Adding upstream version 5.10.209.upstream/5.10.209upstream

Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>

1 files changed, 268 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt
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+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().