qemu/docs
Eric Blake 58a6fdcc9e nbd/server: Allow MULTI_CONN for shared writable exports
According to the NBD spec, a server that advertises
NBD_FLAG_CAN_MULTI_CONN promises that multiple client connections will
not see any cache inconsistencies: when properly separated by a single
flush, actions performed by one client will be visible to another
client, regardless of which client did the flush.

We always satisfy these conditions in qemu - even when we support
multiple clients, ALL clients go through a single point of reference
into the block layer, with no local caching.  The effect of one client
is instantly visible to the next client.  Even if our backend were a
network device, we argue that any multi-path caching effects that
would cause inconsistencies in back-to-back actions not seeing the
effect of previous actions would be a bug in that backend, and not the
fault of caching in qemu.  As such, it is safe to unconditionally
advertise CAN_MULTI_CONN for any qemu NBD server situation that
supports parallel clients.

Note, however, that we don't want to advertise CAN_MULTI_CONN when we
know that a second client cannot connect (for historical reasons,
qemu-nbd defaults to a single connection while nbd-server-add and QMP
commands default to unlimited connections; but we already have
existing means to let either style of NBD server creation alter those
defaults).  This is visible by no longer advertising MULTI_CONN for
'qemu-nbd -r' without -e, as in the iotest nbd-qemu-allocation.

The harder part of this patch is setting up an iotest to demonstrate
behavior of multiple NBD clients to a single server.  It might be
possible with parallel qemu-io processes, but I found it easier to do
in python with the help of libnbd, and help from Nir and Vladimir in
writing the test.

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
Suggested-by: Nir Soffer <nsoffer@redhat.com>
Suggested-by: Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy <v.sementsov-og@mail.ru>
Message-Id: <20220512004924.417153-3-eblake@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
2022-05-12 13:10:52 +02:00
..
_templates docs: Add QEMU version information to HTML footer 2021-07-18 10:59:47 +01:00
about remove -writeconfig 2022-04-28 08:51:56 +02:00
config docs: Grammar and spelling fixes 2018-07-13 10:16:04 +01:00
devel docs/devel/writing-monitor-commands: Replace obsolete STEXI/ETEXI tags 2022-05-09 08:21:14 +02:00
interop nbd/server: Allow MULTI_CONN for shared writable exports 2022-05-12 13:10:52 +02:00
specs virtio,pc,pci: features, cleanups, fixes 2022-03-08 22:27:34 +00:00
sphinx docs/sphinx: fix compatibility with sphinx < 1.8 2022-01-05 11:10:13 +01:00
sphinx-static docs/sphinx: add 's' keyboard binding to focus search 2021-11-08 12:27:23 +04:00
spin docs: create config/, devel/ and spin/ subdirectories 2017-06-07 18:22:03 +02:00
system target/arm: Define neoverse-n1 2022-05-09 11:47:54 +01:00
tools nbd/server: Allow MULTI_CONN for shared writable exports 2022-05-12 13:10:52 +02:00
user linux-user: Remove the deprecated ppc64abi32 target 2022-02-09 13:29:38 +00:00
block-replication.txt docs/block-replication.txt: Fix replication top-id command demo 2021-12-17 11:35:00 +01:00
bypass-iommu.txt docs: Add documentation for iommu bypass 2021-07-16 11:10:45 -04:00
COLO-FT.txt docs: Use double quotes instead of single quotes for COLO 2021-11-22 15:02:38 +01:00
colo-proxy.txt docs: update to show preferred boolean syntax for -chardev 2021-02-25 14:14:33 +01:00
conf.py Update copyright dates to 2022 2022-01-28 14:29:46 +00:00
defs.rst.inc docs: Fix typo in the default name of the qemu-system-x86_64 binary 2021-04-01 14:28:39 +02:00
hyperv.txt hyperv: Add support to process syndbg commands 2022-04-06 14:31:56 +02:00
igd-assign.txt vfio/pci: Add IGD documentation 2016-05-26 11:12:05 -06:00
image-fuzzer.txt docs: Render binary names as monospaced text 2021-11-22 15:02:38 +01:00
index.rst docs: standardize book titles to === with overline 2021-09-13 13:56:26 +02:00
memory-hotplug.txt docs: Grammar and spelling fixes 2018-07-13 10:16:04 +01:00
meson.build meson, configure: move --with-pkgversion, CONFIG_STAMP to meson 2022-05-07 07:46:58 +02:00
multi-thread-compression.txt Replace '-enable-kvm' with '-accel kvm' in docs and help texts 2018-06-28 19:05:32 +02:00
multiseat.txt docs: Spell QEMU all caps 2021-11-19 10:16:58 +01:00
nvdimm.txt docs/nvdimm: Update nvdimm option value in machine example 2021-09-27 10:57:21 +02:00
pci_expander_bridge.txt pxb: cleanup 2016-03-11 16:59:12 +02:00
pcie_pci_bridge.txt docs: add slot when adding new PCIe root port 2021-07-03 03:12:35 -04:00
pcie_sriov.txt docs: Replace Qemu -> QEMU 2022-04-26 12:38:44 +02:00
pcie.txt docs: pcie: Spell out machine type needs for PCIe features 2018-03-01 16:25:37 +02:00
pvrdma.txt docs: Fix broken links 2020-09-01 09:31:33 +02:00
qcow2-cache.txt qcow2: Document the Extended L2 Entries feature 2020-08-25 08:33:20 +02:00
qdev-device-use.txt hw/ide: remove 'ide-drive' device 2021-03-18 09:22:55 +00:00
qemu-option-trace.rst.inc qemu-option-trace.rst.inc: Don't use option:: markup 2020-11-02 16:52:18 +00:00
qemupciserial.inf docs: Grammar and spelling fixes 2018-07-13 10:16:04 +01:00
rdma.txt migrate: remove QMP/HMP commands for speed, downtime and cache size 2021-03-18 09:22:55 +00:00
replay.txt docs: Fix some typos (found by codespell) 2020-11-18 09:29:41 +01:00
spice-port-fqdn.txt docs: add spice-port-fqdn.txt 2012-12-17 14:01:41 +01:00
throttle.txt docs: Drop deprecated 'props' from object-add 2021-11-22 15:02:38 +01:00
u2f.txt docs: Spell QEMU all caps 2021-11-19 10:16:58 +01:00
xbzrle.txt migrate: remove QMP/HMP commands for speed, downtime and cache size 2021-03-18 09:22:55 +00:00
xen-save-devices-state.txt Fix up dangling references to qmp-commands.* in comment and doc 2018-03-02 13:48:26 -06:00