Merge branch 'nfs-for-2.6.37' of git://git.linux-nfs.org/projects/trondmy/nfs-2.6

* 'nfs-for-2.6.37' of git://git.linux-nfs.org/projects/trondmy/nfs-2.6:
  net/sunrpc: Use static const char arrays
  nfs4: fix channel attribute sanity-checks
  NFSv4.1: Use more sensible names for 'initialize_mountpoint'
  NFSv4.1: pnfs: filelayout: add driver's LAYOUTGET and GETDEVICEINFO infrastructure
  NFSv4.1: pnfs: add LAYOUTGET and GETDEVICEINFO infrastructure
  NFS: client needs to maintain list of inodes with active layouts
  NFS: create and destroy inode's layout cache
  NFSv4.1: pnfs: filelayout: introduce minimal file layout driver
  NFSv4.1: pnfs: full mount/umount infrastructure
  NFS: set layout driver
  NFS: ask for layouttypes during v4 fsinfo call
  NFS: change stateid to be a union
  NFSv4.1: pnfsd, pnfs: protocol level pnfs constants
  SUNRPC: define xdr_decode_opaque_fixed
  NFSD: remove duplicate NFS4_STATEID_SIZE

2 files changed, 50 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX
index 3225a5662114..a57e12411d2a 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ nfs-rdma.txt
         - how to install and setup the Linux NFS/RDMA client and server software
 nfsroot.txt
         - short guide on setting up a diskless box with NFS root filesystem.
+pnfs.txt
+        - short explanation of some of the internals of the pnfs client code
 rpc-cache.txt
         - introduction to the caching mechanisms in the sunrpc layer.
 idmapper.txt
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/pnfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/pnfs.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..bc0b9cfe095b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/pnfs.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+Reference counting in pnfs:
+==========================
+
+The are several inter-related caches.  We have layouts which can
+reference multiple devices, each of which can reference multiple data servers.
+Each data server can be referenced by multiple devices.  Each device
+can be referenced by multiple layouts.  To keep all of this straight,
+we need to reference count.
+
+
+struct pnfs_layout_hdr
+----------------------
+The on-the-wire command LAYOUTGET corresponds to struct
+pnfs_layout_segment, usually referred to by the variable name lseg.
+Each nfs_inode may hold a pointer to a cache of of these layout
+segments in nfsi->layout, of type struct pnfs_layout_hdr.
+
+We reference the header for the inode pointing to it, across each
+outstanding RPC call that references it (LAYOUTGET, LAYOUTRETURN,
+LAYOUTCOMMIT), and for each lseg held within.
+
+Each header is also (when non-empty) put on a list associated with
+struct nfs_client (cl_layouts).  Being put on this list does not bump
+the reference count, as the layout is kept around by the lseg that
+keeps it in the list.
+
+deviceid_cache
+--------------
+lsegs reference device ids, which are resolved per nfs_client and
+layout driver type.  The device ids are held in a RCU cache (struct
+nfs4_deviceid_cache).  The cache itself is referenced across each
+mount.  The entries (struct nfs4_deviceid) themselves are held across
+the lifetime of each lseg referencing them.
+
+RCU is used because the deviceid is basically a write once, read many
+data structure.  The hlist size of 32 buckets needs better
+justification, but seems reasonable given that we can have multiple
+deviceid's per filesystem, and multiple filesystems per nfs_client.
+
+The hash code is copied from the nfsd code base.  A discussion of
+hashing and variations of this algorithm can be found at:
+http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/browse_thread/thread/9522965e2b8d3809
+
+data server cache
+-----------------
+file driver devices refer to data servers, which are kept in a module
+level cache.  Its reference is held over the lifetime of the deviceid
+pointing to it.