query-named-block-nodes, without flat=true, is massively slow as number of block nodes increases Description of problem: The query-named-block-nodes command is insanely slow with deep backing chains when the flat=true arg is NOT given. ``` qemu-img create demo0.qcow2 1g j=0 for i in `seq 1 199` do qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o backing_file=demo$j.qcow2 -o backing_fmt=qcow2 demo$i.qcow2 j=$i done ``` Now configure libvirt with ```
``` This results in `-blockdev` args ``` -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo0.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-201-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-201-format","read-only":true,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-201-storage","backing":null}' \ -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo1.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-200-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-200-format","read-only":true,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-200-storage","backing":"libvirt-201-format"}' \ -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo2.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-199-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-199-format","read-only":true,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-199-storage","backing":"libvirt-200-format"}' \ ...snip... -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo197.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-4-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-4-format","read-only":true,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-4-storage","backing":"libvirt-5-format"}' \ -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo198.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-3-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-3-format","read-only":true,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-3-storage","backing":"libvirt-4-format"}' \ -blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo199.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \ -blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-1-format","read-only":false,"discard":"unmap","driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-1-storage","backing":"libvirt-3-format"}' \ -device '{"driver":"virtio-blk-pci","bus":"pci.7","addr":"0x0","drive":"libvirt-1-format","id":"virtio-disk1"}' \ ``` Now stop libvirt ``` systemctl stop libvirtd ``` And speak directly to QMP ``` $ time socat UNIX:/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-158-fedora38/monitor.sock - > /dev/null { "execute": "qmp_capabilities", "arguments": { "enable": ["oob"] } } { "execute": "query-named-block-nodes"} { "execute": "quit" } real 2m19.276s user 0m0.006s sys 0m0.014s ``` If we save the 'query-named-block-nodes' output instead of sending it to /dev/null, we get a 86 MB file for the QMP response. This will break all known client apps since they limit QMP reply size. It appears to have a combinatorial expansion of block nodes in the output. Blocking the main event loop for 2 minutes is obviously not good either. If we use '"flat": true' parameter to query-named-block-nodes, the command completes in just 15 seconds, and produces a large, but more manageable 2.7 MB Since the non-flat query-named-block-nodes output is so incredibly non-scalable, I think we should deprecate non-flat mode, and eventually make flat the mandatory option.