[PATCH 03/13] libmultipath: Add path selection support

[Nilay Shroff]

On 3/3/26 6:11 PM, John Garry wrote:
>>>
>> The nvme_mpath_start_request() increments ns->ctrl->nr_active, and 
>> nvme_mpath_end_request() decrements it. This means that nr_active is 
>> maintained per controller. If multiple NVMe namespaces are created and 
>> attached to the same controller, their I/O activity is accumulated in 
>> the single ctrl->nr_active counter.
>>
>> In contrast, libmultipath defines nr_active in struct mpath_device, 
>> which is referenced from struct nvme_ns. Even if we add code to update 
>> mpath_device->nr_active, that accounting would effectively be per 
>> namespace, not per controller.
> 
> Right, I need to change that back to per-controller.
> 
>>
>> The nr_active value is used by the queue-depth policy. Currently, 
>> mpath_queue_depth_path() accesses mpath_device->nr_active to make 
>> forwarding decisions. However, if mpath_device->nr_active is 
>> maintained per namespace, it does not correctly reflect controller- 
>> wide load when multiple namespaces share the same controller.
> 
> Yes
> 
>>
>> Therefore, instead of maintaining a separate nr_active in struct 
>> mpath_device, it may be more appropriate for mpath_queue_depth_path() 
>> to reference ns->ctrl->nr_active directly. In that case, nr_active 
>> could be removed from struct mpath_device entirely.
>>
> 
> I think so, but we will need scsi to maintain such a count internally to 
> support this policy. And for NVMe we will need some abstraction to 
> lookup the per-controller QD for a mpath_device.
> 
This raises another question regarding the current framework. From what 
I can see, all NVMe multipath I/O policies are currently supported for 
SCSI as well. Going forward, if we introduce a new I/O policy for NVMe 
that does not make sense for SCSI, how can we ensure that the new policy 
is supported only for NVMe and not for SCSI? Conversely, we may also 
want to introduce a policy that is relevant only for SCSI but not for NVMe.

With the current framework, it seems difficult to restrict a policy to a 
specific transport. It appears that all policies are implicitly shared 
between NVMe and SCSI.

Would it make sense to introduce some abstraction for I/O policies in 
the framework so that a given policy can be implemented and exposed only 
for the relevant transport (e.g., NVMe-only or SCSI-only), rather than 
requiring it to be supported by both?

Thanks,
--Nilay