Re: [PATCH] ublk: stop reporting zones on an empty response

[Ming Lei <tom.leiming@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Nov 09, 2026 at 10:51:10PM +0800, shao.mingyin@zte.com.cn wrote:
> From: Shao Mingyin <shao.mingyin@zte.com.cn>
> 
> ublk_report_zones() treats a zero-length zone as the end of a server
> response, but only breaks out of the inner loop.  If the server returns
> an empty report, done_zones and sector do not advance, so the driver
> keeps issuing REPORT ZONES requests at the same sector indefinitely.
> 
> Finish the report when the zero-length marker is encountered and return
> the number of zones already reported.  Use the existing exit path to
> release the report buffer, including when the first response is empty.

The issue is real, I can reproduce it with one ublk server which
completes UBLK_IO_OP_REPORT_ZONES without filling any zone: both
BLKREPORTZONE and START_DEV(blk_revalidate_disk_zones()) loop forever,
and the task can't be killed.

> 
> Fixes: 29802d7ca33b ("ublk: enable zoned storage support")
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Shao Mingyin <shao.mingyin@zte.com.cn>
> ---
>  drivers/block/ublk_drv.c | 6 ++++--
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c b/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
> index 3d322fa1bc83..5c14daeaebbf 100644
> --- a/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
> +++ b/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
> @@ -693,8 +693,10 @@ static int ublk_report_zones(struct gendisk *disk, sector_t sector,
>  			struct blk_zone *zone = buffer + i;
>  
>  			/* A zero length zone means no more zones in this response */
> -			if (!zone->len)
> -				break;
> +			if (!zone->len) {
> +				ret = done_zones;
> +				goto out;
> +			}

But this terminates the whole report on any zero-length zone, not only
on an empty response.

A zero-length zone means "no more zones in this response", and so far
the driver continues from the advanced sector and asks for the remaining
zones. With this patch, a server returning fewer zones than requested
gets a truncated report. For example, when the server fills half of
the requested zones each time:

- BLKREPORTZONE for 256 zones returns 128 zones

- START_DEV fails:

	ublkb0: last zone and capacity mismatch (1048576 != 2097152)
	ublkb0: failed to revalidate zones

Both work fine before this patch.

How about stopping only if the response doesn't carry any zone? That is
what sd_zbc and virtio_blk do too. Something like:

diff --git a/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c b/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
--- a/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
+++ b/drivers/block/ublk_drv.c
@@ -661,6 +661,7 @@ static int ublk_report_zones(struct gendisk *disk, sector_t sector,
 		struct request *req;
 		struct ublk_zoned_report_desc desc;
 		blk_status_t status;
+		unsigned int i;
 
 		memset(buffer, 0, buffer_length);
 
@@ -689,7 +690,7 @@ static int ublk_report_zones(struct gendisk *disk, sector_t sector,
 		if (ret)
 			goto out;
 
-		for (unsigned int i = 0; i < zones_in_request; i++) {
+		for (i = 0; i < zones_in_request; i++) {
 			struct blk_zone *zone = buffer + i;
 
 			/* A zero length zone means no more zones in this response */
@@ -704,6 +705,10 @@ static int ublk_report_zones(struct gendisk *disk, sector_t sector,
 			sector += zone_size_sectors;
 
 		}
+
+		/* empty response: no progress, don't ask again */
+		if (!i)
+			break;
 	}
 
 	ret = done_zones;

With the above, empty response is handled as in your patch
(BLKREPORTZONE returns 0 zones, START_DEV fails with "No zones
reported"), and partial response still works.


Thanks,
Ming