Re: [PATCH v9 30/34] qcow2: Add prealloc field to QCowL2Meta

[Max Reitz]

On 28.06.20 13:02, Alberto Garcia wrote:
> This field allows us to indicate that the L2 metadata update does not
> come from a write request with actual data but from a preallocation
> request.
> 
> For traditional images this does not make any difference, but for
> images with extended L2 entries this means that the clusters are
> allocated normally in the L2 table but individual subclusters are
> marked as unallocated.
> 
> This will allow preallocating images that have a backing file.
> 
> There is one special case: when we resize an existing image we can
> also request that the new clusters are preallocated. If the image
> already had a backing file then we have to hide any possible stale
> data and zero out the new clusters (see commit 955c7d6687 for more
> details).
> 
> In this case the subclusters cannot be left as unallocated so the L2
> bitmap must be updated.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Alberto Garcia <berto@igalia.com>
> Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
> ---
>  block/qcow2.h         | 8 ++++++++
>  block/qcow2-cluster.c | 2 +-
>  block/qcow2.c         | 6 ++++++
>  3 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Sounds good, but I’m just not quite sure about the details on
falloc/full allocation: With .prealloc = true, writing to the
preallocated subclusters will require a COW operation.  That’s not
ideal, and avoiding those COWs may be a reason to do preallocation in
the first place.

Now, with backing files, it’s entirely correct.  You need a COW
operation, because that’s the point of having a backing file.

But without a backing file I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to set
.prealloc = false to avoid that COW.

Of course, if we did that, you couldn’t create the overlay separately
from the backing file, preallocate it, and only then attach the backing
file to the overlay.  But is that a problem?

(Or are there other problems to consider?)

Max

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