> > The real question you should be asking is if it increases the monitoring
> > aspect (enhances it) if thin pool data is seen through the lens of the
> > filesystems as well.

Then you want an integrated block+fs implementation. See BTRFS and ZFS. WAFL 
and friends.

> kernel for communication from lower fs layers to higher layers -

Correct. Because doing so violates the fundamental precepts of OS design. 
Higher layers trust lower layers. Thin Pools are outright lying about the real 
world to anything that uses it's services. That is its purpose. The FS doesn't 
give a damn that the block layer is lying to it, it can and does assume and 
rightly so that what the block layer says it has, it indeed does have. The onus 
of keeping the block layer ahead of the FS falls on a third party - the system 
admin. The system admin decided it was a bright idea to use thin pools in the 
first place so he necessarily signed up to be liable for the hazards and risks 
that choice entails. It is not the job of the FS to bail his ass out.

A responsible sysadmin who chose to use thin pools might configure the initial 
FS size to be some modest size well within the constraints of the actual block 
store, and then as the FS hit say 85% utilization to run a script that 
investigated the state of the block layer and use resize2fs and friends to grow 
the FS and let the thin-pool likewise grow to fit as IO gets issued. But at 
some point when the competing demands of other FS on thin-pool were set to 
breach actual block availability the FS growth would be denied and thus 
userland would get signaled by the FS layer that it's out of space when it hit 
100% util.

Another way (haven't tested) to 'signal' the FS as to the true state of the 
underlying storage is to have a sparse file that gets shrunk over time.

But either way if you have a sudden burst of I/O from competing interests in 
the thin-pool, what appeared to be a safe growth allocation at one instant of 
time is not likely to be true when actual writes try to get fulfilled. 

Think of mindless use of thin-pools as trying to cross a heavily mined beach. 
Bring a long stick and say your prayers because you'r likely going to lose a 
limb.

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