questions about the block backend/frontend driver

[Yuming fang]

Hi, Everyone,

 

I am trying to understand the code of the block backend/frontend driver. I konw the blkback and blkfront communicate with each other through event channel and buffer ring. But there are some questions I could not understand.

 

1. When dom0 receive one disk request from domU1 and another disk request from domU2 simultaneously, how these two disk requests are pushed into Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler? How the Xen sort them before pushing them into the Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler?

 

2. Is there a disk request queue in the Xen to hold these disk requests, so that the Xen could only push the disk requests in the queue into the linux kernel I/O Scheduler?

 

I would appreciate it very much if anyone could give me some help.

 

Yuming

 

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[Yuming fang]

 

Nobody answer these questions? I want to know if I could implement the I/O disk scheduling in Xen and then I could not modify the corresponding code(I/O Scheduling algorithms) of Linux Kernel?

 

Yuming

2008/9/8 Yuming fang <fangyuming.leo@...>

Hi, Everyone,

 

I am trying to understand the code of the block backend/frontend driver. I konw the blkback and blkfront communicate with each other through event channel and buffer ring. But there are some questions I could not understand.

 

1. When dom0 receive one disk request from domU1 and another disk request from domU2 simultaneously, how these two disk requests are pushed into Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler? How the Xen sort them before pushing them into the Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler?

 

2. Is there a disk request queue in the Xen to hold these disk requests, so that the Xen could only push the disk requests in the queue into the linux kernel I/O Scheduler?

 

I would appreciate it very much if anyone could give me some help.

 

Yuming

 

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[Konrad Rzeszutek-4]

On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 08:43:07PM +0800, Yuming fang wrote:
> Nobody answer these questions? I want to know if I could implement the I/O
> disk scheduling in Xen and then I could not modify the corresponding
> code(I/O Scheduling algorithms) of Linux Kernel?

I would recommend you get 'blktrace' programs and run them under Dom0 to
get a practical answer to your question.

>
> Yuming
>
> 2008/9/8 Yuming fang <fangyuming.leo@...>
>
> >  Hi, Everyone,
> >
> > I am trying to understand the code of the block backend/frontend driver. I
> > konw the blkback and blkfront communicate with each other through event
> > channel and buffer ring. But there are some questions I could not
> > understand.
> >
> > 1. When dom0 receive one disk request from domU1 and another disk request
> > from domU2 simultaneously, how these two disk requests are pushed into Linux
> > Kernel I/O Scheduler? How the Xen sort them before pushing them into the
> > Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler?

That depends on which elevator you have. Xen does not sort them, just issues
a bio request.

> >
> > 2. Is there a disk request queue in the Xen to hold these disk requests, so
> > that the Xen could only push the disk requests in the queue into the linux
> > kernel I/O Scheduler?

No. It uses the block devices queue to submit requests,

> >
> > I would appreciate it very much if anyone could give me some help.
> >
> > Yuming
> >
> >

> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@...
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel


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[Yuming fang]

 

Thank you very much for your reply.

2008/9/9 Konrad Rzeszutek <konrad@...>

On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 08:43:07PM +0800, Yuming fang wrote:
> Nobody answer these questions? I want to know if I could implement the I/O
> disk scheduling in Xen and then I could not modify the corresponding
> code(I/O Scheduling algorithms) of Linux Kernel?

I would recommend you get 'blktrace' programs and run them under Dom0 to
get a practical answer to your question.

 

 

I run the blktrace programs and could get the detailed information of disk I/O read/write requests. However, the blktrace is a tool which provides detailed information about request queue operations to the user space.

 

>
> Yuming
>
> 2008/9/8 Yuming fang <fangyuming.leo@...>
>
> >  Hi, Everyone,
> >
> > I am trying to understand the code of the block backend/frontend driver. I
> > konw the blkback and blkfront communicate with each other through event
> > channel and buffer ring. But there are some questions I could not
> > understand.
> >
> > 1. When dom0 receive one disk request from domU1 and another disk request
> > from domU2 simultaneously, how these two disk requests are pushed into Linux
> > Kernel I/O Scheduler? How the Xen sort them before pushing them into the
> > Linux Kernel I/O Scheduler?

That depends on which elevator you have. Xen does not sort them, just issues
a bio request.

 

 

 

Yeah, after your explanation, I read the code of blkback.c and understand some about it. In the Xen3.3 version, I find there is a \linux-2.6.18-xen-3.3.0\block\ directory, which includes the elevator.c, Linux I/O Scheduling algorithm files(cfq-iosched.c, deadline-iosched.c and so on).  Do these files decide the disk I/O Scheduling Algorithm of the Linux-xen0? And if I want to add a different disk I/O Scheduling algorithm in Xen3.3, could I add it in this directory(linux-2.6.18-xen-3.3.0\linux-2.6.18-xen-3.3.0\block\)?

 

 

> >
> > 2. Is there a disk request queue in the Xen to hold these disk requests, so
> > that the Xen could only push the disk requests in the queue into the linux
> > kernel I/O Scheduler?

No. It uses the block devices queue to submit requests,

 

 

 

I think it uses the functions of unplug_queue(blkif_t *blkif) and plug_queue(blkif_t *blkif, struct bio *bio)  (in \linux-2.6.18-xen-3.3.0\drivers\xen\blkback\blkback,.c) to process the requests. Is my explanation right?

 

 

Thanks

Yuming

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