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Re: Avoid copying unallocated clusters during full backup


From: Leo Luan
Subject: Re: Avoid copying unallocated clusters during full backup
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2020 15:31:06 -0700

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 1:11 PM John Snow <address@hidden> wrote:


On 4/17/20 2:33 PM, Leo Luan wrote:
> When doing a full backup from a single layer qcow2 disk file to a new
> qcow2 file, the backup_run function does not unset unallocated parts in
> the copy bit map.  The subsequent backup_loop call goes through these
> unallocated clusters unnecessarily.  In the case when the target and
> source reside in different file systems, an EXDEV error would cause
> zeroes to be actually copied into the target and that causes a target
> file size explosion to the full virtual disk size.
>

I think the idea, generally, is to leave the detection of unallocated
portions to the format (qcow2) and the protocol (posix file) respectively.

As far as I know, it is incorrect to assume that unallocated data
can/will/should always be read as zeroes; so it may not be the case that
it is "safe" to skip this data, because the target may or may not need
explicit zeroing.

Thanks for pointing this out.  Would it be safe to skip unallocated clusters if both source and target's bdrv_unallocated_blocks_are_zero() returns true?

> This patch aims to unset the unallocated parts in the copy bitmap when
> it is safe to do so, thereby avoid dealing with unallocated clusters in
> the backup loop to prevent significant performance or storage efficiency
> impacts when running full backup jobs.
>
> Any insights or corrections?
>
> diff --git a/block/backup.c b/block/backup.c
> index cf62b1a38c..609d551b1e 100644
> --- a/block/backup.c
> +++ b/block/backup.c
> @@ -139,6 +139,29 @@ static void backup_clean(Job *job)
>      bdrv_backup_top_drop(s->backup_top);
>  }
>  
> +static bool backup_ok_to_skip_unallocated(BackupBlockJob *s)
> +{
> +    /* Checks whether this backup job can avoid copying or dealing with
> +       unallocated clusters in the backup loop and their associated
> +       performance and storage effciency impacts. Check for the condition
> +       when it's safe to skip copying unallocated clusters that allows the
> +       corresponding bits in the copy bitmap to be unset.  The assumption
> +       here is that it is ok to do so when we are doing a full backup,
> +       the target file is a qcow2, and the source is single layer.
> +       Do we need to add additional checks (so that it does not break
> +       something) or add addtional conditions to optimize additional use
> +       cases?
> +     */
> +
> +    if (s->sync_mode == MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_FULL &&
> +       s->bcs->target->bs->drv != NULL &&
> +       strncmp(s->bcs->target->bs->drv->format_name, "qcow2", 5) == 0 &&
> +       s->bcs->source->bs->backing_file[0] == '\0')

This isn't going to suffice upstream; the backup job can't be performing
format introspection to determine behavior on the fly.

I think what you're really after is something like
bdrv_unallocated_blocks_are_zero().

Thanks for this pointer.
 

> +       return true;
> +    else
> +        return false;
> +}
> +
>  void backup_do_checkpoint(BlockJob *job, Error **errp)
>  {
>      BackupBlockJob *backup_job = container_of(job, BackupBlockJob, common);
> @@ -248,7 +271,7 @@ static int coroutine_fn backup_run(Job *job, Error
> **errp)
>  
>      backup_init_copy_bitmap(s);
>  
> -    if (s->sync_mode == MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_TOP) {
> +    if (s->sync_mode == MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_TOP ||

So the basic premise is that if you are copying a qcow2 file and the
unallocated portions as defined by the qcow2 metadata are zero, it's
safe to skip those, so you can treat it like SYNC_MODE_TOP.

In the MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_TOP case, the check for unallocated clusters does not go all the way to the base level.  So it would be incorrect to treat the MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_FULL the same as MIRROR_SYNC_MODE_TOP unless the source does not have a backing and the base itself.  That's why I added a check for the backing_file field of the source.  I guess the code can be potentially extended with a new flag to do the block status check all the way into the base level for the case of the FULL mode?

I think you *also* have to know if the *source* needs those regions
explicitly zeroed, and it's not always safe to just skip them at the
manifest level.

Do you mean some operation changing the target into non-sparse?

I thought there was code that handled this to some extent already, but I
don't know. I think Vladimir has worked on it recently and can probably
let you know where I am mistaken :)

Thanks for the reply! 
 
--js

> backup_ok_to_skip_unallocated(s)) {
>          int64_t offset = 0;
>          int64_t count;
>  

John Snow


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