Merge tag 'dm-3.9-changes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/agk/linux-dm

Pull device-mapper update from Alasdair G Kergon:
 "The main addition here is a long-desired target framework to allow an
  SSD to be used as a cache in front of a slower device.  Cache tuning
  is delegated to interchangeable policy modules so these can be
  developed independently of the mechanics needed to shuffle the data
  around.

  Other than that, kcopyd users acquire a throttling parameter, ioctl
  buffer usage gets streamlined, more mempool reliance is reduced and
  there are a few other bug fixes and tidy-ups."

* tag 'dm-3.9-changes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/agk/linux-dm: (30 commits)
  dm cache: add cleaner policy
  dm cache: add mq policy
  dm: add cache target
  dm persistent data: add bitset
  dm persistent data: add transactional array
  dm thin: remove cells from stack
  dm bio prison: pass cell memory in
  dm persistent data: add btree_walk
  dm: add target num_write_bios fn
  dm kcopyd: introduce configurable throttling
  dm ioctl: allow message to return data
  dm ioctl: optimize functions without variable params
  dm ioctl: introduce ioctl_flags
  dm: merge io_pool and tio_pool
  dm: remove unused _rq_bio_info_cache
  dm: fix limits initialization when there are no data devices
  dm snapshot: add missing module aliases
  dm persistent data: set some btree fn parms const
  dm: refactor bio cloning
  dm: rename bio cloning functions
  ...

2 files changed, 320 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/cache-policies.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/cache-policies.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d7c440b444cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/cache-policies.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+Guidance for writing policies
+=============================
+
+Try to keep transactionality out of it.  The core is careful to
+avoid asking about anything that is migrating.  This is a pain, but
+makes it easier to write the policies.
+
+Mappings are loaded into the policy at construction time.
+
+Every bio that is mapped by the target is referred to the policy.
+The policy can return a simple HIT or MISS or issue a migration.
+
+Currently there's no way for the policy to issue background work,
+e.g. to start writing back dirty blocks that are going to be evicte
+soon.
+
+Because we map bios, rather than requests it's easy for the policy
+to get fooled by many small bios.  For this reason the core target
+issues periodic ticks to the policy.  It's suggested that the policy
+doesn't update states (eg, hit counts) for a block more than once
+for each tick.  The core ticks by watching bios complete, and so
+trying to see when the io scheduler has let the ios run.
+
+
+Overview of supplied cache replacement policies
+===============================================
+
+multiqueue
+----------
+
+This policy is the default.
+
+The multiqueue policy has two sets of 16 queues: one set for entries
+waiting for the cache and another one for those in the cache.
+Cache entries in the queues are aged based on logical time. Entry into
+the cache is based on variable thresholds and queue selection is based
+on hit count on entry. The policy aims to take different cache miss
+costs into account and to adjust to varying load patterns automatically.
+
+Message and constructor argument pairs are:
+        'sequential_threshold <#nr_sequential_ios>' and
+        'random_threshold <#nr_random_ios>'.
+
+The sequential threshold indicates the number of contiguous I/Os
+required before a stream is treated as sequential.  The random threshold
+is the number of intervening non-contiguous I/Os that must be seen
+before the stream is treated as random again.
+
+The sequential and random thresholds default to 512 and 4 respectively.
+
+Large, sequential ios are probably better left on the origin device
+since spindles tend to have good bandwidth. The io_tracker counts
+contiguous I/Os to try to spot when the io is in one of these sequential
+modes.
+
+cleaner
+-------
+
+The cleaner writes back all dirty blocks in a cache to decommission it.
+
+Examples
+========
+
+The syntax for a table is:
+        cache <metadata dev> <cache dev> <origin dev> <block size>
+        <#feature_args> [<feature arg>]*
+        <policy> <#policy_args> [<policy arg>]*
+
+The syntax to send a message using the dmsetup command is:
+        dmsetup message <mapped device> 0 sequential_threshold 1024
+        dmsetup message <mapped device> 0 random_threshold 8
+
+Using dmsetup:
+        dmsetup create blah --table "0 268435456 cache /dev/sdb /dev/sdc \
+            /dev/sdd 512 0 mq 4 sequential_threshold 1024 random_threshold 8"
+        creates a 128GB large mapped device named 'blah' with the
+        sequential threshold set to 1024 and the random_threshold set to 8.
diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/cache.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/cache.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f50470abe241
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/cache.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,243 @@
+Introduction
+============
+
+dm-cache is a device mapper target written by Joe Thornber, Heinz
+Mauelshagen, and Mike Snitzer.
+
+It aims to improve performance of a block device (eg, a spindle) by
+dynamically migrating some of its data to a faster, smaller device
+(eg, an SSD).
+
+This device-mapper solution allows us to insert this caching at
+different levels of the dm stack, for instance above the data device for
+a thin-provisioning pool.  Caching solutions that are integrated more
+closely with the virtual memory system should give better performance.
+
+The target reuses the metadata library used in the thin-provisioning
+library.
+
+The decision as to what data to migrate and when is left to a plug-in
+policy module.  Several of these have been written as we experiment,
+and we hope other people will contribute others for specific io
+scenarios (eg. a vm image server).
+
+Glossary
+========
+
+  Migration -  Movement of the primary copy of a logical block from one
+               device to the other.
+  Promotion -  Migration from slow device to fast device.
+  Demotion  -  Migration from fast device to slow device.
+
+The origin device always contains a copy of the logical block, which
+may be out of date or kept in sync with the copy on the cache device
+(depending on policy).
+
+Design
+======
+
+Sub-devices
+-----------
+
+The target is constructed by passing three devices to it (along with
+other parameters detailed later):
+
+1. An origin device - the big, slow one.
+
+2. A cache device - the small, fast one.
+
+3. A small metadata device - records which blocks are in the cache,
+   which are dirty, and extra hints for use by the policy object.
+   This information could be put on the cache device, but having it
+   separate allows the volume manager to configure it differently,
+   e.g. as a mirror for extra robustness.
+
+Fixed block size
+----------------
+
+The origin is divided up into blocks of a fixed size.  This block size
+is configurable when you first create the cache.  Typically we've been
+using block sizes of 256k - 1024k.
+
+Having a fixed block size simplifies the target a lot.  But it is
+something of a compromise.  For instance, a small part of a block may be
+getting hit a lot, yet the whole block will be promoted to the cache.
+So large block sizes are bad because they waste cache space.  And small
+block sizes are bad because they increase the amount of metadata (both
+in core and on disk).
+
+Writeback/writethrough
+----------------------
+
+The cache has two modes, writeback and writethrough.
+
+If writeback, the default, is selected then a write to a block that is
+cached will go only to the cache and the block will be marked dirty in
+the metadata.
+
+If writethrough is selected then a write to a cached block will not
+complete until it has hit both the origin and cache devices.  Clean
+blocks should remain clean.
+
+A simple cleaner policy is provided, which will clean (write back) all
+dirty blocks in a cache.  Useful for decommissioning a cache.
+
+Migration throttling
+--------------------
+
+Migrating data between the origin and cache device uses bandwidth.
+The user can set a throttle to prevent more than a certain amount of
+migration occuring at any one time.  Currently we're not taking any
+account of normal io traffic going to the devices.  More work needs
+doing here to avoid migrating during those peak io moments.
+
+For the time being, a message "migration_threshold <#sectors>"
+can be used to set the maximum number of sectors being migrated,
+the default being 204800 sectors (or 100MB).
+
+Updating on-disk metadata
+-------------------------
+
+On-disk metadata is committed every time a REQ_SYNC or REQ_FUA bio is
+written.  If no such requests are made then commits will occur every
+second.  This means the cache behaves like a physical disk that has a
+write cache (the same is true of the thin-provisioning target).  If
+power is lost you may lose some recent writes.  The metadata should
+always be consistent in spite of any crash.
+
+The 'dirty' state for a cache block changes far too frequently for us
+to keep updating it on the fly.  So we treat it as a hint.  In normal
+operation it will be written when the dm device is suspended.  If the
+system crashes all cache blocks will be assumed dirty when restarted.
+
+Per-block policy hints
+----------------------
+
+Policy plug-ins can store a chunk of data per cache block.  It's up to
+the policy how big this chunk is, but it should be kept small.  Like the
+dirty flags this data is lost if there's a crash so a safe fallback
+value should always be possible.
+
+For instance, the 'mq' policy, which is currently the default policy,
+uses this facility to store the hit count of the cache blocks.  If
+there's a crash this information will be lost, which means the cache
+may be less efficient until those hit counts are regenerated.
+
+Policy hints affect performance, not correctness.
+
+Policy messaging
+----------------
+
+Policies will have different tunables, specific to each one, so we
+need a generic way of getting and setting these.  Device-mapper
+messages are used.  Refer to cache-policies.txt.
+
+Discard bitset resolution
+-------------------------
+
+We can avoid copying data during migration if we know the block has
+been discarded.  A prime example of this is when mkfs discards the
+whole block device.  We store a bitset tracking the discard state of
+blocks.  However, we allow this bitset to have a different block size
+from the cache blocks.  This is because we need to track the discard
+state for all of the origin device (compare with the dirty bitset
+which is just for the smaller cache device).
+
+Target interface
+================
+
+Constructor
+-----------
+
+ cache <metadata dev> <cache dev> <origin dev> <block size>
+       <#feature args> [<feature arg>]*
+       <policy> <#policy args> [policy args]*
+
+ metadata dev    : fast device holding the persistent metadata
+ cache dev       : fast device holding cached data blocks
+ origin dev      : slow device holding original data blocks
+ block size      : cache unit size in sectors
+
+ #feature args   : number of feature arguments passed
+ feature args    : writethrough.  (The default is writeback.)
+
+ policy          : the replacement policy to use
+ #policy args    : an even number of arguments corresponding to
+                   key/value pairs passed to the policy
+ policy args     : key/value pairs passed to the policy
+                   E.g. 'sequential_threshold 1024'
+                   See cache-policies.txt for details.
+
+Optional feature arguments are:
+   writethrough  : write through caching that prohibits cache block
+                   content from being different from origin block content.
+                   Without this argument, the default behaviour is to write
+                   back cache block contents later for performance reasons,
+                   so they may differ from the corresponding origin blocks.
+
+A policy called 'default' is always registered.  This is an alias for
+the policy we currently think is giving best all round performance.
+
+As the default policy could vary between kernels, if you are relying on
+the characteristics of a specific policy, always request it by name.
+
+Status
+------
+
+<#used metadata blocks>/<#total metadata blocks> <#read hits> <#read misses>
+<#write hits> <#write misses> <#demotions> <#promotions> <#blocks in cache>
+<#dirty> <#features> <features>* <#core args> <core args>* <#policy args>
+<policy args>*
+
+#used metadata blocks    : Number of metadata blocks used
+#total metadata blocks   : Total number of metadata blocks
+#read hits               : Number of times a READ bio has been mapped
+                             to the cache
+#read misses             : Number of times a READ bio has been mapped
+                             to the origin
+#write hits              : Number of times a WRITE bio has been mapped
+                             to the cache
+#write misses            : Number of times a WRITE bio has been
+                             mapped to the origin
+#demotions               : Number of times a block has been removed
+                             from the cache
+#promotions              : Number of times a block has been moved to
+                             the cache
+#blocks in cache         : Number of blocks resident in the cache
+#dirty                   : Number of blocks in the cache that differ
+                             from the origin
+#feature args            : Number of feature args to follow
+feature args             : 'writethrough' (optional)
+#core args               : Number of core arguments (must be even)
+core args                : Key/value pairs for tuning the core
+                             e.g. migration_threshold
+#policy args             : Number of policy arguments to follow (must be even)
+policy args              : Key/value pairs
+                             e.g. 'sequential_threshold 1024
+
+Messages
+--------
+
+Policies will have different tunables, specific to each one, so we
+need a generic way of getting and setting these.  Device-mapper
+messages are used.  (A sysfs interface would also be possible.)
+
+The message format is:
+
+   <key> <value>
+
+E.g.
+   dmsetup message my_cache 0 sequential_threshold 1024
+
+Examples
+========
+
+The test suite can be found here:
+
+https://github.com/jthornber/thinp-test-suite
+
+dmsetup create my_cache --table '0 41943040 cache /dev/mapper/metadata \
+        /dev/mapper/ssd /dev/mapper/origin 512 1 writeback default 0'
+dmsetup create my_cache --table '0 41943040 cache /dev/mapper/metadata \
+        /dev/mapper/ssd /dev/mapper/origin 1024 1 writeback \
+        mq 4 sequential_threshold 1024 random_threshold 8'