Re: [Qemu-block] [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 3/3] block: mirror - zero unallocated target sectors when zero init not present

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 29/09/2015 11:35, Kevin Wolf wrote:
> The caller could be copying the backing file in the background and it
> may not yet be finished.

Yes, and this is permitted (the destination file of mirroring is opened
with BDRV_O_NO_BACKING).

Some more assumptions arise when block-job-complete is invoked, because
at this point the content must not change under the guest's feet.
Because block-job-complete does bdrv_open_backing_file on the
destination, for sync!='full' it means that either 1) the image has no
backing file, but it starts with the content of the backing file or 2)
the image's backing file is complete at the time block-job-complete is
invoked.

For mode!='existing' it is always case (2), and the backing file is
complete all the time; for mode=='existing' the backing file could be
copied in the background, and case (1) could happen as well.  An example
of case (1) is replacing sync=='full' with a "fast copy" of the backing
file (e.g. via btrfs's COW copies) and sync=='top'.  This should be valid.

Of course, if block-job-complete is never called, all bets are off.

> We don't do this now, but assuming
> the promise means that we could e.g. read the backing file in order to
> optimise sparseness in the target (if it happens to have the same data
> as its backing file) - and I don't think this would be valid with our
> currently documented API.

Accessing the backing file of the target is never valid indeed.

> Anyway, the conclusion that we shouldn't zero unrelated sectors is still
> right. But it's because we document which sectors we copy, not because
> we can make assumptions about the user.

Right.

Paolo