Bug 751631

What would the matrix look like? I presume

for block devices : 
 only allow if cache=noe

for file systems :
 We can guess at a few that should work - gfs2, gpfs, gluster

But can we define a definite list now or should this be a config option for w whitelist of filesystems?

Also this is flagged for 6.2 but it seems too big a change for that release.

I guess we will need to be careful and provide a way to bypass, because
existing users for which this "worked fine until now" will get rightfully
annoyed if their guest are stuck the day they need to migrate. But we
need a way to raise awareness of the risk. Maybe provide a force flag
to bypass the check, and possibly set up cache='none' on the migrated
guest automatically if they force the migration to avoid the issue
and of course notify the user then. A priori if a guest has been migrated
once it's likely to be migrated again in the future.

Ideally though we should not destroy performances for a relatively rare event
and the best would be to be able to switch off caching dynamically, flush on
the host and then proceed with the migration. I assume it's not possible now
but that would be the right way to go.

Daniel

I do think we need to protect against it, no matter how rare the issue might be, that's exactly the nature of data integrity issues. cache==none actually is the preferred way for performance too so it won't restrict users. It is possible to make sure we flush all of the host page cache but it will need qemu involvement to make sure it gets triggered exactly on the downtime period during migration and it might cause long stalls of the IO in case the cache was big. So at the end of the day, my recommendation is not to allow it at all and potentially add some override flag for dummies.

In POST: http://post-office.corp.redhat.com/archives/rhvirt-patches/2012-February/msg01312.html

Verify pass on non-cluster filesystem
libvirt-0.9.10-3.el6.x86_64
qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.232.el6.x86_64
kernel-2.6.32-225.el6.x86_64

Start a guest with cache=writeback
...
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='writeback'/>
      <source file='/mnt/kvm-rhel6u2-x86_64-new.img'>
        <seclabel relabel='no'/>
      </source>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
    </disk>
...
Then do migration, libvirt will report error
# virsh migrate --live mig qemu+ssh://{target ip}/system
error: Unsafe migration: Migration may lead to data corruption if disks use cache != none

Migration succeeds with --unsafe option with cache=writeback
# virsh migrate --live mig qemu+ssh://{target ip}/system --unsafe
succeed without error

Migration succeeds with cache=none without --unsafe
...
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none'/>
      <source file='/mnt/kvm-rhel6u2-x86_64-new.img'>
        <seclabel relabel='no'/>
      </source>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
    </disk>
...
# virsh migrate --live mig qemu+ssh://{target ip}/system 
succeed without error

For cluster filesystem, how can I build environment and test?

Retest on
qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.232.el6.x86_64
kernel-2.6.32-225.el6.x86_64
libvirt-0.9.10-3.el6.x86_64

with 2 disks and one of them is cdrom with readonly mode
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2' cache='none'/>
      <source file='/mnt/qcow2.img'>
        <seclabel relabel='no'/>
      </source>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
      <alias name='ide0-0-0'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <disk type='file' device='cdrom'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
      <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/cdrom.img' startupPolicy='optional'/>
      <target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/>
      <readonly/>
      <alias name='ide0-1-0'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' unit='0'/>
    </disk>

Migration will report error 
error: Unsafe migration: Migration may lead to data corruption if disks use cache != none

So I think it still has bug on it

The following additional patch fixes the above issue:
http://post-office.corp.redhat.com/archives/rhvirt-patches/2012-March/msg00261.html

Verify pass on comment 11 scenario, it can migrate succeed without error.
Still left the test on cluster filesystem, will wait for dor's reply on how to test it.

Verify pass according to Dor's suggestion, only need to test on non-cluster filesystem

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-0748.html