Summary:
Implement AbortIO in posix using io_uring to cancel any pending read requests submitted. Its cancelled using io_uring_prep_cancel which sets the IORING_OP_ASYNC_CANCEL flag.
To cancel a request, the sqe must have ->addr set to the user_data of the request it wishes to cancel. If the request is cancelled successfully, the original request is completed with -ECANCELED and the cancel request is completed with a result of 0. If the request was already running, the original may or may not complete in error. The cancel request will complete with -EALREADY for that case. And finally, if the request to cancel wasn't found, the cancel request is completed with -ENOENT.
Reference: https://kernel.dk/io_uring-whatsnew.pdf,
https://lore.kernel.org/io-uring/d9a8d76d23690842f666c326631ecc2d85b6c1bc.1615566409.git.asml.silence@gmail.com/
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/10125
Test Plan: Existing Posix tests.
Reviewed By: anand1976
Differential Revision: D36946970
Pulled By: akankshamahajan15
fbshipit-source-id: 3bc1f1521b3151d01a348fc6431eb3fc85db3a14
Summary:
Right now with mmap file, we don't run fadvise following users' requests. There is no reason for that so this diff does that.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/10142
Test Plan:
A simple readrandom against files with page cache dropped shows latency improvement from 7.8 us to 2.8:
./db_bench -use_existing_db --benchmarks=readrandom --num=100
Reviewed By: anand1976
Differential Revision: D37074975
fbshipit-source-id: ccc72bcac1b5fd634eb8fa2b6a5d9afe332e0bf6
Summary:
Currently, the DB directory file descriptor is left open until the deconstruction process (`DB::Close()` does not close the file descriptor). To verify this, comment out the lines between `db_ = nullptr` and `db_->Close()` (line 512, 513, 514, 515 in ldb_cmd.cc) to leak the ``db_'' object, build `ldb` tool and run
```
strace --trace=open,openat,close ./ldb --db=$TEST_TMPDIR --ignore_unknown_options put K1 V1 --create_if_missing
```
There is one directory file descriptor that is not closed in the strace log.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/10049
Test Plan: Add a new unit test DBBasicTest.DBCloseAllDirectoryFDs: Open a database with different WAL directory and three different data directories, and all directory file descriptors should be closed after calling Close(). Explicitly call Close() after a directory file descriptor is not used so that the counter of directory open and close should be equivalent.
Reviewed By: ajkr, hx235
Differential Revision: D36722135
Pulled By: littlepig2013
fbshipit-source-id: 07bdc2abc417c6b30997b9bbef1f79aa757b21ff
Summary:
Added rate limiter and read rate-limiting support to SequentialFileReader. I've updated call sites to SequentialFileReader::Read with appropriate IO priority (or left a TODO and specified IO_TOTAL for now).
The PR is separated into four commits: the first one added the rate-limiting support, but with some fixes in the unit test since the number of request bytes from rate limiter in SequentialFileReader are not accurate (there is overcharge at EOF). The second commit fixed this by allowing SequentialFileReader to check file size and determine how many bytes are left in the file to read. The third commit added benchmark related code. The fourth commit moved the logic of using file size to avoid overcharging the rate limiter into backup engine (the main user of SequentialFileReader).
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/9973
Test Plan:
- `make check`, backup_engine_test covers usage of SequentialFileReader with rate limiter.
- Run db_bench to check if rate limiting is throttling as expected: Verified that reads and writes are together throttled at 2MB/s, and at 0.2MB chunks that are 100ms apart.
- Set up: `./db_bench --benchmarks=fillrandom -db=/dev/shm/test_rocksdb`
- Benchmark:
```
strace -ttfe read,write ./db_bench --benchmarks=backup -db=/dev/shm/test_rocksdb --backup_rate_limit=2097152 --use_existing_db
strace -ttfe read,write ./db_bench --benchmarks=restore -db=/dev/shm/test_rocksdb --restore_rate_limit=2097152 --use_existing_db
```
- db bench on backup and restore to ensure no performance regression.
- backup (avg over 50 runs): pre-change: 1.90443e+06 micros/op; post-change: 1.8993e+06 micros/op (improve by 0.2%)
- restore (avg over 50 runs): pre-change: 1.79105e+06 micros/op; post-change: 1.78192e+06 micros/op (improve by 0.5%)
```
# Set up
./db_bench --benchmarks=fillrandom -db=/tmp/test_rocksdb -num=10000000
# benchmark
TEST_TMPDIR=/tmp/test_rocksdb
NUM_RUN=50
for ((j=0;j<$NUM_RUN;j++))
do
./db_bench -db=$TEST_TMPDIR -num=10000000 -benchmarks=backup -use_existing_db | egrep 'backup'
# Restore
#./db_bench -db=$TEST_TMPDIR -num=10000000 -benchmarks=restore -use_existing_db
done > rate_limit.txt && awk -v NUM_RUN=$NUM_RUN '{sum+=$3;sum_sqrt+=$3^2}END{print sum/NUM_RUN, sqrt(sum_sqrt/NUM_RUN-(sum/NUM_RUN)^2)}' rate_limit.txt >> rate_limit_2.txt
```
Reviewed By: hx235
Differential Revision: D36327418
Pulled By: cbi42
fbshipit-source-id: e75d4307cff815945482df5ba630c1e88d064691
Summary:
If FilePrefetchBuffer object is destroyed and then later Poll() calls callback on object which has been destroyed, it gives segfault on accessing destroyed object. It was caught after adding unit tests that tests Posix implementation of ReadAsync and Poll APIs.
This PR also updates and fixes existing IOURing tests which were not running locally because RocksDbIOUringEnable function wasn't defined and IOUring was disabled for those tests
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/9777
Test Plan: Added new unit test
Reviewed By: anand1976
Differential Revision: D35254002
Pulled By: akankshamahajan15
fbshipit-source-id: 68e80054ffb14ae25c255920ebc6548ca5f130a1
Summary:
Provide support for Async Read and Poll in Posix file system using IOUring.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/9578
Test Plan: In progress
Reviewed By: anand1976
Differential Revision: D34690256
Pulled By: akankshamahajan15
fbshipit-source-id: 291cbd1380a3cb904b726c34c0560d1b2ce44a2e
Summary:
Directory fsync might be expensive on btrfs and it may not be needed.
Here are 4 directory fsync cases:
1. creating a new file: dir-fsync is not needed on btrfs, as long as the
new file itself is synced.
2. renaming a file: dir-fsync is not needed if the renamed file is
synced. So an API `FsyncAfterFileRename(filename, ...)` is provided
to sync the file on btrfs. By default, it just calls dir-fsync.
3. deleting files: dir-fsync is forced by set
`IOOptions.force_dir_fsync = true`
4. renaming multiple files (like backup and checkpoint): dir-fsync is
forced, the same as above.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/8903
Test Plan: run tests on btrfs and non btrfs
Reviewed By: ajkr
Differential Revision: D30885059
Pulled By: jay-zhuang
fbshipit-source-id: dd2730b31580b0bcaedffc318a762d7dbf25de4a
Summary:
Add new AppendWithVerify and PositionedAppendWithVerify APIs to Env and FileSystem to bring the data verification information (data checksum information) from upper layer (e.g., WritableFileWriter) to the storage layer. This PR only include the API definition, no functional codes are added to unblock other developers which depend on these APIs.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/7419
Test Plan: make -j32
Reviewed By: pdillinger
Differential Revision: D23883196
Pulled By: zhichao-cao
fbshipit-source-id: 94676c26bc56144cc32e3661f84f21eccd790411
Summary:
In Linux, when reopening DB with many SST files, profiling shows that 100% system cpu time spent for a couple of seconds for `GetLogicalBufferSize`. This slows down MyRocks' recovery time when site is down.
This PR introduces two new APIs:
1. `Env::RegisterDbPaths` and `Env::UnregisterDbPaths` lets `DB` tell the env when it starts or stops using its database directories . The `PosixFileSystem` takes this opportunity to set up a cache from database directories to the corresponding logical block sizes.
2. `LogicalBlockSizeCache` is defined only for OS_LINUX to cache the logical block sizes.
Other modifications:
1. rename `logical buffer size` to `logical block size` to be consistent with Linux terms.
2. declare `GetLogicalBlockSize` in `PosixHelper` to expose it to `PosixFileSystem`.
3. change the functions `IOError` and `IOStatus` in `env/io_posix.h` to have external linkage since they are used in other translation units too.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/6457
Test Plan:
1. A new unit test is added for `LogicalBlockSizeCache` in `env/io_posix_test.cc`.
2. A new integration test is added for `DB` operations related to the cache in `db/db_logical_block_size_cache_test.cc`.
`make check`
Differential Revision: D20131243
Pulled By: cheng-chang
fbshipit-source-id: 3077c50f8065c0bffb544d8f49fb10bba9408d04
Summary:
When dynamically linking two binaries together, different builds of RocksDB from two sources might cause errors. To provide a tool for user to solve the problem, the RocksDB namespace is changed to a flag which can be overridden in build time.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/6433
Test Plan: Build release, all and jtest. Try to build with ROCKSDB_NAMESPACE with another flag.
Differential Revision: D19977691
fbshipit-source-id: aa7f2d0972e1c31d75339ac48478f34f6cfcfb3e
Summary:
The current Env API encompasses both storage/file operations, as well as OS related operations. Most of the APIs return a Status, which does not have enough metadata about an error, such as whether its retry-able or not, scope (i.e fault domain) of the error etc., that may be required in order to properly handle a storage error. The file APIs also do not provide enough control over the IO SLA, such as timeout, prioritization, hinting about placement and redundancy etc.
This PR separates out the file/storage APIs from Env into a new FileSystem class. The APIs are updated to return an IOStatus with metadata about the error, as well as to take an IOOptions structure as input in order to allow more control over the IO.
The user can set both ```options.env``` and ```options.file_system``` to specify that RocksDB should use the former for OS related operations and the latter for storage operations. Internally, a ```CompositeEnvWrapper``` has been introduced that inherits from ```Env``` and redirects individual methods to either an ```Env``` implementation or the ```FileSystem``` as appropriate. When options are sanitized during ```DB::Open```, ```options.env``` is replaced with a newly allocated ```CompositeEnvWrapper``` instance if both env and file_system have been specified. This way, the rest of the RocksDB code can continue to function as before.
This PR also ports PosixEnv to the new API by splitting it into two - PosixEnv and PosixFileSystem. PosixEnv is defined as a sub-class of CompositeEnvWrapper, and threading/time functions are overridden with Posix specific implementations in order to avoid an extra level of indirection.
The ```CompositeEnvWrapper``` translates ```IOStatus``` return code to ```Status```, and sets the severity to ```kSoftError``` if the io_status is retryable. The error handling code in RocksDB can then recover the DB automatically.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/5761
Differential Revision: D18868376
Pulled By: anand1976
fbshipit-source-id: 39efe18a162ea746fabac6360ff529baba48486f
Summary:
db_stress_tool.cc now is a giant file. In order to main it easier to improve and maintain, break it down to multiple source files.
Most classes are turned into their own files. Separate .h and .cc files are created for gflag definiations. Another .h and .cc files are created for some common functions. Some test execution logic that is only loosely related to class StressTest is moved to db_stress_driver.h and db_stress_driver.cc. All the files are located under db_stress_tool/. The directory name is created as such because if we end it with either stress or test, .gitignore will ignore any file under it and makes it prone to issues in developements.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/6134
Test Plan: Build under GCC7 with and without LITE on using GNU Make. Build with GCC 4.8. Build with cmake with -DWITH_TOOL=1
Differential Revision: D18876064
fbshipit-source-id: b25d0a7451840f31ac0f5ebb0068785f783fdf7d
Summary:
Right now, PosixRandomAccessFile::MultiRead() executes read requests in parallel. In this PR, it leverages I/O Uring library to run it in parallel, even when page cache is enabled. This function will fall back if the kernel version doesn't support it.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/5881
Test Plan: Run the unit test on a kernel version supporting it and make sure all tests pass, and run a unit test on kernel version supporting it and see it pass. Before merging, will also run stress test and see it passes.
Differential Revision: D17742266
fbshipit-source-id: e05699c925ac04fdb42379456a4e23e4ebcb803a
Summary:
The existing implementation does not guarantee bytes reach disk every `bytes_per_sync` when writing SST files, or every `wal_bytes_per_sync` when writing WALs. This can cause confusing behavior for users who enable this feature to avoid large syncs during flush and compaction, but then end up hitting them anyways.
My understanding of the existing behavior is we used `sync_file_range` with `SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE` to submit ranges for async writeback, such that we could continue processing the next range of bytes while that I/O is happening. I believe we can preserve that benefit while also limiting how far the processing can get ahead of the I/O, which prevents huge syncs from happening when the file finishes.
Consider this `sync_file_range` usage: `sync_file_range(fd_, 0, static_cast<off_t>(offset + nbytes), SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE)`. Expanding the range to start at 0 and adding the `SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE` flag causes any pending writeback (like from a previous call to `sync_file_range`) to finish before it proceeds to submit the latest `nbytes` for writeback. The latest `nbytes` are still written back asynchronously, unless processing exceeds I/O speed, in which case the following `sync_file_range` will need to wait on it.
There is a second change in this PR to use `fdatasync` when `sync_file_range` is unavailable (determined statically) or has some known problem with the underlying filesystem (determined dynamically).
The above two changes only apply when the user enables a new option, `strict_bytes_per_sync`.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/5183
Differential Revision: D14953553
Pulled By: siying
fbshipit-source-id: 445c3862e019fb7b470f9c7f314fc231b62706e9
Summary:
This PR allows RocksDB to run in single-primary, multi-secondary process mode.
The writer is a regular RocksDB (e.g. an `DBImpl`) instance playing the role of a primary.
Multiple `DBImplSecondary` processes (secondaries) share the same set of SST files, MANIFEST, WAL files with the primary. Secondaries tail the MANIFEST of the primary and apply updates to their own in-memory state of the file system, e.g. `VersionStorageInfo`.
This PR has several components:
1. (Originally in #4745). Add a `PathNotFound` subcode to `IOError` to denote the failure when a secondary tries to open a file which has been deleted by the primary.
2. (Similar to #4602). Add `FragmentBufferedReader` to handle partially-read, trailing record at the end of a log from where future read can continue.
3. (Originally in #4710 and #4820). Add implementation of the secondary, i.e. `DBImplSecondary`.
3.1 Tail the primary's MANIFEST during recovery.
3.2 Tail the primary's MANIFEST during normal processing by calling `ReadAndApply`.
3.3 Tailing WAL will be in a future PR.
4. Add an example in 'examples/multi_processes_example.cc' to demonstrate the usage of secondary RocksDB instance in a multi-process setting. Instructions to run the example can be found at the beginning of the source code.
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/4899
Differential Revision: D14510945
Pulled By: riversand963
fbshipit-source-id: 4ac1c5693e6012ad23f7b4b42d3c374fecbe8886
Summary:
- Original commit: a4fb1f8c04
- Revert commit (we reverted as a quick fix to get crash tests passing): 6afe22db2e
This PR includes the contents of the original commit plus two bug fixes, which are:
- In whitebox crash test, only set `--expected_values_path` for `db_stress` runs in the first half of the crash test's duration. In the second half, a fresh DB is created for each `db_stress` run, so we cannot maintain expected state across `db_stress` runs.
- Made `Exists()` return true for `UNKNOWN_SENTINEL` values. I previously had an assert in `Exists()` that value was not `UNKNOWN_SENTINEL`. But it is possible for post-crash-recovery expected values to be `UNKNOWN_SENTINEL` (i.e., if the crash happens in the middle of an update), in which case this assertion would be tripped. The effect of returning true in this case is there may be cases where a `SingleDelete` deletes no data. But if we had returned false, the effect would be calling `SingleDelete` on a key with multiple older versions, which is not supported.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/3793
Differential Revision: D7811671
Pulled By: ajkr
fbshipit-source-id: 67e0295bfb1695ff9674837f2e05bb29c50efc30
Summary:
crash-recovery verification is failing in the whitebox testing, which may or may not be a valid correctness issue -- need more time to investigate. In the meantime, reverting so we don't mask other failures.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/3786
Differential Revision: D7794516
Pulled By: ajkr
fbshipit-source-id: 28ccdfdb9ec9b3b0fb08c15cbf9d2e282201ff33
Summary:
Previously, our `db_stress` tool held the expected state of the DB in-memory, so after crash-recovery, there was no way to verify data correctness. This PR adds an option, `--expected_values_file`, which specifies a file holding the expected values.
In black-box testing, the `db_stress` process can be killed arbitrarily, so updates to the `--expected_values_file` must be atomic. We achieve this by `mmap`ing the file and relying on `std::atomic<uint32_t>` for atomicity. Actually this doesn't provide a total guarantee on what we want as `std::atomic<uint32_t>` could, in theory, be translated into multiple stores surrounded by a mutex. We can verify our assumption by looking at `std::atomic::is_always_lock_free`.
For the `mmap`'d file, we didn't have an existing way to expose its contents as a raw memory buffer. This PR adds it in the `Env::NewMemoryMappedFileBuffer` function, and `MemoryMappedFileBuffer` class.
`db_crashtest.py` is updated to use an expected values file for black-box testing. On the first iteration (when the DB is created), an empty file is provided as `db_stress` will populate it when it runs. On subsequent iterations, that same filename is provided so `db_stress` can check the data is as expected on startup.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/3629
Differential Revision: D7463144
Pulled By: ajkr
fbshipit-source-id: c8f3e82c93e045a90055e2468316be155633bd8b
Summary:
Add a simple policy for NVMe write time life hint
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/3095
Differential Revision: D6298030
Pulled By: shligit
fbshipit-source-id: 9a72a42e32e92193af11599eb71f0cf77448e24d
Summary:
This reverts the previous commit 1d7048c598, which broke the build.
Did a `git revert 1d7048c`.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2627
Differential Revision: D5476473
Pulled By: sagar0
fbshipit-source-id: 4756ff5c0dfc88c17eceb00e02c36176de728d06
Summary: This uses `clang-tidy` to comment out unused parameters (in functions, methods and lambdas) in fbcode. Cases that the tool failed to handle are fixed manually.
Reviewed By: igorsugak
Differential Revision: D5454343
fbshipit-source-id: 5dee339b4334e25e963891b519a5aa81fbf627b2
Summary:
Force people to write something other than file name while returning status for IOError.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2493
Differential Revision: D5321309
Pulled By: siying
fbshipit-source-id: 38bcf6c19e80831cd3e300a047e975cbb131d822
Summary:
Every time after a compaction/flush finish, we issue user reads to put the table into block cache which includes a couple of IO that read footer, index blocks, meta block, etc. So we implement Prefetch here to reduce IO.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2196
Differential Revision: D4931782
Pulled By: lightmark
fbshipit-source-id: 5a13d58dcab209964352322217193bbf7ff78149
Summary:
Replacement of #2147
The change was squashed due to a lot of conflicts.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2194
Differential Revision: D4929799
Pulled By: siying
fbshipit-source-id: 5cd49c254737a1d5ac13f3c035f128e86524c581
Summary:
Move some files under util/ to new directories env/, monitoring/ options/ and cache/
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2090
Differential Revision: D4833681
Pulled By: siying
fbshipit-source-id: 2fd8bef
Summary:
querying logical sector size from the device instead of hardcoding it for linux platform.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1875
Differential Revision: D4591946
Pulled By: ajkr
fbshipit-source-id: 4e9805c
Summary:
we occasionally missing this call so the file size will be wrong
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1894
Differential Revision: D4598446
Pulled By: lightmark
fbshipit-source-id: 42b6ef5
Summary:
I'd like to propose a patch to expose a new IOError type with subcode kStaleFile to allow to detect when ESTALE error is returned. This allows the rocksdb consumers to handle this error separately from other IOErrors.
I've also added a missing string representation for the kDeadlock subcode, I believe calling ToString() on Status object with that subcode would result in an out of band access in the msgs array,
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like me to make any changes to this pull request.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1748
Differential Revision: D4387675
Pulled By: IslamAbdelRahman
fbshipit-source-id: 67feb13
Summary:
also change variable name `direct_io_` to `use_direct_io_` in WritableFile to make it consistent with read path.
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1770
Differential Revision: D4416435
Pulled By: lightmark
fbshipit-source-id: 4143c53
Summary:
direct IO reads refactoring
remove unnecessary classes and unified interfaces
tested with db_bench
need more change for options and ON/OFF for different files.
Since disabled is default, it should be fine now
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1636
Differential Revision: D4307189
Pulled By: lightmark
fbshipit-source-id: 6991e22
Summary:
This patch clarifies the contract of PositionedAppend with some unit
tests and also implements it for PosixWritableFile. (Tasks: 14524071)
Closes https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1514
Differential Revision: D4204907
Pulled By: maysamyabandeh
fbshipit-source-id: 06eabd2
Summary:
Add Env::RandomRWFile in env.h and implement it for POSIX
RandomRWFile is a file that allow us to read from / write to random offsets in the file
I will implement it for other Envs later after finishing the whole task for AddFile()
Test Plan: unit tests
Reviewers: andrewkr, kradhakrishnan, sdong
Reviewed By: sdong
Subscribers: andrewkr, dhruba
Differential Revision: https://reviews.facebook.net/D62433
Summary:
This patch adds direct IO capability to RocksDB Env.
The direct IO capability is required for persistent cache since NVM is best
accessed as 4K direct IO. SSDs can leverage direct IO for reading.
Direct IO requires the offset and size be sector size aligned, and memory to
be kernel page aligned. Since neither RocksDB/Persistent read cache data
layout is aligned to sector size, the code can accommodate reading unaligned IO size
(or unaligned memory) at the cost of an alloc/copy.
The write code path expects the size and memory to be aligned.
Test Plan: Run RocksDB unit tests
Reviewers: sdong
Subscribers: andrewkr, dhruba, leveldb
Differential Revision: https://reviews.facebook.net/D57393
Summary:
Persistent read cache relies on the accuracy of the GetUniqueIdFromFile
to generate a unique key for a given block of data. Currently we don't have an
implementation for Mac.
This patch adds an implementation.
Test Plan: Run unit tests
Reviewers: sdong
Subscribers: andrewkr, dhruba, leveldb
Differential Revision: https://reviews.facebook.net/D58413
in 64-bit.
Currently, a signed off_t type is being used for the following
interfaces for both offset and the length in bytes:
* `Allocate`
* `RangeSync`
On Linux `off_t` is automatically either 32 or 64-bit depending on
the platform. On Windows it is always a 32-bit signed long which
limits file access and in particular space pre-allocation
to effectively 2 Gb.
Proposal is to replace off_t with uint64_t as a portable type
always access files with 64-bit interfaces.
May need to modify posix code but lack resources to test it.
in 64-bit.
Currently, a signed off_t type is being used for the following
interfaces for both offset and the length in bytes:
* `Allocate`
* `RangeSync`
On Linux `off_t` is automatically either 32 or 64-bit depending on
the platform. On Windows it is always a 32-bit signed long which
limits file access and in particular space pre-allocation
to effectively 2 Gb.
Proposal is to replace off_t with uint64_t as a portable type
always access files with 64-bit interfaces.
May need to modify posix code but lack resources to test it.