On 2020/07/31 15:45, hch@infradead.org wrote:

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 06:42:10AM +0000, Damien Le Moal wrote:

quoted

quoted

- We may not be able to use RWF_APPEND, and need exposing a new
type/flag (RWF_INDIRECT_OFFSET etc.) user-space. Not sure if this
sounds outrageous, but is it OK to have uring-only flag which can be
combined with RWF_APPEND?

Why ? Where is the problem ? O_APPEND/RWF_APPEND is currently meaningless for
raw block device accesses. We could certainly define a meaning for these in the
context of zoned block devices.

We can't just add a meaning for O_APPEND on block devices now,
as it was previously silently ignored.  I also really don't think any
of these semantics even fit the block device to start with.  If you
want to work on raw zones use zonefs, that's what is exists for.

Which is fine with me. Just trying to say that I think this is exactly the
discussion we need to start with. What interface do we implement...

Allowing zone append only through zonefs as the raw block device equivalent, all
the O_APPEND/RWF_APPEND semantic is defined and the "return written offset"
implementation in VFS would be common for all file systems, including regular
ones. Beside that, there is I think the question of short writes... Not sure if
short writes can currently happen with async RWF_APPEND writes to regular files.
I think not but that may depend on the FS.


-- 
Damien Le Moal
Western Digital Research