133 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
133 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
Direct Access for files
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-----------------------
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Motivation
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----------
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The page cache is usually used to buffer reads and writes to files.
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It is also used to provide the pages which are mapped into userspace
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by a call to mmap.
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For block devices that are memory-like, the page cache pages would be
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unnecessary copies of the original storage. The DAX code removes the
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extra copy by performing reads and writes directly to the storage device.
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For file mappings, the storage device is mapped directly into userspace.
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Usage
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-----
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If you have a block device which supports DAX, you can make a filesystem
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on it as usual. The DAX code currently only supports files with a block
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size equal to your kernel's PAGE_SIZE, so you may need to specify a block
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size when creating the filesystem. When mounting it, use the "-o dax"
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option on the command line or add 'dax' to the options in /etc/fstab.
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Implementation Tips for Block Driver Writers
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--------------------------------------------
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To support DAX in your block driver, implement the 'direct_access'
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block device operation. It is used to translate the sector number
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(expressed in units of 512-byte sectors) to a page frame number (pfn)
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that identifies the physical page for the memory. It also returns a
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kernel virtual address that can be used to access the memory.
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The direct_access method takes a 'size' parameter that indicates the
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number of bytes being requested. The function should return the number
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of bytes that can be contiguously accessed at that offset. It may also
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return a negative errno if an error occurs.
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In order to support this method, the storage must be byte-accessible by
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the CPU at all times. If your device uses paging techniques to expose
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a large amount of memory through a smaller window, then you cannot
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implement direct_access. Equally, if your device can occasionally
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stall the CPU for an extended period, you should also not attempt to
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implement direct_access.
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These block devices may be used for inspiration:
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- brd: RAM backed block device driver
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- dcssblk: s390 dcss block device driver
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- pmem: NVDIMM persistent memory driver
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Implementation Tips for Filesystem Writers
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------------------------------------------
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Filesystem support consists of
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- adding support to mark inodes as being DAX by setting the S_DAX flag in
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i_flags
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- implementing ->read_iter and ->write_iter operations which use dax_iomap_rw()
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when inode has S_DAX flag set
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- implementing an mmap file operation for DAX files which sets the
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VM_MIXEDMAP and VM_HUGEPAGE flags on the VMA, and setting the vm_ops to
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include handlers for fault, pmd_fault, page_mkwrite, pfn_mkwrite. These
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handlers should probably call dax_iomap_fault() passing the appropriate
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fault size and iomap operations.
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- calling iomap_zero_range() passing appropriate iomap operations instead of
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block_truncate_page() for DAX files
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- ensuring that there is sufficient locking between reads, writes,
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truncates and page faults
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The iomap handlers for allocating blocks must make sure that allocated blocks
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are zeroed out and converted to written extents before being returned to avoid
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exposure of uninitialized data through mmap.
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These filesystems may be used for inspiration:
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- ext2: see Documentation/filesystems/ext2.txt
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- ext4: see Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
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- xfs: see Documentation/filesystems/xfs.txt
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Handling Media Errors
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---------------------
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The libnvdimm subsystem stores a record of known media error locations for
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each pmem block device (in gendisk->badblocks). If we fault at such location,
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or one with a latent error not yet discovered, the application can expect
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to receive a SIGBUS. Libnvdimm also allows clearing of these errors by simply
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writing the affected sectors (through the pmem driver, and if the underlying
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NVDIMM supports the clear_poison DSM defined by ACPI).
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Since DAX IO normally doesn't go through the driver/bio path, applications or
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sysadmins have an option to restore the lost data from a prior backup/inbuilt
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redundancy in the following ways:
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1. Delete the affected file, and restore from a backup (sysadmin route):
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This will free the file system blocks that were being used by the file,
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and the next time they're allocated, they will be zeroed first, which
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happens through the driver, and will clear bad sectors.
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2. Truncate or hole-punch the part of the file that has a bad-block (at least
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an entire aligned sector has to be hole-punched, but not necessarily an
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entire filesystem block).
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These are the two basic paths that allow DAX filesystems to continue operating
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in the presence of media errors. More robust error recovery mechanisms can be
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built on top of this in the future, for example, involving redundancy/mirroring
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provided at the block layer through DM, or additionally, at the filesystem
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level. These would have to rely on the above two tenets, that error clearing
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can happen either by sending an IO through the driver, or zeroing (also through
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the driver).
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Shortcomings
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------------
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Even if the kernel or its modules are stored on a filesystem that supports
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DAX on a block device that supports DAX, they will still be copied into RAM.
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The DAX code does not work correctly on architectures which have virtually
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mapped caches such as ARM, MIPS and SPARC.
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Calling get_user_pages() on a range of user memory that has been mmaped
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from a DAX file will fail when there are no 'struct page' to describe
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those pages. This problem has been addressed in some device drivers
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by adding optional struct page support for pages under the control of
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the driver (see CONFIG_NVDIMM_PFN in drivers/nvdimm for an example of
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how to do this). In the non struct page cases O_DIRECT reads/writes to
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those memory ranges from a non-DAX file will fail (note that O_DIRECT
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reads/writes _of a DAX file_ do work, it is the memory that is being
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accessed that is key here). Other things that will not work in the
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non struct page case include RDMA, sendfile() and splice().
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