Network File System Version 4 S. Faibish
Internet-Draft D. Black
Intended status: Informational P. Shilane
Expires: February 5, 2020 Dell EMC
August 05, 2019
Support for Data Reduction Attributes in nfsv4 Version 2
draft-faibish-nfsv4-data-reduction-attributes-00
Abstract
This document proposes extending NFSv4 operations to enable
file extended attributes or xattr to be used in the protocol to
provide information about the data reduction properties of files.
New xattrs are proposed to allow the client application to
communicate to the NFSv4 server data reduction attributes
associated with files and directories using opaque metadata, not
interpreted by the file system, but communicated to the Block
Storage data reduction engines. Corresponding new file attributes
are proposed to allow clients and client applications to query the
server for data reduction xattr support and allow to get and set
data reduction xattrs on files and directories. Such data reduction
metadata is used as hints to the file server about what type of data
reduction to apply. The proposed data reduction attributes include
achievable ratios for compression and deduplication plus whether
each data reduction technique applies to the file.
Status of This Memo
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Extended Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. File System Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6 Differences with Named Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7 Protocol Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
Many NFS servers use expensive solid state media, e.g., NVMe SSDs,
complemented by data reduction processing of files to reduce their
size on the Block Storage via compression and deduplication, thereby
optimizing media usage. This draft considers scenarios in which
data reduction processing is performed in Block Storage for NFS
servers, i.e., compression and deduplication processing occurs in
the background or inline as a consequence of NFS files being
written to the Block Storage. In these scenarios, the data reduction
engines in Block Storage have limited information about how
reducible (compressible and/or deduplicate-able) the data written
to NFS is.
There is additional strong interest to improve data reduction when
using NVMe accessed media and exposing such data attributes to the
Block Storage as xattrs over NFS is one means of providing this
critical to Block Storage data reduction engines.
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There is an expired draft for use of NVMe (over fabric) in accessing
a pNFS SCSI Layout [3] which could be extended to communicate data
reduction attributes to NVMe storage. The shortcoming of the current
pNFS SCSI NVMe layout is that it has no information related to data
reduction attributes. This document discusses potential use of NFSv4
extended attributes as currently standardized in [2], for
communicating additional data reduction metadata; a future version
of this document will propose updates to the NFSv4 protocol to
support this functionality.
The purpose of this draft is to add xattrs that will allow
applications to send richer metadata information to the NFS server
in order to optimize Block Storage data reduction engine operations
and improve data reduction for data stored by NFS
servers.
Applications can handle files with different compression and
deduplication characteristics and send this information to the data
reduction engines. Current applications have defined data reduction
characteristics and there are clear definitions for the typical
compression and deduplication ratios of some types of data
independent of the application that generated the data. For example
electronic data analysis (EDA) has no single de facto standard file
extension but generates application files with common compression
and deduplication characteristics. Knowing that a file is compressed
improves the latency and/or throughput of the NFS server by not
attempting to further compress the files. An additional example is
that NFS backup of files that are already stored on the Block
Storage is likely to result in a very high deduplication ratio.
1.1 Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1].
In this document, these words will appear with that interpretation
only when in ALL CAPS. Lower case uses of these words are not to be
interpreted as carrying RFC-2119 significance. We will refer to the
block devices used by the NFS servers as "Block Storage".
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2. Use Cases
Applications can use extended attributes to store metadata together
with the files and directories. Metadata regarding data reduction
attributes may be available from applications that use different
types of files. This metadata may not be directly useful to the file
system but is relevant to the compression and deduplication engines
used by the Block Storage to improve data reduction. Use of data
reduction metadata is not expected to significantly impact I/O
latency or throughput (IOPS).
File Domain | Block Domain
|
+-------------+ | +-----------------+
| NFS Server |------------|--------->|Reduction Engine |
+------+------+ | +--------+--------+
^ | |
| | |
| | v
+------+------+ | +--------+--------+
| NFS Client | | | Block storage |
+------+------+ | +-----------------+
^ |
| |
| |
+------+------+ |
| Application | |
+-------------+ |
Figure 1: Data Reduction Domains for NFSv4
Figure 1 shows the NFSv4 server configuration, data flow and
functionality domains with the data reduction engine in the Block
domain and located above the Block Storage. This figure represents
NFSv4 without parallel NFS (pNFS) support. In this structure the NFS
server can communicate xattrs as metadata directly to the Reduction
Engine via an extension to the interface to Block Storage.
In general applications using block devices rely on SCSI protocols to
access the data. Although SCSI protocols have a rich API, most
communication between hosts and Block Storage, e.g., storage arrays,
is in terms of blocks, not files. In contrast, applications use large
files to read and write data to and from NFS servers. In general,
NFS servers use NFS file systems that are stored on SCSI (or NVMe)
devices provisioned from Block Storage, e.g., external storage
arrays, as Block Storage but file metadata, e.g., file type and file
size, is not transferred to the block array in a explicit manner.
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An NFS Server might be able to infer data reduction characteristics
based on the file type, e.g., a ".mp4" file can be expected to be an
MP4 file that contains MPEG-4 content [7]. This is not sufficient
due to file content variability, e.g., as a large variety of codecs
are used to create MPEG-4 content whose compressibility may vary by
codec. To go beyond the file type, the NFS Server could read the
file contents to determine compressibility, but this is problematic
due to complexity, e.g., the NFS Server may need to parse a
significant amount of an MP4 file to obtain the information
necessary to understand its compressibility characteristics. This
may be impractical if the file is not written to the NFS Server
sequentially, and moreover introduces an undesirable
dependency on not only the MP4 file format, but also the set of
supported codecs that it supports and individual codec
characteristics. It is much better to have the application provide
information on compressibility, as the application that generates
an MP4 file has the information on the file's contents. A mechanism
is needed to pass that information to the NFS Server; this document
proposes using xattrs.
So, although the xattrs are stored with the files, the current xattr
specification [6] indicates that the file system does not understand
the structure or content of these extended attributes. If the NFS
server could extract the data reduction xattrs and pass their
contents to the Block Storage functionality, the Block Storage
reduction engines could parse that content and adapt its data
reduction behavior accordingly.
File Domain | Block Domain
|
+-------------+ | +------------------+
| |------------------|----->| |
| pNFS Server | +-------|----->| Reduction Engine |
| | | +----|----->| |
+------+------+ | | | +---------+--------+
^ | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | v
+------+------+ NVMe | | | +--------+--------+
| pNFS Client |----------+ | | | Block storage |
| |-------------+ | +-----------------+
+------+------+ SCSI |
^ |
| |
| |
+------+------+ |
| Application | |
+-------------+ |
Figure 2: Data Reduction Domains for pNFS over NVMe or SCSI
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The current situation is that data reduction done in the block
domain lacks critical information that could be provided by the
applications in order to improve efficiency of data compression and
deduplication.
Figure 2 shows another scenario with a pNFS Server and a block pNFS
Client that accesses Block storage using either NVMe or SCSI
over a network. In this scenario the pNFS Client could send data
reduction attributes directly to the reduction engine above the
Block storage layer if the block storage protocol (NVMe or SCSI in
the figure) supports doing so. The assumption is that the
application has additional information related to files types and
typical compression and deduplication parameters associated to
different file types, e.g., see the above discussion of MPEG-4
content. The application can convey this information to the
reduction engine to improve the reduction engine efficiency. If the
application does not do so, then the user can also add data
reduction characteristics for individual files towards improving
data reduction efficiency without needing to change the storage
array configuration.
For this pNFS scenario the application enables sending
data reduction parameters to the Block Device using extensions to
the SCSI or NVMe protocols. The pNFS Client still needs to pass the
data reduction xattrs to the pNFS Server because the pNFS Client is
always allowed to fall back from a pNFS write to an NFS write via
the NFS Server; this fallback is similar to the previous case where
the NFS Server stores the data reduction xattrs associated with each
file.
For example a video application knows whether a file consists of
compressed data or uncompressed data. The application writing the
data to the pNFS client can set a file attribute that will indicate
that a file is uncompressed and hence it is likely to be productive
for the data reduction engine to reduce the file's size. The pNFS
client passes that information via an xattr that hints that the
file is compressible. The pNFS server will change the data reduction
xattr and will transmit the xattr to the Block Storage as a hint
that the data is uncompressed. The pNFS client will stream the
video using the pNFS NVMe data protocol and the compression engine
in the Block Storage will compress the data blocks as long as the
uncompressed hint is set in NVMe writes from the pNFS Client. If the
xattr is changed to indicate that the data has been compressed, the
compression engine does not compress the incoming blocks.
A second example is related to encrypted files that can be neither
compressed nor deduplicated in the absence of file copying. For this
specific example we envision a not-deduplicatable hint.
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In this scenario the NFS client sets the deduplication hint to
advise to the data reduction engine that deduplication should be
enabled for the file. Alternatively if a new file is being written
that is not based on modifying an existing file the deduplication
hint is set to indicate that deduplication should be disabled.
Another use case involves compressed video files and images that are
written by video applications. As such files are already compressed,
further attempts to compress them are likely to be pointless, and
may negatively impact the performance of the NFS Server.
An additional scenario involves metadata at the start (header) of
the file; an application that did not generate the file may
nonetheless be able access the metadata section in the file and set
extended file attributes based on compression and deduplication
found in the file header. The NFS server doesn't have visibility
into metadata included in file headers and cannot send file header
content to the data reduction engine as separate metadata. Only the
user application can access and parse the header and add xattr when
the file is written to the NFS server.
Additional examples of known data reduction attributes is implemented
in benchmarks such as SPECsfs that is using predefined data reduction
attributes. SPECsfs workloads [8] have DR/CR (Deduplication
Ratio/Compression Ratio) characteristics that were collected from
actual user data. They are as follows:
EDA DR/CR=50%/50%
SWBUILD DR/CR=0/80%
VDI DR/CR=55%/70%
DB DR/CR=0/50%
VDA DR/CR=0/0
IT infrastucture DR/CR=30%/50%
Oracle DW DR/CR=15%/70%
Oracle OLTP DR/CR=0%/65%
Exchange 2010 DR/CR=15%/35%
Geoseismic DR/CR=3%/40%
Another scenario involves placing files with the same known data
reduction characteristics in same directory, where the user or an
application sets data reduction xattrs the attributes on the
directory that are intended to apply to all files in the directory
and possibly also sub-directories. In this case the NFS Server uses
the data reduction xattrs on the directory to inform the data
reduction engine of the data reduction characteristics of blocks in
all files in that directory.
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3 Extended Attributes
Extended attributes, also called xattrs [6], are a means to associate
opaque metadata with file system objects, e.g., files and
directories. Extended attributes are especially useful when they
add information that is not, or cannot be, present in the
associated object itself. User-space applications can arbitrarily
create, read from, and write these attributes.
As extended attributes are file system-agnostic
applications do not need to be concerned about how the attributes
are stored internally on the underlying file system. All major
operating systems provide various flavors of extended attributes.
Many user space tools allow xattrs to be included in attributes that
need to be preserved when files and directories are updated, moved
or copied.
The proposed data reduction attributes are opaque to the file system
but can be used by the data reduction engines in the Block Storage
reduction engine to increase the data reduction and server operations
by viewing the xattrs as hints from the client application regarding
file compression and deduplication characteristics. The Block Storage
will parse these attributes and change the data reduction methods
according to these hints with no need for the file system to know
about the data reduction methods used.
Extended attributes have long been considered unsuitable for
portability because they are inadequately defined and not formally
documented by any standard (such as POSIX). However, evidence
suggests that xattrs are widely deployed and their support in modern
disk-based file systems is fairly universal. What is different
in the new usecase is that the opaque metadata can be received and
understood by the data reduction engines. The extended attributes
can be 0 or 100 where 0 means "don't do this" hint and 100 is a "do
this, but can't predict how much reduction will actually result"
hint. They can also take on a percentage value, e.g., from the
SPECsfs data shown above.
Any regular file or directory may have a set of extended attributes,
each consisting of a key and associated value [6]. As currently
specified, the NFS client or server MUST NOT interpret the contents
of the key or value. This document proposed to remove that
restriction in support of data reduction xattrs.
The data reduction attributes can be provided by the extended
attributes supported by most modern file systems and can be
retrieved from the local file systems on the client and added to the
NFS extended attributes when files are moved from local file system
attributes of the files to the xattrs in NFS.
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4 File System Support
In Linux, ext3, ext4, JFS, XFS, Btrfs, among other file systems
support extended attributes. The getfattr and setfattr utilities can
be used to retrieve and set xattrs. The names of the extended
attributes must be prefixed by the name of the category and a dot;
hence these categories are generally qualified as name spaces.
In the NTFS file system, extended attributes are one of several
supported "file streams" [5].
Xattrs can be retrieved and set through system calls, [6], or shell
commands and generally supported by user-space tools that preserve
other file attributes. For example, the "rsync" remote copy program
will correctly preserve extended attributes between Linux/ext4
and OSX/hfs by stripping off the Linux-specific "user." prefix.
5 Namespaces
Operating systems may define multiple "namespaces" in which xattrs
can be set. Namespaces are more than organizational classes; the
operating system may enforce different data reduction policies and
allow different reduction characteristics depending on the namespace.
6 Differences with Named Attributes
RFC5661 defines named attributes as opaque byte streams that are
associated with a directory or file and referred to by a string name
[4]. Named attributes are intended to be used by client applications
as a method to associate application-specific data with a regular
file or directory. In that sense, xattrs are similar in concept and
use to named attributes, but there are subtle differences. Named
attributes are only visible to the NFS layer and not to the
application while extended attributes are accessible to the
application layer and can be modified by users. File systems
typically define individual xattr "get" and "set" operations. Xattrs
generally have size limits ranging from a few bytes to several
kilobytes; the maximum supported size is not universally defined
and is usually restricted by the file system.
There are no clear indications on how xattrs can be mapped to any
existing recommended or optional file attributes defined in RFC 5661
[2]; as a result, most NFS client implementations ignore
application-specified xattrs. This results in data loss if one
copies, over the NFS protocol, a file with data reduction related
xattrs from one file system to another that also supports xattrs.
Although different data reduction engines achieve different levels
of reduction these attributes are used by the reduction engines to
increase the reduction todifferent levels for different algorithms.
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While it should be possible to write guidance about how a client can
use the named attribute mechanism to act like xattrs, such as carving
out some namespace and specifying locking primitives to enforce
atomicity constraints on individual get/set operations, this is
problematic for data reduction attributes that are specific to
specific applications and file types and not defined by the user.
As such there will be mechanisms that will detect the reduction
attributes from the application or from local file system xattrs.
The different implementations of the protocol would have to address
these attributes based on additional guidance such as reserving
named some portion of named attribute namespace for xattr-like
functionality.
7 Protocol Enhancements
This section proposes extensions to the NFSv4 protocol operations to
allow data reduction xattrs to be queried and modified by clients.
A new attribute is added to bitmap4 data type to allow xattr support
to be queried. This follows the guidelines specified in [2] with
respect to minor versioning. We propose to add 2 bits that will
be passed to the reduction engine and used to activate/deactivate
the compression and/or the deduplication operations. All the current
NFSv4 xattr operations are not changed but we will add 4 new
operations, namely GETDRATTR, SETDRATTR, LISTXATTR and REMOVEXATTR
to be queried and set. The protocol detailes will be provided in the
next version of the draft.
8. IANA Considerations
All IANA considerations are covered in [4].
9. Security Considerations
The additions to the NFS protocol for supporting extended attributes
do not alter the security considerations of the NFSv4.1 protocol [4].
Data reduction hints may enable attacks on Block Storage resources
that support the NFS Server. Hinting at more data reduction than is
possible may cause excessive data reduction processing, and hinting
at less data reduction than is possible, including hinting not to
perform any data reduction, may result in consumption of more
potentially expensive storage capacity. A future version of this
draft will discuss what to do about these possible resource attacks.
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10. References
10.1. Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[2] Shepler, S., Ed., Eisler, M., Ed., and D. Noveck, Ed., "Network
File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1 External Data
Representation Standard (XDR) Description", RFC 5662, January
2010.
[4] Shepler, S., Ed., Eisler, M., Ed., and D. Noveck, Ed., "Network
File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1 Protocol", RFC 5661,
January 2010.
10.2 Informative References
[3] C. Hellwig, "Using the Parallel NFS (pNFS) SCSI Layout
with NVMe", June 2017,
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hellwig-nfsv4-scsi-layout-
... nvme-00
[5] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/CommonExtendedAttributes,
"Guidelines for extended attributes".
[6] M. Naik, M. Eshel, "File System Extended Attributes in NFSv4"
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc8276/
[7] ISO/IEC 14496-14 "Information technology - Coding of audio-
visual objects - Part 14: MP4 file format"
[8] SPEC SFS 2014 SP2 User's Guide,
http://spec.org/sfs2014/docs/usersguide.pdf
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Acknowledgments
This draft has attempted to capture the latest industry trends of
adding data reduction attributes needed to increase efficiency of
newest flash NVMe technology for file servers. New protocols were
proposed specific for NVMe media and we were inspired by new drafts
proposed by Christoph Hellwig.
Author's Address
Sorin Faibish
Dell EMC
228 South Street
Hopkinton, MA 01774
United States of America
Phone: +1 508-249-5745
Email: faibish.sorin@dell.com
Philip Shilane
Dell EMC
228 South Street
Hopkinton, MA 01774
United States of America
Phone: +1 908-286-7977
Email: philip.shilane@dell.com
David Black
DellEMC
176 South Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748
United States of America
Phone: +1 774-350-9323
Email: david.black@dell.com
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