[pve-devel] Default cache mode for VM hard drives

[Eneko Lacunza]

On 28/05/15 15:32, Stanislav German-Evtushenko wrote:
>>
>> What does it mean that operations with buffer are not ensured to be
>> thread-safe in qemu?
>>
>> O_DIRECT doesn't guarantee that buffer reading is finished when write
>> returns if I read "man -s 2 open" correctly.
> The statement seems to be not correct.
> O_DIRECT does not guarantee that data reaches the undererying hardware
> on return but it does guarantee that reading from buffer is finished.
> Consinder the following examples.
>
> This is okay:
> 0. set_buffer
> 1. write_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 2. change_buffer
> 3. write_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 4. change_buffer
> 5. write_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 6. ...
>
> This is not okay and this is what is actually happening:
> 0. set_buffer
> 1. start_writing_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 2. change_buffer (we can do this only in another thread)
> 3. finish_writing_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 4. change_buffer
> 5. start_writing_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 6. change_buffer (we can do this only in another thread)
> 7. finish_writing_with_o_direct_from_buffer
> 8 ...
Wolfgang also explained this, thanks to both.

If there is a concurrency problem in qemu-kvm with block write buffers, 
we can have problems with any type of cache, only that with cache modes 
using O_DIRECT  and mdraid/drbd it is easier to trigger problems (and 
also there are other kind of problems, like inconsistent mirroring)?

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