that created a test pool
-Working postgresql.conf changes compatible with ZFS
-Test program showing how to exercise the feature

I think I can see how to construct such an example for the btrfs 
version, but having you show that explicitly (preferably with a whole 
sample session executing it) will also help reviewers.  Remember:  if 
you want to get your submission off to a good start, the reviewer should 
be able to run your sample test, see the code work, and do something fun 
within a few seconds of compiling it.  Make that easy for them, and your 
reviewer will start with a good impression of you and a positive outlook 
for the change.


Now onto the code nitpicking!

= Extension vs. GUC =

In addition to not polluting the postgresql.conf.sample, there's another 
reason this might make for better extension material eventually.  Adding 
new execv calls that are building strings like this is just generally a 
risky thing.  It would be nice from a security perspective if that 
entire mechanism wasn't even introduced into the server at all unless 
someone loaded the extension.


An extension implementation will end up being more code, both to add a 
useful hook for replace these calls and for the extension packaging 
itself.  Having a bit more code in contrib/ but less in src  
postgresql.conf is probably a net positive trade though.


= Diff reduction / code refactoring =

Looks like you added a File Operation Options entry into guc.c but 
then not use it here?  I would just keep this in an existing category 
for now, try to reduce the diff length of the proof of concept version 
as much as possible in the beginning.


On the topic of smaller diffs, the similar cut and paste sections of the 
two entries that both do fork/exec/waitpid should really be refactored 
into one function.  The archiver does something similar for running 
archive_command, there may be some reuse or refactoring of its code to 
present this interface.


Again, this sort of refactoring is not necessary as a POC patch.  But it 
will probably come up if this moves toward commit candidate.


= Recursion and directory navigation =


In either case, the directories are copied recursively while the
Postgres internal copydir function does not recurse. I don't think that
should be a problem since there shouldn't be nested directories in the
first place.


copydir takes an option for whether it should recurse or not.

The rm side of makes me twitch for a number of reasons.  First off, 
there's just the general scariness of the concept of shelling out to run 
rm recursively with some text string you 

Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-03-09 Thread Jonathan Rogers
Greg Smith wrote:
 I think I can see how to construct such an example for the btrfs
 version, but having you show that explicitly (preferably with a whole
 sample session executing it) will also help reviewers.  Remember:  if
 you want to get your submission off to a good start, the reviewer should
 be able to run your sample test, see the code work, and do something fun
 within a few seconds of compiling it.  Make that easy for them, and your
 reviewer will start with a good impression of you and a positive outlook
 for the change.

Yes, an example is very simple with Btrfs, since it only requires one
GUC variable and that the cluster be created on a Btrfs file system.
Constructing a ZFS is decidedly non-trivial and I'm starting to question
if it's worth it.

 
 Now onto the code nitpicking!
 
 = Extension vs. GUC =
 
 In addition to not polluting the postgresql.conf.sample, there's another
 reason this might make for better extension material eventually.  Adding
 new execv calls that are building strings like this is just generally a
 risky thing.  It would be nice from a security perspective if that
 entire mechanism wasn't even introduced into the server at all unless
 someone loaded the extension.
 
 An extension implementation will end up being more code, both to add a
 useful hook for replace these calls and for the extension packaging
 itself.  Having a bit more code in contrib/ but less in src 
 postgresql.conf is probably a net positive trade though.

I will look into how to write an extension.

 
 = Diff reduction / code refactoring =
 
 Looks like you added a File Operation Options entry into guc.c but
 then not use it here?  I would just keep this in an existing category
 for now, try to reduce the diff length of the proof of concept version
 as much as possible in the beginning.

Yes, that is a good idea.

 
 On the topic of smaller diffs, the similar cut and paste sections of the
 two entries that both do fork/exec/waitpid should really be refactored
 into one function.  The archiver does something similar for running
 archive_command, there may be some reuse or refactoring of its code to
 present this interface.

I'll look at archive_command to see what might be in common.

 
 Again, this sort of refactoring is not necessary as a POC patch.  But it
 will probably come up if this moves toward commit candidate.
 
 = Recursion and directory navigation =
 
 In either case, the directories are copied recursively while the
 Postgres internal copydir function does not recurse. I don't think that
 should be a problem since there shouldn't be nested directories in the
 first place.
 
 copydir takes an option for whether it should recurse or not.
 
 The rm side of makes me twitch for a number of reasons.  First off,
 there's just the general scariness of the concept of shelling out to run
 rm recursively with some text string you build.  The worst time I saw a
 bug in that sort of code destroyed a terabyte, and the last time I saw
 such a bug was only a week ago.  Validation you're doing the right thing
 is always job #1 in removing files.

I needed to call an external command to remove a directory only when
experimenting on ZFS since the regular implementation works fine on
Btrfs. Unlike Btrfs, ZFS does not have any capability to clone
individual files. Therefore, a directory under base/ has to start out as
a ZFS snapshot, which can be cloned with the zfs clone command to
become a snapshot directory with exactly the same contents. To remove
the clone, the zfs destroy command has to be called on the clone.
AFAICT, clone and remove operations on ZFS always operate on a whole
directory at a time.

 
 The same sort of issue is in your external_copydir.  Iterating into
 subdirectories when it doesn't happen now just isn't safe, even though
 the one expected case you're hooking won't be any different.  You really
 can't just do that.  Would this work instead, and is there any concern
 about files that start with a .?
 
 cp * --reflink=auto
 
 Regardless, you need to keep most of the structure to copydir anyway.
 Error handling, handling cancellation, and fsync calls are all vital
 things.  You probably have to make the forked command copy a single file
 at a time to get the same interrupt handling behavior.
 

In an earlier implementation, I did call cp --reflink=auto once per
regular file, preserving the behavior of copydir. On Btrfs, this works
well, though slightly slower due to extra processes. AFAIK, there's no
way to do something equivalent on ZFS without coming up with a much more
complicated scheme involving both links and clones.

I don't think it will be possible to implement a scheme that works on
ZFS and addresses your concerns about file and directory handling that
is not many times more complex than what I have so far. OTOH, I think
the approach I have already implemented which calls an external command
for each regular file to copy might be acceptable. Since I don't
personally have much 

Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-28 Thread Jonathan Rogers
Phil Sorber wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Josh Berkus j...@agliodbs.com wrote:
 On 02/13/2013 02:13 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
 The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
 maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
 is so widely used as to justify this.

 If this is a valuable hack, it seems like it could work on ZFS as well.
  If we could make it for any snapshot-capable filesystem, and not just
 BTRFS, then it would make more sense.
 
 I was thinking that too, but I think this is a file level clone, not a
 whole filesystem. As far as I can tell, you can't clone individual
 files in ZFS.
 

I've been thinking about both of these issues and decided to try a
different approach. This patch adds GUC options for two external
commands: one to copy a directory and one to delete a directory. This
allows filesystem-specific tools to be used to accomplish the efficient
cloning without Postgres having to know any details.

This works particularly well for Btrfs. On a GNU/Linux system, one can
simply configure the external copy command as /bin/cp -r
--reflink=auto and efficient cloning will be done on file systems that
support it and ordinary copying will be done otherwise. The directory
deletion command isn't needed and no special Postgres setup is required
other than putting the data directory on a Btrfs file system.

I have just been experimenting with ZFS and it does not seem to have any
capability or interface for cloning ordinary files or directories so the
configuration is not as straightforward. However, I was able to set up a
Postgres cluster as a hierarchy of ZFS file systems in the same pool
with each directory under base being a separate file system and
configure Postgres to call shell scripts which call zfs snapshot and
clone commands to do the cloning and deleting.

In either case, the directories are copied recursively while the
Postgres internal copydir function does not recurse. I don't think that
should be a problem since there shouldn't be nested directories in the
first place.
-- 
Jonathan Ross Rogers
diff --git a/src/backend/commands/dbcommands.c b/src/backend/commands/dbcommands.c
index 37bd0a4..5b87eb1 100644
*** a/src/backend/commands/dbcommands.c
--- b/src/backend/commands/dbcommands.c
***
*** 23,28 
--- 23,29 
  #include locale.h
  #include unistd.h
  #include sys/stat.h
+ #include sys/wait.h
  
  #include access/genam.h
  #include access/heapam.h
***
*** 44,49 
--- 45,51 
  #include miscadmin.h
  #include pgstat.h
  #include postmaster/bgwriter.h
+ #include postmaster/fork_process.h
  #include storage/bufmgr.h
  #include storage/copydir.h
  #include storage/fd.h
***
*** 608,614 
  			 *
  			 * We don't need to copy subdirectories
  			 */
! 			copydir(srcpath, dstpath, false);
  
  			/* Record the filesystem change in XLOG */
  			{
--- 610,619 
  			 *
  			 * We don't need to copy subdirectories
  			 */
! 			if (external_copy_command)
! external_copydir(srcpath, dstpath);
! 			else
! copydir(srcpath, dstpath, false);
  
  			/* Record the filesystem change in XLOG */
  			{
***
*** 1702,1707 
--- 1707,1767 
  	return result;
  }
  
+ 
+ #define MAX_RM_TABLESPACE_WORDS 10
+ char *rm_tablespace_dir_command = NULL;
+ 
+ 
+ /* Remove a single tablespace directory by calling an external command */
+ void
+ external_rm_tablespace_dir(char *dir)
+ {
+ 	char	   *cmd_path;
+ 	/* leave space for directory names and terminator */
+ 	char	   *argv[MAX_RM_TABLESPACE_WORDS + 3];
+ 	int			argc = 0;
+ 	pid_t		pid;
+ 	int			status;
+ 
+ 	char	   *sc = strdup(rm_tablespace_dir_command);
+ 	char	   *token;
+ 
+ 	Assert(sc);
+ 	token = strtok(sc,  );
+ 	while (token)
+ 	{
+ 		ereport(DEBUG1, (errmsg(Appending \%s\, token)));
+ 		argv[argc++] = token;
+ 		Assert(argc = MAX_RM_TABLESPACE_WORDS);
+ 		token = strtok(NULL,  );
+ 	}
+ 	Assert(argc  0);
+ 	argv[argc++] = dir;
+ 	cmd_path = argv[0];
+ 	ereport(DEBUG1, (errmsg(Calling %s to delete \%s\, cmd_path, dir)));
+ 	argv[argc] = NULL;
+ 	Assert(argv[argc] == NULL);
+ 
+ 	/* Fire off execv in child */
+ 	if ((pid = fork_process()) == 0)
+ 	{
+ 		if (execv(cmd_path, argv)  0)
+ 		{
+ 			ereport(LOG,
+ 	(errmsg(could not execute \%s\, cmd_path)));
+ 			/* We're already in the child process here, can't return */
+ 			exit(1);
+ 		}
+ 	}
+ 	else {
+ 		waitpid(pid, status, 0);
+ 		if (status) {
+ 		ereport(ERROR, (errmsg(could not delete dir \%s\, dir)));
+ 		}
+ 	}
+ 	free(sc);
+ }
+ 
  /*
   * Remove tablespace directories
   *
***
*** 1747,1753 
  			continue;
  		}
  
! 		if (!rmtree(dstpath, true))
  			ereport(WARNING,
  	(errmsg(some useless files may be left behind in old database directory \%s\,
  			dstpath)));
--- 1807,1815 
  			continue;
  		}
  
! 		if (rm_tablespace_dir_command)
! 			external_rm_tablespace_dir(dstpath);
! 		else if (!rmtree(dstpath, true))
  			

[HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Jonathan Rogers
This patch against PostgreSQL 9.1.8 takes advantage of efficient file
cloning on Linux Btrfs file systems to make CREATE DATABASE operations
extremely fast regardless of the size of the database used as a
template. On my system, I can create a database from a multi-gibibyte
template in a second or less. This is very useful for automated testing
as well in a development environment where reverting to a baseline
database is frequently required. As an added bonus, newly created
databases require very little additional disk storage until they diverge
from the template.

The efficient cloning is accomplished by a Btrfs-specific ioctl() call.
On non-Linux systems or if the ioctl() call fails, file contents are
copied in the conventional way so no configuration is needed. This has
been tested on a Linux system on both Btrfs and XFS file systems as well
as an OSX system.

The clone_file() function was originally copied from GNU coreutils which
is under GPL v3. The function is currently only about ten lines long and
contains little essential information beyond the magic values needed for
the ioctl() call so I'm not sure if license is a problem.
-- 
Jonathan Ross Rogers
diff --git a/src/backend/storage/file/copydir.c b/src/backend/storage/file/copydir.c
index 6cfb816..719a5c1 100644
--- a/src/backend/storage/file/copydir.c
+++ b/src/backend/storage/file/copydir.c
@@ -22,6 +22,10 @@
 #include unistd.h
 #include sys/stat.h
 
+#ifdef HAVE_SYS_IOCTL_H
+#include sys/ioctl.h
+#endif
+
 #include storage/copydir.h
 #include storage/fd.h
 #include miscadmin.h
@@ -139,6 +143,24 @@ copydir(char *fromdir, char *todir, bool recurse)
 }
 
 /*
+ * Perform the O(1) btrfs clone operation, if possible.
+ * Upon success, return 0.  Otherwise, return -1.
+ */
+static inline int
+clone_file (int dest_fd, int src_fd)
+{
+#ifdef __linux__
+# define BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC 0x94
+# define BTRFS_IOC_CLONE _IOW (BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC, 9, int)
+	return ioctl (dest_fd, BTRFS_IOC_CLONE, src_fd);
+#else
+	(void) dest_fd;
+	(void) src_fd;
+	return -1;
+#endif
+}
+
+/*
  * copy one file
  */
 void
@@ -150,11 +172,6 @@ copy_file(char *fromfile, char *tofile)
 	int			nbytes;
 	off_t		offset;
 
-	/* Use palloc to ensure we get a maxaligned buffer */
-#define COPY_BUF_SIZE (8 * BLCKSZ)
-
-	buffer = palloc(COPY_BUF_SIZE);
-
 	/*
 	 * Open the files
 	 */
@@ -171,38 +188,54 @@ copy_file(char *fromfile, char *tofile)
 (errcode_for_file_access(),
  errmsg(could not create file \%s\: %m, tofile)));
 
-	/*
-	 * Do the data copying.
-	 */
-	for (offset = 0;; offset += nbytes)
+	if (clone_file (dstfd, srcfd) == 0)
+		ereport(DEBUG1, (errmsg(Cloned \%s\ to \%s\., fromfile, tofile)));
+
+	else
 	{
-		/* If we got a cancel signal during the copy of the file, quit */
-		CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS();
+		/*
+		 * Do the data copying.
+		 */
 
-		nbytes = read(srcfd, buffer, COPY_BUF_SIZE);
-		if (nbytes  0)
-			ereport(ERROR,
-	(errcode_for_file_access(),
-	 errmsg(could not read file \%s\: %m, fromfile)));
-		if (nbytes == 0)
-			break;
-		errno = 0;
-		if ((int) write(dstfd, buffer, nbytes) != nbytes)
+		/* Use palloc to ensure we get a maxaligned buffer */
+#define COPY_BUF_SIZE (8 * BLCKSZ)
+
+		buffer = palloc(COPY_BUF_SIZE);
+
+		ereport(DEBUG1, (errmsg(Copying \%s\ to \%s\ in userspace.,
+fromfile, tofile)));
+		for (offset = 0;; offset += nbytes)
 		{
-			/* if write didn't set errno, assume problem is no disk space */
-			if (errno == 0)
-errno = ENOSPC;
-			ereport(ERROR,
-	(errcode_for_file_access(),
-	 errmsg(could not write to file \%s\: %m, tofile)));
+			/* If we got a cancel signal during the copy of the file, quit */
+			CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS();
+
+			nbytes = read(srcfd, buffer, COPY_BUF_SIZE);
+			if (nbytes  0)
+ereport(ERROR,
+		(errcode_for_file_access(),
+		 errmsg(could not read file \%s\: %m, fromfile)));
+			if (nbytes == 0)
+break;
+			errno = 0;
+			if ((int) write(dstfd, buffer, nbytes) != nbytes)
+			{
+/* if write didn't set errno, assume problem is no disk space */
+if (errno == 0)
+	errno = ENOSPC;
+ereport(ERROR,
+		(errcode_for_file_access(),
+		 errmsg(could not write to file \%s\: %m, tofile)));
+			}
+
+			/*
+			 * We fsync the files later but first flush them to avoid spamming the
+			 * cache and hopefully get the kernel to start writing them out before
+			 * the fsync comes.
+			 */
+			pg_flush_data(dstfd, offset, nbytes);
 		}
 
-		/*
-		 * We fsync the files later but first flush them to avoid spamming the
-		 * cache and hopefully get the kernel to start writing them out before
-		 * the fsync comes.
-		 */
-		pg_flush_data(dstfd, offset, nbytes);
+		pfree(buffer);
 	}
 
 	if (close(dstfd))
@@ -212,7 +245,6 @@ copy_file(char *fromfile, char *tofile)
 
 	close(srcfd);
 
-	pfree(buffer);
 }
 
 

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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Tom Lane
Jonathan Rogers jrog...@socialserve.com writes:
 This patch against PostgreSQL 9.1.8 takes advantage of efficient file
 cloning on Linux Btrfs file systems to make CREATE DATABASE operations
 extremely fast regardless of the size of the database used as a
 template.

It would be easier to review this patch if the bulk of it weren't simple
reindentation of existing code.  (Or at least it ought to be that ---
I object to your having moved the buffer palloc inside the loop.  A
patch that is trying to optimize a minority case can expect to be
rejected if it makes things worse for everyone else.)

Consider whether you can't phrase the patch to avoid that, perhaps by
use of continue instead of an else-block.  Alternatively, enclose the
existing code in braces but don't reindent it, ie,

+   if (whatever)
+   ... new code ...
+   else
+   {
... existing code ...
+   }

The next pgindent run will fix the funny indentation, or the committer
can do it if he wishes after reviewing.

 The efficient cloning is accomplished by a Btrfs-specific ioctl() call.

The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
is so widely used as to justify this.

 +#ifdef __linux__
 +# define BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC 0x94
 +# define BTRFS_IOC_CLONE _IOW (BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC, 9, int)
 + return ioctl (dest_fd, BTRFS_IOC_CLONE, src_fd);
 +#else

This seems to me to be unacceptable on its face.  If we can't get these
constants out of a system header file, it's unlikely that the feature is
stable enough to depend on, if indeed it's meant for general-purpose use
at all.  We could easily end up invoking unexpected behaviors.

regards, tom lane


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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Jonathan Rogers
Tom Lane wrote:
 Jonathan Rogers jrog...@socialserve.com writes:
 This patch against PostgreSQL 9.1.8 takes advantage of efficient file
 cloning on Linux Btrfs file systems to make CREATE DATABASE operations
 extremely fast regardless of the size of the database used as a
 template.
 
 It would be easier to review this patch if the bulk of it weren't simple
 reindentation of existing code.  (Or at least it ought to be that ---
 I object to your having moved the buffer palloc inside the loop.  A
 patch that is trying to optimize a minority case can expect to be
 rejected if it makes things worse for everyone else.)

The buffer allocation is actually not inside the loop, but inside the if
branch for ordinary copying behavior since the buffer is unnecessary in
the case of a successful clone.

 
 Consider whether you can't phrase the patch to avoid that, perhaps by
 use of continue instead of an else-block.  Alternatively, enclose the
 existing code in braces but don't reindent it, ie,
 
 + if (whatever)
 + ... new code ...
 + else
 + {
   ... existing code ...
 + }
 

Indeed, I was bothered by the need to reindent so much as well. I'll see
if I can do better.

 The next pgindent run will fix the funny indentation, or the committer
 can do it if he wishes after reviewing.
 
 The efficient cloning is accomplished by a Btrfs-specific ioctl() call.
 
 The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
 maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
 is so widely used as to justify this.

Yes, this is a problem I considered. I think the basic problem is the
lack of any kind of generic interface to copy or clone a file. A system
call for Linux to copy or clone has been proposed more than once but so
far, nothing has been accepted. I believe there are a few file systems
that support some kind of efficient cloning, but I haven't investigated
it deeply.

 
 +#ifdef __linux__
 +# define BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC 0x94
 +# define BTRFS_IOC_CLONE _IOW (BTRFS_IOCTL_MAGIC, 9, int)
 +return ioctl (dest_fd, BTRFS_IOC_CLONE, src_fd);
 +#else
 
 This seems to me to be unacceptable on its face.  If we can't get these
 constants out of a system header file, it's unlikely that the feature is
 stable enough to depend on, if indeed it's meant for general-purpose use
 at all.  We could easily end up invoking unexpected behaviors.

Of course you're right that defining values right there is no good. It
looks like the values are in the Linux headers since 2.6.32 when Btrfs
was merged into mainline. I guess I'll need to brush up on CPP to figure
out how to use the Linux header values if they exist.

Would it be better to move clone_file() into its own module where
implementations for other file system types might eventually be added?

My first implementation called cp with the --reflink=auto option since
that seems to be the closest thing to a file system agnostic interface.
The above snippet comes directly from the GNU cp source and I'm not sure
why that code defines the values instead of taking them from Linux headers.

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Jonathan Ross Rogers


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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Josh Berkus
On 02/13/2013 02:13 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
 The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
 maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
 is so widely used as to justify this.

If this is a valuable hack, it seems like it could work on ZFS as well.
 If we could make it for any snapshot-capable filesystem, and not just
BTRFS, then it would make more sense.

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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Jonathan Rogers
Josh Berkus wrote:
 On 02/13/2013 02:13 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
 The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
 maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
 is so widely used as to justify this.
 
 If this is a valuable hack, it seems like it could work on ZFS as well.
  If we could make it for any snapshot-capable filesystem, and not just
 BTRFS, then it would make more sense.
 

Yes, that's exactly what I hope will be possible. I need to investigate
ZFS to see if it's feasible.

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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Phil Sorber
On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Josh Berkus j...@agliodbs.com wrote:
 On 02/13/2013 02:13 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
 The big-picture question of course is whether we want to carry and
 maintain a filesystem-specific hack.  I don't have a sense that btrfs
 is so widely used as to justify this.

 If this is a valuable hack, it seems like it could work on ZFS as well.
  If we could make it for any snapshot-capable filesystem, and not just
 BTRFS, then it would make more sense.

I was thinking that too, but I think this is a file level clone, not a
whole filesystem. As far as I can tell, you can't clone individual
files in ZFS.


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Re: [HACKERS] Btrfs clone WIP patch

2013-02-13 Thread Tom Lane
Jonathan Rogers jrog...@socialserve.com writes:
 Would it be better to move clone_file() into its own module where
 implementations for other file system types might eventually be added?

Yeah, possibly.  I considered suggesting that the current code be
treated as a fallback implementation of clone_file, but I'm not sure
if there's a convenient way to manage the run-time fallback if we try
to do it like that.  In any case, +1 for leaving the door open for
easy addition of other cloning techniques.

regards, tom lane


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