Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Vojtěch Trefný


On 2020-07-01 15:43, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 9:40 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
>>
>> On 7/1/20 2:03 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:

 On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
>
>> == Summary ==
>> Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
>> central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
>> Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
>> state tracking while
>> being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
>> stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
>> will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
>> and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
>> for each group.
>
>> == Owner ==
>> * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
>> * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
>
>> == Detailed Description ==
>> Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
>> within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
>> to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
>> change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
>> rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
>> storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
>> devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
>> another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
>> also need to track progression of states either at device level or
>> group level.
>
>> SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
>> notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
>> tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
>> Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
>> per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
>> keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
>> udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
>> with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
>> record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
>> create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
>> single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
>> key).
>
>> Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
>> which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
>> calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
>> transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
>> discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
>> post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
>> next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
>> or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
>> actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
>> (mainly
>> for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
>> to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
>> udev
>> context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
>> improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
>
>> A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
>> to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
>> schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
>> next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
>> and
>> store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
>> general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
>> during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
>> be accessed while processing subsequent events.
>
>> == Benefit to Fedora ==
>> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
>> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
>> udev,
>> that is:
>
>> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
>> currently targeted at udev events
>
>> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
>> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
>
>> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
>> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
>> variables by different subsystems)
>
>> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
>> storage-device-re

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Neal Gompa
On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 9:40 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
>
> On 7/1/20 2:03 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
> >>
> >> On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
> >>>
>  == Summary ==
>  Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
>  central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
>  Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
>  state tracking while
>  being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
>  stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
>  will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
>  and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
>  for each group.
> >>>
>  == Owner ==
>  * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
>  * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
> >>>
>  == Detailed Description ==
>  Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
>  within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
>  to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
>  change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
>  rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
>  storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
>  devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
>  another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
>  also need to track progression of states either at device level or
>  group level.
> >>>
>  SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
>  notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
>  tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
>  Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
>  per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
>  keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
>  udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
>  with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
>  record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
>  create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
>  single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
>  key).
> >>>
>  Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
>  which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
>  calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
>  transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
>  discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
>  post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
>  next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
>  or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
>  actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
>  (mainly
>  for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
>  to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
>  udev
>  context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
>  improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
> >>>
>  A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
>  to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
>  schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
>  next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
>  and
>  store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
>  general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
>  during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
>  be accessed while processing subsequent events.
> >>>
>  == Benefit to Fedora ==
>  The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
>  issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
>  udev,
>  that is:
> >>>
>  * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
>  currently targeted at udev events
> >>>
>  * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
>  and for which complex udev rules were applied before
> >>>
>  * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
>  subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
>  variables by different subsystems)
> >>>
>  * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
>  storage-device-related records when compared to udev database

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Peter Rajnoha
On 7/1/20 2:03 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
>>
>> On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
>>>
 == Summary ==
 Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
 central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
 Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
 state tracking while
 being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
 stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
 will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
 and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
 for each group.
>>>
 == Owner ==
 * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
 * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
>>>
 == Detailed Description ==
 Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
 within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
 to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
 change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
 rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
 storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
 devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
 another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
 also need to track progression of states either at device level or
 group level.
>>>
 SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
 notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
 tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
 Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
 per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
 keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
 udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
 with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
 record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
 create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
 single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
 key).
>>>
 Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
 which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
 calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
 transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
 discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
 post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
 next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
 or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
 actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
 (mainly
 for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
 to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
 udev
 context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
 improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
>>>
 A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
 to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
 schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
 next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
 and
 store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
 general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
 during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
 be accessed while processing subsequent events.
>>>
 == Benefit to Fedora ==
 The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
 issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
 udev,
 that is:
>>>
 * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
 currently targeted at udev events
>>>
 * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
 and for which complex udev rules were applied before
>>>
 * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
 subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
 variables by different subsystems)
>>>
 * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
 storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
>>>
 * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
 subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
 arbitrary groups of devices)
>>>
 * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associate

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Vojtěch Trefný


On 2020-07-01 14:03, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
>>
>> On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
>>>
 == Summary ==
 Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
 central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
 Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
 state tracking while
 being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
 stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
 will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
 and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
 for each group.
>>>
 == Owner ==
 * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
 * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
>>>
 == Detailed Description ==
 Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
 within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
 to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
 change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
 rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
 storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
 devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
 another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
 also need to track progression of states either at device level or
 group level.
>>>
 SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
 notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
 tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
 Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
 per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
 keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
 udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
 with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
 record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
 create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
 single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
 key).
>>>
 Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
 which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
 calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
 transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
 discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
 post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
 next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
 or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
 actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
 (mainly
 for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
 to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
 udev
 context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
 improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
>>>
 A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
 to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
 schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
 next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
 and
 store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
 general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
 during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
 be accessed while processing subsequent events.
>>>
 == Benefit to Fedora ==
 The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
 issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
 udev,
 that is:
>>>
 * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
 currently targeted at udev events
>>>
 * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
 and for which complex udev rules were applied before
>>>
 * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
 subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
 variables by different subsystems)
>>>
 * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
 storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
>>>
 * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
 subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
 arbitrary groups of devices)
>>>
 * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with assoc

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Peter Rajnoha
On 7/1/20 9:50 AM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 03:18:57PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>> == Benefit to Fedora ==
>> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
>> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with udev,
>> that is:
>>
>> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
>> currently targeted at udev events
>>
>> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
>> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
>>
>> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
>> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
>> variables by different subsystems)
>>
>> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
>> storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
>>
>> * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
>> subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
>> arbitrary groups of devices)
>>
>> * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated actions
>> defined on groups of storage devices
> 
> This sounds interesting. Assembling complex storage from udev rules is
> not easy, in particular because while it is easy to collect devices
> and handle the case where all awaited devices have been detected, it's
> much harder to do timeouts or partial assembly or conditional
> handling. A daemon can listen to hotplug events and have an internal
> state take decisions based on configuration and time and events.
> 

Exactly, that's also one of the areas we'd like to cover here - partial
activations based on policies. This is hard to do within pure udev... or at
least, at the moment, we'd need to put together several *external* pieces
together besides udev to make this working somehow at least. SID will try to
provide the infrastructure to implement this in one place.

> OTOH, based on this description, SID seems to want to take on some
> bigger role, e.g. by providing an alternate execution and device
> description mechanism. That sounds unnecessary (since udev does that
> part reasonably well) and complex (also because support would have to
> be added to consumers who currently get this data from udev). I would
> love to see a daemon to handle storage devices, but with close
> cooperation with udev and filling in the bits that udev cannot provide.
>
Not quite. If it sounds that SID is taking over most of udev's responsibility,
then no. It's trying to build on top of it - still considering udev as
low-level layer for event processing based on simple rules. Then SID adding
abstraction that we need for storage mainly - that is the grouping part, state
recording and delayed trigger/action part.

The issue with udev is that it's concentrated on single device processing and
on current state (yes, we have IMPORT{db}, but that's good for simple records
only). But this is OK as it is a low-level tool.

Also, udev's primary job is to record these single device properties and then
to create the /dev content so these devs are accessible. But there are actions
we don't need to execute within udev context at all - e.g. the device
activation itself. And there are other details where we come short with udev
like the udev rule language itself so if you need to define more complex
logic, you need to call out external commands to do that (and that is just
another fork, just another delay). Even comparing values of two variables is
not possible in udev (you can compare only with a literal constant).

With SID, for backwards compatibility and for udev db readers, we have still
the possibility to export selected information from SID to udev db, if needed
(importing and exporting from/to udev environment is just about using
dedicated namespace we have in SID db). But I think storage subsystems would
go for SID directly if it provides this domain specific information - it's
just adding more details to what udev can see.

What I would probably like to see in the future though is surely a more closer
cooperation of udevd and SID in a way where udevd could still record those
simple generic single device properties as it does today and if it sees that
this is a device that falls under certain domain (like "storage" here), udevd
itself can contact the domain-specific daemon/resource for more information
and then provide that through its interface. Similar logic could apply for
"network" domain, etc. All these domain-specific external resources could be
registered with udevd. But this is for later time and much more discussion...

>> * adding a centralized solution for delayed actions on storage devices
>> and groups of devices (avoiding unnecessary work done within udev
>> context and hence avoiding frequent udev timeouts when processing
>> events for such devices)
> I don't think such timeouts are common. Currently the default worker
> timeout is 180s, and this should be enough to handle any device hotplug
> event. And if

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Tomasz Torcz
On Wed, Jul 01, 2020 at 08:03:11AM -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
> >
> > On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> > >> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
> > >
> > >> == Summary ==
> > >> Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
> > >> central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
> > >> Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
> > >> state tracking while
> > >> being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
> > >> stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
> > >> will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
> > >> and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
> > >> for each group.
> > >
> >
> 
> I'll be honest, I don't get why this exists. Most folks expect this to
> be an aspect of UDisks, so why isn't it?

  Especially after http://storaged.org/ merge few years back.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz   “(…) today's high-end is tomorrow's embedded processor.”
to...@pipebreaker.pl  — Mitchell Blank on LKML
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Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Neal Gompa
On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Rajnoha  wrote:
>
> On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
> > On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> >> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
> >
> >> == Summary ==
> >> Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
> >> central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
> >> Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
> >> state tracking while
> >> being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
> >> stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
> >> will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
> >> and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
> >> for each group.
> >
> >> == Owner ==
> >> * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
> >> * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
> >
> >> == Detailed Description ==
> >> Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
> >> within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
> >> to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
> >> change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
> >> rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
> >> storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
> >> devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
> >> another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
> >> also need to track progression of states either at device level or
> >> group level.
> >
> >> SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
> >> notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
> >> tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
> >> Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
> >> per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
> >> keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
> >> udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
> >> with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
> >> record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
> >> create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
> >> single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
> >> key).
> >
> >> Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
> >> which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
> >> calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
> >> transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
> >> discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
> >> post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
> >> next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
> >> or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
> >> actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
> >> (mainly
> >> for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
> >> to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
> >> udev
> >> context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
> >> improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
> >
> >> A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
> >> to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
> >> schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
> >> next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
> >> and
> >> store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
> >> general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
> >> during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
> >> be accessed while processing subsequent events.
> >
> >> == Benefit to Fedora ==
> >> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
> >> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
> >> udev,
> >> that is:
> >
> >> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
> >> currently targeted at udev events
> >
> >> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
> >> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
> >
> >> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
> >> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
> >> variables by different subsystems)
> >
> >> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
> >> storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
> >
> >> * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
> >> subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
> >> arbitrary groups of devices)
> >
> >> * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated
> >> actions
> >> defined on groups of 

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Peter Rajnoha
On 6/30/20 9:35 PM, Igor Raits wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
> 
>> == Summary ==
>> Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
>> central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
>> Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
>> state tracking while
>> being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
>> stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
>> will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
>> and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
>> for each group.
> 
>> == Owner ==
>> * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
>> * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
> 
>> == Detailed Description ==
>> Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
>> within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
>> to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
>> change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
>> rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
>> storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
>> devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
>> another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
>> also need to track progression of states either at device level or
>> group level.
> 
>> SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
>> notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
>> tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
>> Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
>> per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
>> keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
>> udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
>> with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
>> record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
>> create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
>> single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
>> key).
> 
>> Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
>> which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
>> calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
>> transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
>> discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
>> post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
>> next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
>> or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
>> actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
>> (mainly
>> for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
>> to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
>> udev
>> context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
>> improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
> 
>> A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
>> to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
>> schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
>> next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
>> and
>> store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
>> general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
>> during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
>> be accessed while processing subsequent events.
> 
>> == Benefit to Fedora ==
>> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
>> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
>> udev,
>> that is:
> 
>> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
>> currently targeted at udev events
> 
>> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
>> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
> 
>> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
>> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
>> variables by different subsystems)
> 
>> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
>> storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
> 
>> * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
>> subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
>> arbitrary groups of devices)
> 
>> * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated
>> actions
>> defined on groups of storage devices
> 
>> * adding a centralized solution for delayed actions on storage
>> devices
>> and groups of devices (avoiding unnecessary work done within udev
>> context and hence avoiding frequent udev timeouts when processing

Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-07-01 Thread Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek
On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 03:18:57PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> == Benefit to Fedora ==
> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with udev,
> that is:
> 
> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
> currently targeted at udev events
> 
> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
> 
> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
> variables by different subsystems)
> 
> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
> storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
> 
> * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
> subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
> arbitrary groups of devices)
> 
> * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated actions
> defined on groups of storage devices

This sounds interesting. Assembling complex storage from udev rules is
not easy, in particular because while it is easy to collect devices
and handle the case where all awaited devices have been detected, it's
much harder to do timeouts or partial assembly or conditional
handling. A daemon can listen to hotplug events and have an internal
state take decisions based on configuration and time and events.

OTOH, based on this description, SID seems to want to take on some
bigger role, e.g. by providing an alternate execution and device
description mechanism. That sounds unnecessary (since udev does that
part reasonably well) and complex (also because support would have to
be added to consumers who currently get this data from udev). I would
love to see a daemon to handle storage devices, but with close
cooperation with udev and filling in the bits that udev cannot provide.

> * adding a centralized solution for delayed actions on storage devices
> and groups of devices (avoiding unnecessary work done within udev
> context and hence avoiding frequent udev timeouts when processing
> events for such devices)
I don't think such timeouts are common. Currently the default worker
timeout is 180s, and this should be enough to handle any device hotplug
event. And if there are things that need to be executed that take a
long time (for example some health check), then systemd units should be used
for this. Udev already has a mechanism to schedule long-running systemd
jobs in response to events. So I don't think we should add anything new
here. So maybe I'm misunderstanding what this point is about?

> == How To Test ==
> * Basic testing involves (considering we have at least multipath
> and/or LVM module present as well):
> ** installing new 'sid' package
> ** installing device-mapper-multipath and/or lvm module (presumably
> named device-mapper-multipath-sid-module and lvm2-sid-module)
> ** creating a device stack including device-mapper-multipath and/or LVM 
> volumes
> ** booting with 'sid.enabled=1' kernel command line
> ** checking device-mapper-multipath and/or LVM volumes are correctly activated

Do you plan to handle multi-device btrfs?

Zbyszek
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Re: Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-06-30 Thread Igor Raits
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On Tue, 2020-06-30 at 15:18 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID
> 
> == Summary ==
> Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
> central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
> Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
> state tracking while
> being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
> stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
> will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
> and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
> for each group.
> 
> == Owner ==
> * Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
> * Email: prajn...@redhat.com
> 
> == Detailed Description ==
> Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
> within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
> to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
> change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
> rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
> storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
> devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
> another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
> also need to track progression of states either at device level or
> group level.
> 
> SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
> notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
> tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
> Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
> per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
> keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
> udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
> with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
> record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
> create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
> single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
> key).
> 
> Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
> which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
> calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
> transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
> discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
> post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
> next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
> or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
> actions or records which are then exported to udev environment
> (mainly
> for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
> to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of
> udev
> context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
> improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.
> 
> A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
> to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
> schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
> next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve
> and
> store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
> general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
> during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
> be accessed while processing subsequent events.
> 
> == Benefit to Fedora ==
> The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
> issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with
> udev,
> that is:
> 
> * providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
> currently targeted at udev events
> 
> * improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
> and for which complex udev rules were applied before
> 
> * single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
> subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
> variables by different subsystems)
> 
> * providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
> storage-device-related records when compared to udev database
> 
> * direct support for generic device grouping (matching
> subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
> arbitrary groups of devices)
> 
> * centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated
> actions
> defined on groups of storage devices
> 
> * adding a centralized solution for delayed actions on storage
> devices
> and groups of devices (avoiding unnecessary work done within udev
> context and hence avoiding frequent udev timeouts when processing
> events for such devices)

Is this purely about adding some package into th

Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon - Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal

2020-06-30 Thread Ben Cotton
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SID

== Summary ==
Introduce Storage Instantiation Daemon (SID) that aims to provide a
central event-driven engine to write modules for identifying specific
Linux storage devices, their dependencies, collecting information and
state tracking while
being aware of device groups forming layers and layers forming whole
stacks or simply creating custom groups of enumerated devices. SID
will provide mechanisms to retrieve and query collected information
and a possibility to bind predefined or custom triggers with actions
for each group.

== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:prajnoha | Peter Rajnoha]]
* Email: prajn...@redhat.com

== Detailed Description ==
Over the years, various storage subsystems have been installing hooks
within udev rules and calling out numerous external commands for them
to be able to react on events like device presence, removal or a
change in general. However, this approach ended up with very complex
rules that are hard to maintain and debug if we are considering
storage setups where we build layers consisting of several underlying
devices (horizontal scope) and where we can stack one layer on top of
another (vertical scope), building up diverse storage stacks where we
also need to track progression of states either at device level or
group level.

SID extends udevd functionality here in a way that it incorporates a
notion of device grouping directly in its core which helps with
tracking devices in storage subsystems like LVM, multipath, MD...
Also, it provides its own database where records are separated into
per-device, per-module, global or udev namespace. The udev namespace
keeps per-device records that are imported and/or exported to/from
udev environment and this is used as compatible communication channel
with udevd. The records can be marked with restriction flags that aid
record separation and it prevents other modules to read, write or
create a record with the same key, hence making sure that only a
single module can create the records with certain keys (reserving a
key).

Currently, SID project provides a companion command called 'usid'
which is used for communication between udev and SID itself. After
calling the usid command in a udev rule, device processing is
transferred to SID and SID strictly separates the processing into
discrete phases (device identificaton, pre-scan, device scan,
post-scan). Within these phases, it is possible to decide whether the
next phase is executed and it is possible to schedule delayed actions
or set records in the database that can fire triggers with associated
actions or records which are then exported to udev environment (mainly
for backwards compatibility and for other udev rules to have a chance
to react). The scheduled actions and triggers are executed out of udev
context and hence not delaying the udev processing itself and
improving issues with udev timeouts where unnecessary work is done.

A module writer can hook into the processing phases and use SID's API
to access the database as well as set the triggers with actions or
schedule separate actions and mark devices as ready or not for use in
next layers. The database can be used within any phase to retrieve and
store key-value records (where value could be any binary value in
general) and the records can be marked as transient (only available
during processing phases for current event) or persistent so they can
be accessed while processing subsequent events.

== Benefit to Fedora ==
The main benefit is all about centralizing the solution to solve
issues that storage subsystem maintainers have been hitting with udev,
that is:

* providing a central infrastructure for storage event processing,
currently targeted at udev events

* improving the way storage events and their sequences are recognized
and for which complex udev rules were applied before

* single notion of device readiness shared among various storage
subsystems (single API to set the state instead of setting various
variables by different subsystems)

* providing more enhanced possibilities to store and retrieve
storage-device-related records when compared to udev database

* direct support for generic device grouping (matching
subsystem-related groups like LVM, multipath, MD... or creating
arbitrary groups of devices)

* centralized solution for scheduling triggers with associated actions
defined on groups of storage devices

* adding a centralized solution for delayed actions on storage devices
and groups of devices (avoiding unnecessary work done within udev
context and hence avoiding frequent udev timeouts when processing
events for such devices)

== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
** complete SID's infrastructure to fully support stabilized API for
other developers to start writing modules for SID;
** document all of current SID's functionality, including the module
API and explain the difference (extension) to udev, write and complete
man pages;
** provide udev rules responsible for communicat