From 2c3c1048746a4622d8c89a29670120dc8fab93c4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Daniel Baumann Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 20:49:45 +0200 Subject: Adding upstream version 6.1.76. Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann --- Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst | 656 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 656 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst') diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8d3a2d045 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/bcache.rst @@ -0,0 +1,656 @@ +============================ +A block layer cache (bcache) +============================ + +Say you've got a big slow raid 6, and an ssd or three. Wouldn't it be +nice if you could use them as cache... Hence bcache. + +The bcache wiki can be found at: + https://bcache.evilpiepirate.org + +This is the git repository of bcache-tools: + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/colyli/bcache-tools.git/ + +The latest bcache kernel code can be found from mainline Linux kernel: + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/ + +It's designed around the performance characteristics of SSDs - it only allocates +in erase block sized buckets, and it uses a hybrid btree/log to track cached +extents (which can be anywhere from a single sector to the bucket size). It's +designed to avoid random writes at all costs; it fills up an erase block +sequentially, then issues a discard before reusing it. + +Both writethrough and writeback caching are supported. Writeback defaults to +off, but can be switched on and off arbitrarily at runtime. Bcache goes to +great lengths to protect your data - it reliably handles unclean shutdown. (It +doesn't even have a notion of a clean shutdown; bcache simply doesn't return +writes as completed until they're on stable storage). + +Writeback caching can use most of the cache for buffering writes - writing +dirty data to the backing device is always done sequentially, scanning from the +start to the end of the index. + +Since random IO is what SSDs excel at, there generally won't be much benefit +to caching large sequential IO. Bcache detects sequential IO and skips it; +it also keeps a rolling average of the IO sizes per task, and as long as the +average is above the cutoff it will skip all IO from that task - instead of +caching the first 512k after every seek. Backups and large file copies should +thus entirely bypass the cache. + +In the event of a data IO error on the flash it will try to recover by reading +from disk or invalidating cache entries. For unrecoverable errors (meta data +or dirty data), caching is automatically disabled; if dirty data was present +in the cache it first disables writeback caching and waits for all dirty data +to be flushed. + +Getting started: +You'll need bcache util from the bcache-tools repository. Both the cache device +and backing device must be formatted before use:: + + bcache make -B /dev/sdb + bcache make -C /dev/sdc + +`bcache make` has the ability to format multiple devices at the same time - if +you format your backing devices and cache device at the same time, you won't +have to manually attach:: + + bcache make -B /dev/sda /dev/sdb -C /dev/sdc + +If your bcache-tools is not updated to latest version and does not have the +unified `bcache` utility, you may use the legacy `make-bcache` utility to format +bcache device with same -B and -C parameters. + +bcache-tools now ships udev rules, and bcache devices are known to the kernel +immediately. Without udev, you can manually register devices like this:: + + echo /dev/sdb > /sys/fs/bcache/register + echo /dev/sdc > /sys/fs/bcache/register + +Registering the backing device makes the bcache device show up in /dev; you can +now format it and use it as normal. But the first time using a new bcache +device, it'll be running in passthrough mode until you attach it to a cache. +If you are thinking about using bcache later, it is recommended to setup all your +slow devices as bcache backing devices without a cache, and you can choose to add +a caching device later. +See 'ATTACHING' section below. + +The devices show up as:: + + /dev/bcache + +As well as (with udev):: + + /dev/bcache/by-uuid/ + /dev/bcache/by-label/