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+=====
+dm-io
+=====
+
+Dm-io provides synchronous and asynchronous I/O services. There are three
+types of I/O services available, and each type has a sync and an async
+version.
+
+The user must set up an io_region structure to describe the desired location
+of the I/O. Each io_region indicates a block-device along with the starting
+sector and size of the region::
+
+   struct io_region {
+      struct block_device *bdev;
+      sector_t sector;
+      sector_t count;
+   };
+
+Dm-io can read from one io_region or write to one or more io_regions. Writes
+to multiple regions are specified by an array of io_region structures.
+
+The first I/O service type takes a list of memory pages as the data buffer for
+the I/O, along with an offset into the first page::
+
+   struct page_list {
+      struct page_list *next;
+      struct page *page;
+   };
+
+   int dm_io_sync(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where, int rw,
+                  struct page_list *pl, unsigned int offset,
+                  unsigned long *error_bits);
+   int dm_io_async(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where, int rw,
+                   struct page_list *pl, unsigned int offset,
+                   io_notify_fn fn, void *context);
+
+The second I/O service type takes an array of bio vectors as the data buffer
+for the I/O. This service can be handy if the caller has a pre-assembled bio,
+but wants to direct different portions of the bio to different devices::
+
+   int dm_io_sync_bvec(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where,
+                       int rw, struct bio_vec *bvec,
+                       unsigned long *error_bits);
+   int dm_io_async_bvec(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where,
+                        int rw, struct bio_vec *bvec,
+                        io_notify_fn fn, void *context);
+
+The third I/O service type takes a pointer to a vmalloc'd memory buffer as the
+data buffer for the I/O. This service can be handy if the caller needs to do
+I/O to a large region but doesn't want to allocate a large number of individual
+memory pages::
+
+   int dm_io_sync_vm(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where, int rw,
+                     void *data, unsigned long *error_bits);
+   int dm_io_async_vm(unsigned int num_regions, struct io_region *where, int rw,
+                      void *data, io_notify_fn fn, void *context);
+
+Callers of the asynchronous I/O services must include the name of a completion
+callback routine and a pointer to some context data for the I/O::
+
+   typedef void (*io_notify_fn)(unsigned long error, void *context);
+
+The "error" parameter in this callback, as well as the `*error` parameter in
+all of the synchronous versions, is a bitset (instead of a simple error value).
+In the case of an write-I/O to multiple regions, this bitset allows dm-io to
+indicate success or failure on each individual region.
+
+Before using any of the dm-io services, the user should call dm_io_get()
+and specify the number of pages they expect to perform I/O on concurrently.
+Dm-io will attempt to resize its mempool to make sure enough pages are
+always available in order to avoid unnecessary waiting while performing I/O.
+
+When the user is finished using the dm-io services, they should call
+dm_io_put() and specify the same number of pages that were given on the
+dm_io_get() call.