summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2009-06-24 10:26:54 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2009-06-24 10:26:54 -0700
commitc3cb5e193937c7aa50c323e7933507020bd26340 (patch)
treeea36213ccd29dc4caf2f729fd51b2d489b591a31 /Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
parentea94b5034bbebc964115f119d6cd330757fce7f9 (diff)
parentf40c67f0f7e2767f80f7cbcbc1ab86c4113c202e (diff)
Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/agk/linux-2.6-dm
* git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/agk/linux-2.6-dm: (48 commits) dm mpath: change to be request based dm: disable interrupt when taking map_lock dm: do not set QUEUE_ORDERED_DRAIN if request based dm: enable request based option dm: prepare for request based option dm raid1: add userspace log dm: calculate queue limits during resume not load dm log: fix create_log_context to use logical_block_size of log device dm target:s introduce iterate devices fn dm table: establish queue limits by copying table limits dm table: replace struct io_restrictions with struct queue_limits dm table: validate device logical_block_size dm table: ensure targets are aligned to logical_block_size dm ioctl: support cookies for udev dm: sysfs add suspended attribute dm table: improve warning message when devices not freed before destruction dm mpath: add service time load balancer dm mpath: add queue length load balancer dm mpath: add start_io and nr_bytes to path selectors dm snapshot: use barrier when writing exception store ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt54
1 files changed, 54 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..994dd75475a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+Device-Mapper Logging
+=====================
+The device-mapper logging code is used by some of the device-mapper
+RAID targets to track regions of the disk that are not consistent.
+A region (or portion of the address space) of the disk may be
+inconsistent because a RAID stripe is currently being operated on or
+a machine died while the region was being altered. In the case of
+mirrors, a region would be considered dirty/inconsistent while you
+are writing to it because the writes need to be replicated for all
+the legs of the mirror and may not reach the legs at the same time.
+Once all writes are complete, the region is considered clean again.
+
+There is a generic logging interface that the device-mapper RAID
+implementations use to perform logging operations (see
+dm_dirty_log_type in include/linux/dm-dirty-log.h). Various different
+logging implementations are available and provide different
+capabilities. The list includes:
+
+Type Files
+==== =====
+disk drivers/md/dm-log.c
+core drivers/md/dm-log.c
+userspace drivers/md/dm-log-userspace* include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h
+
+The "disk" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation commits the log state to disk. This way, the
+logging state survives reboots/crashes.
+
+The "core" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation keeps the log state in memory. The log state
+will not survive a reboot or crash, but there may be a small boost in
+performance. This method can also be used if no storage device is
+available for storing log state.
+
+The "userspace" log type
+------------------------
+This log type simply provides a way to export the log API to userspace,
+so log implementations can be done there. This is done by forwarding most
+logging requests to userspace, where a daemon receives and processes the
+request.
+
+The structure used for communication between kernel and userspace are
+located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h. Due to the frequency,
+diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
+kernel and userspace, 'connector' is used as the interface for
+communication.
+
+There are currently two userspace log implementations that leverage this
+framework - "clustered_disk" and "clustered_core". These implementations
+provide a cluster-coherent log for shared-storage. Device-mapper mirroring
+can be used in a shared-storage environment when the cluster log implementations
+are employed.