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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt | 268 |
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diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8fdb78f3c --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt @@ -0,0 +1,268 @@ +Direct Access for files +----------------------- + +Motivation +---------- + +The page cache is usually used to buffer reads and writes to files. +It is also used to provide the pages which are mapped into userspace +by a call to mmap. + +For block devices that are memory-like, the page cache pages would be +unnecessary copies of the original storage. The DAX code removes the +extra copy by performing reads and writes directly to the storage device. +For file mappings, the storage device is mapped directly into userspace. + + +Usage +----- + +If you have a block device which supports DAX, you can make a filesystem +on it as usual. The DAX code currently only supports files with a block +size equal to your kernel's PAGE_SIZE, so you may need to specify a block +size when creating the filesystem. + +Currently 3 filesystems support DAX: ext2, ext4 and xfs. Enabling DAX on them +is different. + +Enabling DAX on ext2 +----------------------------- + +When mounting the filesystem, use the "-o dax" option on the command line or +add 'dax' to the options in /etc/fstab. This works to enable DAX on all files +within the filesystem. It is equivalent to the '-o dax=always' behavior below. + + +Enabling DAX on xfs and ext4 +---------------------------- + +Summary +------- + + 1. There exists an in-kernel file access mode flag S_DAX that corresponds to + the statx flag STATX_ATTR_DAX. See the manpage for statx(2) for details + about this access mode. + + 2. There exists a persistent flag FS_XFLAG_DAX that can be applied to regular + files and directories. This advisory flag can be set or cleared at any + time, but doing so does not immediately affect the S_DAX state. + + 3. If the persistent FS_XFLAG_DAX flag is set on a directory, this flag will + be inherited by all regular files and subdirectories that are subsequently + created in this directory. Files and subdirectories that exist at the time + this flag is set or cleared on the parent directory are not modified by + this modification of the parent directory. + + 4. There exist dax mount options which can override FS_XFLAG_DAX in the + setting of the S_DAX flag. Given underlying storage which supports DAX the + following hold: + + "-o dax=inode" means "follow FS_XFLAG_DAX" and is the default. + + "-o dax=never" means "never set S_DAX, ignore FS_XFLAG_DAX." + + "-o dax=always" means "always set S_DAX ignore FS_XFLAG_DAX." + + "-o dax" is a legacy option which is an alias for "dax=always". + This may be removed in the future so "-o dax=always" is + the preferred method for specifying this behavior. + + NOTE: Modifications to and the inheritance behavior of FS_XFLAG_DAX remain + the same even when the filesystem is mounted with a dax option. However, + in-core inode state (S_DAX) will be overridden until the filesystem is + remounted with dax=inode and the inode is evicted from kernel memory. + + 5. The S_DAX policy can be changed via: + + a) Setting the parent directory FS_XFLAG_DAX as needed before files are + created + + b) Setting the appropriate dax="foo" mount option + + c) Changing the FS_XFLAG_DAX flag on existing regular files and + directories. This has runtime constraints and limitations that are + described in 6) below. + + 6. When changing the S_DAX policy via toggling the persistent FS_XFLAG_DAX flag, + the change in behaviour for existing regular files may not occur + immediately. If the change must take effect immediately, the administrator + needs to: + + a) stop the application so there are no active references to the data set + the policy change will affect + + b) evict the data set from kernel caches so it will be re-instantiated when + the application is restarted. This can be achieved by: + + i. drop-caches + ii. a filesystem unmount and mount cycle + iii. a system reboot + + +Details +------- + +There are 2 per-file dax flags. One is a persistent inode setting (FS_XFLAG_DAX) +and the other is a volatile flag indicating the active state of the feature +(S_DAX). + +FS_XFLAG_DAX is preserved within the filesystem. This persistent config +setting can be set, cleared and/or queried using the FS_IOC_FS[GS]ETXATTR ioctl +(see ioctl_xfs_fsgetxattr(2)) or an utility such as 'xfs_io'. + +New files and directories automatically inherit FS_XFLAG_DAX from +their parent directory _when_ _created_. Therefore, setting FS_XFLAG_DAX at +directory creation time can be used to set a default behavior for an entire +sub-tree. + +To clarify inheritance, here are 3 examples: + +Example A: + +mkdir -p a/b/c +xfs_io -c 'chattr +x' a +mkdir a/b/c/d +mkdir a/e + + dax: a,e + no dax: b,c,d + +Example B: + +mkdir a +xfs_io -c 'chattr +x' a +mkdir -p a/b/c/d + + dax: a,b,c,d + no dax: + +Example C: + +mkdir -p a/b/c +xfs_io -c 'chattr +x' c +mkdir a/b/c/d + + dax: c,d + no dax: a,b + + +The current enabled state (S_DAX) is set when a file inode is instantiated in +memory by the kernel. It is set based on the underlying media support, the +value of FS_XFLAG_DAX and the filesystem's dax mount option. + +statx can be used to query S_DAX. NOTE that only regular files will ever have +S_DAX set and therefore statx will never indicate that S_DAX is set on +directories. + +Setting the FS_XFLAG_DAX flag (specifically or through inheritance) occurs even +if the underlying media does not support dax and/or the filesystem is +overridden with a mount option. + + + +Implementation Tips for Block Driver Writers +-------------------------------------------- + +To support DAX in your block driver, implement the 'direct_access' +block device operation. It is used to translate the sector number +(expressed in units of 512-byte sectors) to a page frame number (pfn) +that identifies the physical page for the memory. It also returns a +kernel virtual address that can be used to access the memory. + +The direct_access method takes a 'size' parameter that indicates the +number of bytes being requested. The function should return the number +of bytes that can be contiguously accessed at that offset. It may also +return a negative errno if an error occurs. + +In order to support this method, the storage must be byte-accessible by +the CPU at all times. If your device uses paging techniques to expose +a large amount of memory through a smaller window, then you cannot +implement direct_access. Equally, if your device can occasionally +stall the CPU for an extended period, you should also not attempt to +implement direct_access. + +These block devices may be used for inspiration: +- brd: RAM backed block device driver +- dcssblk: s390 dcss block device driver +- pmem: NVDIMM persistent memory driver + + +Implementation Tips for Filesystem Writers +------------------------------------------ + +Filesystem support consists of +- adding support to mark inodes as being DAX by setting the S_DAX flag in + i_flags +- implementing ->read_iter and ->write_iter operations which use dax_iomap_rw() + when inode has S_DAX flag set +- implementing an mmap file operation for DAX files which sets the + VM_MIXEDMAP and VM_HUGEPAGE flags on the VMA, and setting the vm_ops to + include handlers for fault, pmd_fault, page_mkwrite, pfn_mkwrite. These + handlers should probably call dax_iomap_fault() passing the appropriate + fault size and iomap operations. +- calling iomap_zero_range() passing appropriate iomap operations instead of + block_truncate_page() for DAX files +- ensuring that there is sufficient locking between reads, writes, + truncates and page faults + +The iomap handlers for allocating blocks must make sure that allocated blocks +are zeroed out and converted to written extents before being returned to avoid +exposure of uninitialized data through mmap. + +These filesystems may be used for inspiration: +- ext2: see Documentation/filesystems/ext2.rst +- ext4: see Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ +- xfs: see Documentation/admin-guide/xfs.rst + + +Handling Media Errors +--------------------- + +The libnvdimm subsystem stores a record of known media error locations for +each pmem block device (in gendisk->badblocks). If we fault at such location, +or one with a latent error not yet discovered, the application can expect +to receive a SIGBUS. Libnvdimm also allows clearing of these errors by simply +writing the affected sectors (through the pmem driver, and if the underlying +NVDIMM supports the clear_poison DSM defined by ACPI). + +Since DAX IO normally doesn't go through the driver/bio path, applications or +sysadmins have an option to restore the lost data from a prior backup/inbuilt +redundancy in the following ways: + +1. Delete the affected file, and restore from a backup (sysadmin route): + This will free the filesystem blocks that were being used by the file, + and the next time they're allocated, they will be zeroed first, which + happens through the driver, and will clear bad sectors. + +2. Truncate or hole-punch the part of the file that has a bad-block (at least + an entire aligned sector has to be hole-punched, but not necessarily an + entire filesystem block). + +These are the two basic paths that allow DAX filesystems to continue operating +in the presence of media errors. More robust error recovery mechanisms can be +built on top of this in the future, for example, involving redundancy/mirroring +provided at the block layer through DM, or additionally, at the filesystem +level. These would have to rely on the above two tenets, that error clearing +can happen either by sending an IO through the driver, or zeroing (also through +the driver). + + +Shortcomings +------------ + +Even if the kernel or its modules are stored on a filesystem that supports +DAX on a block device that supports DAX, they will still be copied into RAM. + +The DAX code does not work correctly on architectures which have virtually +mapped caches such as ARM, MIPS and SPARC. + +Calling get_user_pages() on a range of user memory that has been mmaped +from a DAX file will fail when there are no 'struct page' to describe +those pages. This problem has been addressed in some device drivers +by adding optional struct page support for pages under the control of +the driver (see CONFIG_NVDIMM_PFN in drivers/nvdimm for an example of +how to do this). In the non struct page cases O_DIRECT reads/writes to +those memory ranges from a non-DAX file will fail (note that O_DIRECT +reads/writes _of a DAX file_ do work, it is the memory that is being +accessed that is key here). Other things that will not work in the +non struct page case include RDMA, sendfile() and splice(). |