Re: [PATCH 4/4] dm crypt: batch all sectors of a bio per crypto request

Hi


On Tue, 19 May 2026, Leonid Ravich wrote:

> When the underlying skcipher driver advertises support for multiple
> data units in a single request (CRYPTO_ALG_SKCIPHER_MULTI_DATA_UNIT),
> configure the cipher with cc->sector_size as data_unit_size and
> submit one request per bio instead of one request per sector.  This
> removes per-sector overhead in the crypto API hot path: request
> allocation, callback dispatch, completion handling, and SG setup.
> 
> The optimisation is enabled automatically at table load when all
> of the following hold:
> 
>  - the cipher is non-aead (i.e. skcipher);
>  - tfms_count is 1 (interleaved per-sector keys would break batching);
>  - the IV mode is plain or plain64 (the only modes whose generator
>    produces a sequential 64-bit little-endian counter that the cipher
>    can extend by adding the data-unit index, matching the convention
>    documented in crypto_skcipher_set_data_unit_size());
>  - the iv_gen_ops->post() hook is unset (lmk and tcw use it; both are
>    already excluded by the IV-mode test, but the explicit check makes
>    the assumption durable against future IV modes);
>  - dm-integrity is not stacked (no integrity tag or integrity IV);
>  - the cipher driver advertises multi-data-unit support.
> 
> A new CRYPT_MULTI_DATA_UNIT cipher_flag, set once at construction
> time, gates the multi-data-unit path.  The existing per-sector path
> in crypt_convert_block_skcipher() is unchanged; the new
> crypt_convert_block_skcipher_multi() is reached from a small dispatch
> in crypt_convert() and shares the same backlog/-EBUSY/-EINPROGRESS
> flow control with the per-sector path.
> 
> Heap-allocated scatterlists are stashed in dm_crypt_request and freed
> in crypt_free_req_skcipher() to avoid races between the synchronous-
> success free path and async-completion reuse from the request pool.
> 
> On -ENOMEM during scatterlist allocation, the bio is requeued via
> BLK_STS_DEV_RESOURCE rather than failed, matching the behaviour of
> the existing -ENOMEM path for crypto request allocation.

You should make sure that you do not attempt to use the multi-data-unit 
mode when you retry the bio, otherwise it could loop indefinitely. Note 
that there are people who swap to dm-crypt - and so, it must work even if 
the memory is totally exhausted.

You should also use GFP_NOIO | __GFP_NORETRY instead of GFP_NOIO, so that 
the code doesn't loop in the allocator forever.


Perhaps __bio_for_each_bvec would be better than __bio_for_each_segment, 
so that it works faster with folios.

Mikulas

> Verified end-to-end with a byte-equivalence test: encrypted output of
> plain64 dm-crypt with the multi-data-unit path matches output of the
> single-data-unit path bit-for-bit over a 256 MB device.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Leonid Ravich <[email protected]>
> ---
>  drivers/md/dm-crypt.c | 248 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
>  1 file changed, 241 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/md/dm-crypt.c b/drivers/md/dm-crypt.c
> index 5ef43231fe77..b35831d43f0e 100644
> --- a/drivers/md/dm-crypt.c
> +++ b/drivers/md/dm-crypt.c
> @@ -98,6 +98,14 @@ struct dm_crypt_request {
>  	struct scatterlist sg_in[4];
>  	struct scatterlist sg_out[4];
>  	u64 iv_sector;
> +	/*
> +	 * Heap-allocated scatterlists used by the multi-data-unit path
> +	 * when one bio is processed in a single skcipher request.  NULL
> +	 * when the inline sg_in[]/sg_out[] arrays above are sufficient
> +	 * (single-data-unit path).  Freed in crypt_free_req_skcipher().
> +	 */
> +	struct scatterlist *sg_in_ext;
> +	struct scatterlist *sg_out_ext;
>  };
>  
>  struct crypt_config;
> @@ -149,6 +157,7 @@ enum cipher_flags {
>  	CRYPT_IV_LARGE_SECTORS,		/* Calculate IV from sector_size, not 512B sectors */
>  	CRYPT_ENCRYPT_PREPROCESS,	/* Must preprocess data for encryption (elephant) */
>  	CRYPT_KEY_MAC_SIZE_SET,		/* The integrity_key_size option was used */
> +	CRYPT_MULTI_DATA_UNIT,		/* Batch all sectors of a bio per crypto request */
>  };
>  
>  /*
> @@ -1501,12 +1510,139 @@ static int crypt_convert_block_skcipher(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  	return r;
>  }
>  
> +/*
> + * Multi-data-unit variant of crypt_convert_block_skcipher.  Submits all
> + * remaining sectors of the current bio in one skcipher request whose
> + * data_unit_size is cc->sector_size.  The cipher walks the IV between
> + * data units (see crypto_skcipher_set_data_unit_size()).
> + *
> + * Returns the same set of values as crypt_convert_block_skcipher:
> + *   0 on synchronous success (full chunk processed),
> + *   -EINPROGRESS / -EBUSY on asynchronous dispatch,
> + *   -ENOMEM if scatterlist allocation fails (caller maps to
> + *           BLK_STS_DEV_RESOURCE so the bio is requeued, not failed),
> + *   negative errno otherwise.
> + *
> + * On success the bio iterators have been advanced by the chunk size.
> + */
> +static int crypt_convert_block_skcipher_multi(struct crypt_config *cc,
> +					      struct convert_context *ctx,
> +					      struct skcipher_request *req,
> +					      unsigned int *out_processed)
> +{
> +	const unsigned int sector_size = cc->sector_size;
> +	unsigned int total_in = ctx->iter_in.bi_size;
> +	unsigned int total_out = ctx->iter_out.bi_size;
> +	unsigned int total = min(total_in, total_out);
> +	unsigned int n_sectors;
> +	unsigned int n_sg_in = 0, n_sg_out = 0;
> +	struct dm_crypt_request *dmreq = dmreq_of_req(cc, req);
> +	struct scatterlist *sg_in = NULL, *sg_out = NULL;
> +	struct bvec_iter iter_in, iter_out;
> +	struct bio_vec bv;
> +	u8 *iv, *org_iv;
> +	int r;
> +
> +	if (unlikely(total < sector_size))
> +		return -EIO;
> +	n_sectors = total / sector_size;
> +	total = n_sectors * sector_size;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * Walk the bio_vec iterators to count how many SG entries we need
> +	 * for exactly @total bytes.  bi_size of the iterators is at least
> +	 * @total by construction above.
> +	 */
> +	iter_in = ctx->iter_in;
> +	iter_in.bi_size = total;
> +	__bio_for_each_segment(bv, ctx->bio_in, iter_in, iter_in)
> +		n_sg_in++;
> +
> +	iter_out = ctx->iter_out;
> +	iter_out.bi_size = total;
> +	__bio_for_each_segment(bv, ctx->bio_out, iter_out, iter_out)
> +		n_sg_out++;
> +
> +	sg_in = kmalloc_array(n_sg_in, sizeof(*sg_in), GFP_NOIO);
> +	sg_out = (ctx->bio_in == ctx->bio_out) ? sg_in :
> +		 kmalloc_array(n_sg_out, sizeof(*sg_out), GFP_NOIO);
> +	if (!sg_in || !sg_out) {
> +		kfree(sg_in);
> +		if (sg_out != sg_in)
> +			kfree(sg_out);
> +		return -ENOMEM;
> +	}
> +
> +	sg_init_table(sg_in, n_sg_in);
> +	{
> +		unsigned int i = 0;
> +
> +		iter_in = ctx->iter_in;
> +		iter_in.bi_size = total;
> +		__bio_for_each_segment(bv, ctx->bio_in, iter_in, iter_in)
> +			sg_set_page(&sg_in[i++], bv.bv_page, bv.bv_len,
> +				    bv.bv_offset);
> +	}
> +
> +	if (sg_out != sg_in) {
> +		unsigned int i = 0;
> +
> +		sg_init_table(sg_out, n_sg_out);
> +		iter_out = ctx->iter_out;
> +		iter_out.bi_size = total;
> +		__bio_for_each_segment(bv, ctx->bio_out, iter_out, iter_out)
> +			sg_set_page(&sg_out[i++], bv.bv_page, bv.bv_len,
> +				    bv.bv_offset);
> +	}
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * Compute the IV for the first data unit.  The cipher will derive
> +	 * IVs for subsequent data units by treating this one as a 128-bit
> +	 * little-endian counter and adding the data-unit index, which
> +	 * matches the layout produced by plain and plain64.
> +	 */
> +	dmreq->iv_sector = ctx->cc_sector;
> +	if (test_bit(CRYPT_IV_LARGE_SECTORS, &cc->cipher_flags))
> +		dmreq->iv_sector >>= cc->sector_shift;
> +	dmreq->ctx = ctx;
> +
> +	iv = iv_of_dmreq(cc, dmreq);
> +	org_iv = org_iv_of_dmreq(cc, dmreq);
> +	r = cc->iv_gen_ops->generator(cc, org_iv, dmreq);
> +	if (r < 0)
> +		goto out_free_sg;
> +	memcpy(iv, org_iv, cc->iv_size);
> +
> +	/* Stash the SG arrays for cleanup on completion / free. */
> +	dmreq->sg_in_ext = sg_in;
> +	dmreq->sg_out_ext = (sg_out == sg_in) ? NULL : sg_out;
> +
> +	skcipher_request_set_crypt(req, sg_in, sg_out, total, iv);
> +
> +	if (bio_data_dir(ctx->bio_in) == WRITE)
> +		r = crypto_skcipher_encrypt(req);
> +	else
> +		r = crypto_skcipher_decrypt(req);
> +
> +	*out_processed = total;
> +	return r;
> +
> +out_free_sg:
> +	kfree(sg_in);
> +	if (sg_out != sg_in)
> +		kfree(sg_out);
> +	dmreq->sg_in_ext = NULL;
> +	dmreq->sg_out_ext = NULL;
> +	return r;
> +}
> +
>  static void kcryptd_async_done(void *async_req, int error);
>  
>  static int crypt_alloc_req_skcipher(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  				     struct convert_context *ctx)
>  {
>  	unsigned int key_index = ctx->cc_sector & (cc->tfms_count - 1);
> +	struct dm_crypt_request *dmreq;
>  
>  	if (!ctx->r.req) {
>  		ctx->r.req = mempool_alloc(&cc->req_pool, in_interrupt() ? GFP_ATOMIC : GFP_NOIO);
> @@ -1516,6 +1652,18 @@ static int crypt_alloc_req_skcipher(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  
>  	skcipher_request_set_tfm(ctx->r.req, cc->cipher_tfm.tfms[key_index]);
>  
> +	/*
> +	 * Initialise the heap-allocated scatterlist pointers so that
> +	 * crypt_free_req_skcipher() does not read uninitialised memory
> +	 * for paths that don't take the multi-data-unit branch.  The
> +	 * dmreq trailer lives in the per-bio data area which is not
> +	 * zeroed by the dm core, and the request is reused from the
> +	 * mempool across many bios.
> +	 */
> +	dmreq = dmreq_of_req(cc, ctx->r.req);
> +	dmreq->sg_in_ext = NULL;
> +	dmreq->sg_out_ext = NULL;
> +
>  	/*
>  	 * Use REQ_MAY_BACKLOG so a cipher driver internally backlogs
>  	 * requests if driver request queue is full.
> @@ -1562,6 +1710,12 @@ static void crypt_free_req_skcipher(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  				    struct skcipher_request *req, struct bio *base_bio)
>  {
>  	struct dm_crypt_io *io = dm_per_bio_data(base_bio, cc->per_bio_data_size);
> +	struct dm_crypt_request *dmreq = dmreq_of_req(cc, req);
> +
> +	kfree(dmreq->sg_in_ext);
> +	dmreq->sg_in_ext = NULL;
> +	kfree(dmreq->sg_out_ext);
> +	dmreq->sg_out_ext = NULL;
>  
>  	if ((struct skcipher_request *)(io + 1) != req)
>  		mempool_free(req, &cc->req_pool);
> @@ -1590,7 +1744,9 @@ static void crypt_free_req(struct crypt_config *cc, void *req, struct bio *base_
>  static blk_status_t crypt_convert(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  			 struct convert_context *ctx, bool atomic, bool reset_pending)
>  {
> -	unsigned int sector_step = cc->sector_size >> SECTOR_SHIFT;
> +	const unsigned int sector_step = cc->sector_size >> SECTOR_SHIFT;
> +	const bool multi_du = test_bit(CRYPT_MULTI_DATA_UNIT, &cc->cipher_flags);
> +	unsigned int processed;
>  	int r;
>  
>  	/*
> @@ -1611,8 +1767,13 @@ static blk_status_t crypt_convert(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  
>  		atomic_inc(&ctx->cc_pending);
>  
> +		processed = cc->sector_size;
>  		if (crypt_integrity_aead(cc))
>  			r = crypt_convert_block_aead(cc, ctx, ctx->r.req_aead, ctx->tag_offset);
> +		else if (multi_du)
> +			r = crypt_convert_block_skcipher_multi(cc, ctx,
> +							       ctx->r.req,
> +							       &processed);
>  		else
>  			r = crypt_convert_block_skcipher(cc, ctx, ctx->r.req, ctx->tag_offset);
>  
> @@ -1634,8 +1795,19 @@ static blk_status_t crypt_convert(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  					 * exit and continue processing in a workqueue
>  					 */
>  					ctx->r.req = NULL;
> -					ctx->tag_offset++;
> -					ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> +					if (!multi_du) {
> +						ctx->tag_offset++;
> +						ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> +					} else {
> +						bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_in,
> +								 &ctx->iter_in,
> +								 processed);
> +						bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_out,
> +								 &ctx->iter_out,
> +								 processed);
> +						ctx->cc_sector +=
> +							processed >> SECTOR_SHIFT;
> +					}
>  					return BLK_STS_DEV_RESOURCE;
>  				}
>  			} else {
> @@ -1649,19 +1821,42 @@ static blk_status_t crypt_convert(struct crypt_config *cc,
>  		 */
>  		case -EINPROGRESS:
>  			ctx->r.req = NULL;
> -			ctx->tag_offset++;
> -			ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> +			if (!multi_du) {
> +				ctx->tag_offset++;
> +				ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> +			} else {
> +				bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_in, &ctx->iter_in,
> +						 processed);
> +				bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_out, &ctx->iter_out,
> +						 processed);
> +				ctx->cc_sector += processed >> SECTOR_SHIFT;
> +			}
>  			continue;
>  		/*
>  		 * The request was already processed (synchronously).
>  		 */
>  		case 0:
>  			atomic_dec(&ctx->cc_pending);
> -			ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> -			ctx->tag_offset++;
> +			if (!multi_du) {
> +				ctx->cc_sector += sector_step;
> +				ctx->tag_offset++;
> +			} else {
> +				bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_in, &ctx->iter_in,
> +						 processed);
> +				bio_advance_iter(ctx->bio_out, &ctx->iter_out,
> +						 processed);
> +				ctx->cc_sector += processed >> SECTOR_SHIFT;
> +			}
>  			if (!atomic)
>  				cond_resched();
>  			continue;
> +		/*
> +		 * Out of memory for the multi-DU SG arrays — bounce back
> +		 * to the caller for requeue rather than failing the bio.
> +		 */
> +		case -ENOMEM:
> +			atomic_dec(&ctx->cc_pending);
> +			return BLK_STS_DEV_RESOURCE;
>  		/*
>  		 * There was a data integrity error.
>  		 */
> @@ -3142,6 +3337,45 @@ static int crypt_ctr_cipher(struct dm_target *ti, char *cipher_in, char *key)
>  		}
>  	}
>  
> +	/*
> +	 * Enable multi-data-unit batching when the cipher supports it and
> +	 * the IV layout is one we can derive per-DU from a single starting
> +	 * IV: plain or plain64 produce a sequential 64-bit little-endian
> +	 * counter, which matches the convention of
> +	 * crypto_skcipher_set_data_unit_size().  Restrict to the simple
> +	 * case (single tfm, no integrity, no per-sector post() callback)
> +	 * to keep the consumer path small; modes like essiv, lmk, tcw,
> +	 * eboiv, plain64be, random, null, benbi, and elephant are
> +	 * deliberately excluded because their generators or post-IV hooks
> +	 * cannot be re-derived by the cipher between data units.
> +	 */
> +	if (!crypt_integrity_aead(cc) && cc->tfms_count == 1 &&
> +	    cc->iv_gen_ops &&
> +	    (cc->iv_gen_ops == &crypt_iv_plain_ops ||
> +	     cc->iv_gen_ops == &crypt_iv_plain64_ops) &&
> +	    !cc->iv_gen_ops->post &&
> +	    !cc->integrity_tag_size && !cc->integrity_iv_size &&
> +	    crypto_skcipher_supports_multi_data_unit(cc->cipher_tfm.tfms[0])) {
> +		ret = crypto_skcipher_set_data_unit_size(cc->cipher_tfm.tfms[0],
> +							 cc->sector_size);
> +		if (!ret) {
> +			set_bit(CRYPT_MULTI_DATA_UNIT, &cc->cipher_flags);
> +			DMINFO("Using multi-data-unit crypto offload (du=%u)",
> +			       cc->sector_size);
> +		} else {
> +			/*
> +			 * The driver advertised the capability via cra_flags
> +			 * but rejected the requested data unit size.  This is
> +			 * a driver bug worth seeing in dmesg; fall back to
> +			 * the per-sector path so the device still activates.
> +			 */
> +			DMWARN_LIMIT("multi-DU offload disabled: %s rejected du=%u (%d)",
> +				     crypto_skcipher_driver_name(cc->cipher_tfm.tfms[0]),
> +				     cc->sector_size, ret);
> +			ret = 0;
> +		}
> +	}
> +
>  	/* wipe the kernel key payload copy */
>  	if (cc->key_string)
>  		memset(cc->key, 0, cc->key_size * sizeof(u8));
> -- 
> 2.47.3
>