dm thin: support read only external snapshot origins

Support the use of an external _read only_ device as an origin for a thin
device.

Any read to an unprovisioned area of the thin device will be passed
through to the origin.  Writes trigger allocation of new blocks as
usual.

One possible use case for this would be VM hosts that want to run
guests on thinly-provisioned volumes but have the base image on another
device (possibly shared between many VMs).

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 38 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt
index a119fbdd0604..310c1201d621 100644
--- a/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt
@@ -169,6 +169,38 @@ ii) Using an internal snapshot.
 
     dmsetup create snap --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 1"
 
+External snapshots
+------------------
+
+You can use an external _read only_ device as an origin for a
+thinly-provisioned volume.  Any read to an unprovisioned area of the
+thin device will be passed through to the origin.  Writes trigger
+the allocation of new blocks as usual.
+
+One use case for this is VM hosts that want to run guests on
+thinly-provisioned volumes but have the base image on another device
+(possibly shared between many VMs).
+
+You must not write to the origin device if you use this technique!
+Of course, you may write to the thin device and take internal snapshots
+of the thin volume.
+
+i) Creating a snapshot of an external device
+
+  This is the same as creating a thin device.
+  You don't mention the origin at this stage.
+
+    dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_thin 0"
+
+ii) Using a snapshot of an external device.
+
+  Append an extra parameter to the thin target specifying the origin:
+
+    dmsetup create snap --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 0 /dev/image"
+
+  N.B. All descendants (internal snapshots) of this snapshot require the
+  same extra origin parameter.
+
 Deactivation
 ------------
 
@@ -254,7 +286,7 @@ iii) Messages
 
 i) Constructor
 
-    thin <pool dev> <dev id>
+    thin <pool dev> <dev id> [<external origin dev>]
 
     pool dev:
         the thin-pool device, e.g. /dev/mapper/my_pool or 253:0
@@ -263,6 +295,11 @@ i) Constructor
         the internal device identifier of the device to be
         activated.
 
+    external origin dev:
+        an optional block device outside the pool to be treated as a
+        read-only snapshot origin: reads to unprovisioned areas of the
+        thin target will be mapped to this device.
+
 The pool doesn't store any size against the thin devices.  If you
 load a thin target that is smaller than you've been using previously,
 then you'll have no access to blocks mapped beyond the end.  If you