On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 12:28:57PM -0400, Oren Laadan wrote:
>
>
> Louis Rilling wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 11:09:54AM -0400, Oren Laadan wrote:
>>>
>>> Louis Rilling wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 06:20:32PM -0400, Oren Laadan wrote:
>>>>> Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
>>>>>> Quoting Oren Laadan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
>>>>>>> +int do_checkpoint(struct cr_ctx *ctx)
>>>>>>> +{
>>>>>>> + int ret;
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> + /* FIX: need to test whether container is checkpointable */
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> + ret = cr_write_hdr(ctx);
>>>>>>> + if (!ret)
>>>>>>> + ret = cr_write_task(ctx, current);
>>>>>>> + if (!ret)
>>>>>>> + ret = cr_write_tail(ctx);
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> + /* on success, return (unique) checkpoint identifier */
>>>>>>> + if (!ret)
>>>>>>> + ret = ctx->crid;
>>>>>> Does this crid have a purpose?
>>>>> yes, at least three; both are for the future, but important to set the
>>>>> meaning of the return value of the syscall already now. The "crid" is
>>>>> the CR-identifier that identifies the checkpoint. Every checkpoint is
>>>>> assigned a unique number (using an atomic counter).
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) if a checkpoint is taken and kept in memory (instead of to a file) then
>>>>> this will be the identifier with which the restart (or cleanup) would
>>>>> refer
>>>>> to the (in memory) checkpoint image
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) to reduce downtime of the checkpoint, data will be aggregated on the
>>>>> checkpoint context, as well as referenced to (cow-ed) pages. This data can
>>>>> persist between calls to sys_checkpoint(), and the 'crid', again, will be
>>>>> used to identify the (in-memory-to-be-dumped-to-storage) context.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3) for incremental checkpoint (where a successive checkpoint will only
>>>>> save what has changed since the previous checkpoint) there will be a need
>>>>> to identify the previous checkpoints (to be able to know where to take
>>>>> data from during restart). Again, a 'crid' is handy.
>>>>>
>>>>> [in fact, for the 3rd use, it will make sense to write that number as
>>>>> part of the checkpoint image header]
>>>>>
>>>>> Note that by doing so, a process that checkpoints itself (in its own
>>>>> context), can use code that is similar to the logic of fork():
>>>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>> crid = checkpoint(...);
>>>>> switch (crid) {
>>>>> case -1:
>>>>> perror("checkpoint failed");
>>>>> break;
>>>>> default:
>>>>> fprintf(stderr, "checkpoint succeeded, CRID=%d\n", ret);
>>>>> /* proceed with execution after checkpoint */
>>>>> ...
>>>>> break;
>>>>> case 0:
>>>>> fprintf(stderr, "returned after restart\n");
>>>>> /* proceed with action required following a restart */
>>>>> ...
>>>>> break;
>>>>> }
>>>>> ...
>>>> If I understand correctly, this crid can live for quite a long time. So
>>>> many of
>>>> them could be generated while some container would accumulate incremental
>>>> checkpoints on, say crid 5, and possibly crid 5 could be reused for another
>>>> unrelated checkpoint during that time. This brings the issue of allocating
>>>> crids
>>>> reliably (using something like a pidmap for instance). Moreover, if such
>>>> ids are
>>>> exposed to userspace, we need to remember which ones are allocated accross
>>>> reboots and migrations.
>>>>
>>>> I'm afraid that this becomes too complex...
>>> And I'm afraid I didn't explain myself well. So let me rephrase:
>>>
>>> CRIDs are always _local_ to a specific node. The local CRID counter is
>>> bumped (atomically) with each checkpoint attempt. The main use case is
>>> for when the checkpoint is kept is memory either shortly (until it is
>>> written back to disk) or for a longer time (use-cases that want to keep
>>> it there). It only remains valid as long as the checkpoint image is
>>> still in memory and have not been committed to storage/network. Think
>>> of it as a way to identify the operation instance.
>>>
>>> So they can live quite a long time, but only as long as the original
>>> node is still alive and the checkpoint is still kept in memory. They
>>> are meaningless across reboots and migrations. I don't think a wrap
>>> around is a concern, but we can use 64 bit if that is the case.
>>>
>>> Finally, the incremental checkpoint use-case: imagine a container that
>>> is checkpointed regularly every minutes. The first checkpoint will be
>>> a full checkpoint, say CRID=1. The second will be incremental with
>>> respect to the first, with CRID=2, and so on the third and the forth.
>>> Userspace could use these CRID to name the image files (for example,
>>> app.img.CRID). Assume that we decide (big "if") that the convention is
>>> that the last part of the filename must be the CRID, and if we decide
>>> (another big "if") to save the CRID as part of the checkpoint image --
>>> the part that describe the "incremental nature" of a new checkpoint.
>>> (That part would specify where to get state that wasn't really saved
>>> in the new checkpoint but instead can be retrieved from older ones).
>>> If that was the case, then the logic in the kernel would be fairly
>>> to find (and access) the actual files that hold the data. Note, that
>>> in this case - the CRID are guaranteed to be unique per series of
>>> incremental checkpoints, and incremental chekcpoint is meaningless
>>> across reboots (and we can require that across migration too).
>>
>> Letting the kernel guess where to find the missing data of an incremental
>> checkpoint seems a bit hazardous indeed. What about just appending
>> incremental
>> checkpoints to the last full checkpoint file?
>
> It isn't quite a "guess", it's like the kernel assumes that a kernel-helper
> resides in some directory - it's a convention. I agree, though, that it may
> not be the best method to do it.
>
> As for putting everything in a single file, I prefer not to do that, and it
> may not even always possible I believe.
>
> An incremental would include a section that describes how to find the missing
> data from previous checkpoints, so it must have a way to identify a previous
> checkpoint.
>
> On way is like I suggested name them with this identifier, another would be,
> for example, that the user provides a list of file-descriptors that match
> the required identifiers. Other ways may be possible too.
>
> In any event, I think it is now bit early to discuss the exact format and
> logic, when we don't even have a simple checkpoint working :)
>
> Incremental checkpoint is one of a few reasons to use CRIDs, let us first
> agree about CRIDs, and later, when we design incremental checkpoints, decide
> on the technical details of incorporating this CRIDs.
>Agreed, but since your point is to introduce CRIDs, I'd like to be convinced that they are needed :) At least I'd like to be convinced that they will not generate hard-to-manage side effects. > (Just to avoid confusion, an incremental checkpoint is _not_ a pre-copy or > live-migration: in a pre-copy, we repeatedly copy the state of the container > without freezing it until the delta is small enough, then we freeze and then > we checkpoint the remaining residues. All this activity belongs to a single > checkpoint. In incremental checkpoints, we talk about multiple checkpoints > that save only the delta with respect to their preceding checkpoint). Don't worry, I know what incremental checkpointing is. > >> >>> We probably don't want to use something like a pid to identify the >>> checkpoint (while in memory), because we may have multiple checkpoints >>> in memory at a time (of the same container). >> >> Agreed. >> >>>> It would be way easier if the only (kernel-level) references to a >>>> checkpoint >>>> were pointers to its context. Ideally, the only reference would live in a >>>> 'struct container' and would be easily updated at restart-time. >>> Consider the following scenario of calls from user-space (which is >>> how I envision the checkpoint optimized for minimal downtime, in the >>> future): >>> >>> 1) while (syscall_to_do_precopy) <- do precopy until ready to >>> if (too_long_already) <- checkpoint or too long >>> break; >>> >>> 2) freeze_container(); >>> >>> 3) crid = checkpoint(.., .., CR_CKPT_LAZY); <- checkpoint container >>> <- don't commit to disk >>> <- (minimize owntime) >>> >>> 4) unfreeze_container(); <- now can unfreeze container >>> <- already as soon as possible >>> >>> 5) ckpt_writeback(crid, fd); <- container is back running. we >>> <- can commit data to storage or >>> <- network in the background. >>> >>> #2 and #4 are done with freezer_cgroup() >>> >>> #1, #3 and #5 must be syscalls >>> >>> More specifically, syscall #5 must be able to refer to the result of >>> syscall #3 >>> (that is the CRID !). It is possible that another syscall #3 occur, on the >>> same >>> container, between steps 4 and 5 ... but then that checkpoint will be >>> assigned >>> another, unique CRID. >> >> Hm, assuming that, as proposed above, incremental checkpoints are stored in >> the >> same file as the ancestor full checkpoint, why not simply give fd as >> argument in >> #5? I'd expect that the kernel would associate the file descriptor to the >> checkpoint until it is finalized (written back, sent over the wire, etc.). > > The above procedure, step 1-5 are for a _single_ checkpoint. This is what I understood. > > Why would the kernel associate a file descriptor with the checkpoint until it > is finalized ? As far as I'm concerned, the checkpoint call in step 3 can go > without any FD. Also, what happens if there is another checkpoint, of the > same container, taken between steps 4 and 5, how would you tell the difference > or select which one goes in first ? Finally, keeping that FD alive between > multiple checkpoints would require the checkpointer (e.g. a daemon that will > periodically checkpoint) to keep it alive. > > I view it differently: a checkpoint held in memory is like a kernel resource, > and requires a handle/identifier for user space to refer to it. Like an IPC > object. Why tie that object to a specific file descriptor ? > The only exception I can see, is the need to tie it to a some process - the > checkpointer for instance, such that if that process dies without completing > the work, the checkpoint image in memory will be cleaned up. > That, however, still is problematic, because it will not allow you to use > different procesess for different steps (above). > > Since we are not yet optimizing the checkpoint procedure, just building the > infrastructure, my goal is to convince that a CRID is a desired feature (and > I can certainly see how it will be used in various scenarios). Here is probably the source of the misunderstanding. I was assuming that step #3 needed a file descriptor to dump the checkpoint progressively, but reading your first use-case more carefully might have avoided this misunderstanding :) Anyway, we can still give a fd to sys_checkpoint() which will identify the checkpoint for the remaining operations. It's up to userspace to show the difference between two checkpoints taken (roughly) at the same time. From the kernel point of view, a file descriptor is enough to make the difference. Let's consider the three use cases of CRID you mentioned earlier: 1) Checkpointing in memory: Actually, checkpointing in memory could also be done from userspace using tmpfs. Again, I agree that this kind of optimization should be discussed later. I'm just not convinced that this needs a CRID... 2) Reducing downtime of the checkpoint: If reducing downtime is just a matter of avoiding disk accesses, tmpfs is again a kind of solution. It even allows to swap if the checkpoint size is too big. What kind of scenario (other than incremental checkpointing) do you envision where multiple calls to sys_checkpoint() would use the same checkpoint object? 3) Incremental checkpoint: I agree that maintaing a fd alive (in a checkpointer daemon for instance) may look restrictive, but I'm not sure that it is really needed to keep it alive between consecutive incremental checkpoints. I'd really like to see incremental checkpointing as an append operation to a checkpoint file. This way the file could contain the entire checkpoint history. On the other hand, you are not sure that we could do incremental checkpoint this way, which justifies your need for a CRID. Perhaps you have an example? Anyway, do not take this as an attack. I just want to be well convinced that CRIDs are really needed, and are worth the effort of managing them cleanly. Exposing them to userspace just scares me a bit. Btw, if we ever decide to use CRIDs, I'd propose to manage them in some pseudo-filesystem, like SYSV IPC objects actually are. Thanks, Louis -- Dr Louis Rilling Kerlabs Skype: louis.rilling Batiment Germanium Phone: (+33|0) 6 80 89 08 23 80 avenue des Buttes de Coesmes http://www.kerlabs.com/ 35700 Rennes
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