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-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt125
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/gfs2-glocks.txt114
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt29
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/ubifs.txt164
4 files changed, 371 insertions, 61 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
index 0c5086db835..80e193d82e2 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
@@ -13,72 +13,93 @@ Mailing list: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org
1. Quick usage instructions:
===========================
- - Grab updated e2fsprogs from
- ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs-interim/
- This is a patchset on top of e2fsprogs-1.39, which can be found at
+ - Compile and install the latest version of e2fsprogs (as of this
+ writing version 1.41) from:
+
+ http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2406
+
+ or
+
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs/
- - It's still mke2fs -j /dev/hda1
+ or grab the latest git repository from:
+
+ git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git
+
+ - Create a new filesystem using the ext4dev filesystem type:
+
+ # mke2fs -t ext4dev /dev/hda1
+
+ Or configure an existing ext3 filesystem to support extents and set
+ the test_fs flag to indicate that it's ok for an in-development
+ filesystem to touch this filesystem:
- - mount /dev/hda1 /wherever -t ext4dev
+ # tune2fs -O extents -E test_fs /dev/hda1
- - To enable extents,
+ If the filesystem was created with 128 byte inodes, it can be
+ converted to use 256 byte for greater efficiency via:
- mount /dev/hda1 /wherever -t ext4dev -o extents
+ # tune2fs -I 256 /dev/hda1
- - The filesystem is compatible with the ext3 driver until you add a file
- which has extents (ie: `mount -o extents', then create a file).
+ (Note: we currently do not have tools to convert an ext4dev
+ filesystem back to ext3; so please do not do try this on production
+ filesystems.)
- NOTE: The "extents" mount flag is temporary. It will soon go away and
- extents will be enabled by the "-o extents" flag to mke2fs or tune2fs
+ - Mounting:
+
+ # mount -t ext4dev /dev/hda1 /wherever
- When comparing performance with other filesystems, remember that
- ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most. So
- when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, use `mount -o
- data=writeback'. And you might as well use `mount -o nobh' too along
- with it. Making the journal larger than the mke2fs default often helps
- performance with metadata-intensive workloads.
+ ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most.
+ So when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, such
+ as ext3, use `mount -o data=writeback'. And you might as well use
+ `mount -o nobh' too along with it. Making the journal larger than
+ the mke2fs default often helps performance with metadata-intensive
+ workloads.
2. Features
===========
2.1 Currently available
-* ability to use filesystems > 16TB
+* ability to use filesystems > 16TB (e2fsprogs support not available yet)
* extent format reduces metadata overhead (RAM, IO for access, transactions)
* extent format more robust in face of on-disk corruption due to magics,
* internal redunancy in tree
-
-2.1 Previously available, soon to be enabled by default by "mkefs.ext4":
-
-* dir_index and resize inode will be on by default
-* large inodes will be used by default for fast EAs, nsec timestamps, etc
+* improved file allocation (multi-block alloc)
+* fix 32000 subdirectory limit
+* nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time
+* inode version field on disk (NFSv4, Lustre)
+* reduced e2fsck time via uninit_bg feature
+* journal checksumming for robustness, performance
+* persistent file preallocation (e.g for streaming media, databases)
+* ability to pack bitmaps and inode tables into larger virtual groups via the
+ flex_bg feature
+* large file support
+* Inode allocation using large virtual block groups via flex_bg
+* delayed allocation
+* large block (up to pagesize) support
+* efficent new ordered mode in JBD2 and ext4(avoid using buffer head to force
+ the ordering)
2.2 Candidate features for future inclusion
-There are several under discussion, whether they all make it in is
-partly a function of how much time everyone has to work on them:
+* Online defrag (patches available but not well tested)
+* reduced mke2fs time via lazy itable initialization in conjuction with
+ the uninit_bg feature (capability to do this is available in e2fsprogs
+ but a kernel thread to do lazy zeroing of unused inode table blocks
+ after filesystem is first mounted is required for safety)
-* improved file allocation (multi-block alloc, delayed alloc; basically done)
-* fix 32000 subdirectory limit (patch exists, needs some e2fsck work)
-* nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time (patch exists,
- needs some e2fsck work)
-* inode version field on disk (NFSv4, Lustre; prototype exists)
-* reduced mke2fs/e2fsck time via uninitialized groups (prototype exists)
-* journal checksumming for robustness, performance (prototype exists)
-* persistent file preallocation (e.g for streaming media, databases)
+There are several others under discussion, whether they all make it in is
+partly a function of how much time everyone has to work on them. Features like
+metadata checksumming have been discussed and planned for a bit but no patches
+exist yet so I'm not sure they're in the near-term roadmap.
-Features like metadata checksumming have been discussed and planned for
-a bit but no patches exist yet so I'm not sure they're in the near-term
-roadmap.
+The big performance win will come with mballoc, delalloc and flex_bg
+grouping of bitmaps and inode tables. Some test results available here:
-The big performance win will come with mballoc and delalloc. CFS has
-been using mballoc for a few years already with Lustre, and IBM + Bull
-did a lot of benchmarking on it. The reason it isn't in the first set of
-patches is partly a manageability issue, and partly because it doesn't
-directly affect the on-disk format (outside of much better allocation)
-so it isn't critical to get into the first round of changes. I believe
-Alex is working on a new set of patches right now.
+ - http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/20080530/ffsb-write-2.6.26-rc2.html
+ - http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/20080530/ffsb-readwrite-2.6.26-rc2.html
3. Options
==========
@@ -222,9 +243,11 @@ stripe=n Number of filesystem blocks that mballoc will try
to use for allocation size and alignment. For RAID5/6
systems this should be the number of data
disks * RAID chunk size in file system blocks.
-
+delalloc (*) Deferring block allocation until write-out time.
+nodelalloc Disable delayed allocation. Blocks are allocation
+ when data is copied from user to page cache.
Data Mode
----------
+=========
There are 3 different data modes:
* writeback mode
@@ -236,10 +259,10 @@ typically provide the best ext4 performance.
* ordered mode
In data=ordered mode, ext4 only officially journals metadata, but it logically
-groups metadata and data blocks into a single unit called a transaction. When
-it's time to write the new metadata out to disk, the associated data blocks
-are written first. In general, this mode performs slightly slower than
-writeback but significantly faster than journal mode.
+groups metadata information related to data changes with the data blocks into a
+single unit called a transaction. When it's time to write the new metadata
+out to disk, the associated data blocks are written first. In general,
+this mode performs slightly slower than writeback but significantly faster than journal mode.
* journal mode
data=journal mode provides full data and metadata journaling. All new data is
@@ -247,7 +270,8 @@ written to the journal first, and then to its final location.
In the event of a crash, the journal can be replayed, bringing both data and
metadata into a consistent state. This mode is the slowest except when data
needs to be read from and written to disk at the same time where it
-outperforms all others modes.
+outperforms all others modes. Curently ext4 does not have delayed
+allocation support if this data journalling mode is selected.
References
==========
@@ -256,7 +280,8 @@ kernel source: <file:fs/ext4/>
<file:fs/jbd2/>
programs: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/
- http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net
useful links: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ext3-devel
http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/
+ http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
+ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Ext4
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/gfs2-glocks.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/gfs2-glocks.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..4dae9a3840b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/gfs2-glocks.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+ Glock internal locking rules
+ ------------------------------
+
+This documents the basic principles of the glock state machine
+internals. Each glock (struct gfs2_glock in fs/gfs2/incore.h)
+has two main (internal) locks:
+
+ 1. A spinlock (gl_spin) which protects the internal state such
+ as gl_state, gl_target and the list of holders (gl_holders)
+ 2. A non-blocking bit lock, GLF_LOCK, which is used to prevent other
+ threads from making calls to the DLM, etc. at the same time. If a
+ thread takes this lock, it must then call run_queue (usually via the
+ workqueue) when it releases it in order to ensure any pending tasks
+ are completed.
+
+The gl_holders list contains all the queued lock requests (not
+just the holders) associated with the glock. If there are any
+held locks, then they will be contiguous entries at the head
+of the list. Locks are granted in strictly the order that they
+are queued, except for those marked LM_FLAG_PRIORITY which are
+used only during recovery, and even then only for journal locks.
+
+There are three lock states that users of the glock layer can request,
+namely shared (SH), deferred (DF) and exclusive (EX). Those translate
+to the following DLM lock modes:
+
+Glock mode | DLM lock mode
+------------------------------
+ UN | IV/NL Unlocked (no DLM lock associated with glock) or NL
+ SH | PR (Protected read)
+ DF | CW (Concurrent write)
+ EX | EX (Exclusive)
+
+Thus DF is basically a shared mode which is incompatible with the "normal"
+shared lock mode, SH. In GFS2 the DF mode is used exclusively for direct I/O
+operations. The glocks are basically a lock plus some routines which deal
+with cache management. The following rules apply for the cache:
+
+Glock mode | Cache data | Cache Metadata | Dirty Data | Dirty Metadata
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ UN | No | No | No | No
+ SH | Yes | Yes | No | No
+ DF | No | Yes | No | No
+ EX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes
+
+These rules are implemented using the various glock operations which
+are defined for each type of glock. Not all types of glocks use
+all the modes. Only inode glocks use the DF mode for example.
+
+Table of glock operations and per type constants:
+
+Field | Purpose
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+go_xmote_th | Called before remote state change (e.g. to sync dirty data)
+go_xmote_bh | Called after remote state change (e.g. to refill cache)
+go_inval | Called if remote state change requires invalidating the cache
+go_demote_ok | Returns boolean value of whether its ok to demote a glock
+ | (e.g. checks timeout, and that there is no cached data)
+go_lock | Called for the first local holder of a lock
+go_unlock | Called on the final local unlock of a lock
+go_dump | Called to print content of object for debugfs file, or on
+ | error to dump glock to the log.
+go_type; | The type of the glock, LM_TYPE_.....
+go_min_hold_time | The minimum hold time
+
+The minimum hold time for each lock is the time after a remote lock
+grant for which we ignore remote demote requests. This is in order to
+prevent a situation where locks are being bounced around the cluster
+from node to node with none of the nodes making any progress. This
+tends to show up most with shared mmaped files which are being written
+to by multiple nodes. By delaying the demotion in response to a
+remote callback, that gives the userspace program time to make
+some progress before the pages are unmapped.
+
+There is a plan to try and remove the go_lock and go_unlock callbacks
+if possible, in order to try and speed up the fast path though the locking.
+Also, eventually we hope to make the glock "EX" mode locally shared
+such that any local locking will be done with the i_mutex as required
+rather than via the glock.
+
+Locking rules for glock operations:
+
+Operation | GLF_LOCK bit lock held | gl_spin spinlock held
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
+go_xmote_th | Yes | No
+go_xmote_bh | Yes | No
+go_inval | Yes | No
+go_demote_ok | Sometimes | Yes
+go_lock | Yes | No
+go_unlock | Yes | No
+go_dump | Sometimes | Yes
+
+N.B. Operations must not drop either the bit lock or the spinlock
+if its held on entry. go_dump and do_demote_ok must never block.
+Note that go_dump will only be called if the glock's state
+indicates that it is caching uptodate data.
+
+Glock locking order within GFS2:
+
+ 1. i_mutex (if required)
+ 2. Rename glock (for rename only)
+ 3. Inode glock(s)
+ (Parents before children, inodes at "same level" with same parent in
+ lock number order)
+ 4. Rgrp glock(s) (for (de)allocation operations)
+ 5. Transaction glock (via gfs2_trans_begin) for non-read operations
+ 6. Page lock (always last, very important!)
+
+There are two glocks per inode. One deals with access to the inode
+itself (locking order as above), and the other, known as the iopen
+glock is used in conjunction with the i_nlink field in the inode to
+determine the lifetime of the inode in question. Locking of inodes
+is on a per-inode basis. Locking of rgrps is on a per rgrp basis.
+
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index dbc3c6a3650..7f268f327d7 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -380,28 +380,35 @@ i386 and x86_64 platforms support the new IRQ vector displays.
Of some interest is the introduction of the /proc/irq directory to 2.4.
It could be used to set IRQ to CPU affinity, this means that you can "hook" an
IRQ to only one CPU, or to exclude a CPU of handling IRQs. The contents of the
-irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and one file; prof_cpu_mask
+irq subdir is one subdir for each IRQ, and two files; default_smp_affinity and
+prof_cpu_mask.
For example
> ls /proc/irq/
0 10 12 14 16 18 2 4 6 8 prof_cpu_mask
- 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9
+ 1 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 default_smp_affinity
> ls /proc/irq/0/
smp_affinity
-The contents of the prof_cpu_mask file and each smp_affinity file for each IRQ
-is the same by default:
+smp_affinity is a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the
+IRQ, you can set it by doing:
- > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
- ffffffff
+ > echo 1 > /proc/irq/10/smp_affinity
+
+This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo
+5 which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
-It's a bitmask, in which you can specify which CPUs can handle the IRQ, you can
-set it by doing:
+The contents of each smp_affinity file is the same by default:
+
+ > cat /proc/irq/0/smp_affinity
+ ffffffff
- > echo 1 > /proc/irq/prof_cpu_mask
+The default_smp_affinity mask applies to all non-active IRQs, which are the
+IRQs which have not yet been allocated/activated, and hence which lack a
+/proc/irq/[0-9]* directory.
-This means that only the first CPU will handle the IRQ, but you can also echo 5
-which means that only the first and fourth CPU can handle the IRQ.
+prof_cpu_mask specifies which CPUs are to be profiled by the system wide
+profiler. Default value is ffffffff (all cpus).
The way IRQs are routed is handled by the IO-APIC, and it's Round Robin
between all the CPUs which are allowed to handle it. As usual the kernel has
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ubifs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/ubifs.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..540e9e7f59c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ubifs.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+Introduction
+=============
+
+UBIFS file-system stands for UBI File System. UBI stands for "Unsorted
+Block Images". UBIFS is a flash file system, which means it is designed
+to work with flash devices. It is important to understand, that UBIFS
+is completely different to any traditional file-system in Linux, like
+Ext2, XFS, JFS, etc. UBIFS represents a separate class of file-systems
+which work with MTD devices, not block devices. The other Linux
+file-system of this class is JFFS2.
+
+To make it more clear, here is a small comparison of MTD devices and
+block devices.
+
+1 MTD devices represent flash devices and they consist of eraseblocks of
+ rather large size, typically about 128KiB. Block devices consist of
+ small blocks, typically 512 bytes.
+2 MTD devices support 3 main operations - read from some offset within an
+ eraseblock, write to some offset within an eraseblock, and erase a whole
+ eraseblock. Block devices support 2 main operations - read a whole
+ block and write a whole block.
+3 The whole eraseblock has to be erased before it becomes possible to
+ re-write its contents. Blocks may be just re-written.
+4 Eraseblocks become worn out after some number of erase cycles -
+ typically 100K-1G for SLC NAND and NOR flashes, and 1K-10K for MLC
+ NAND flashes. Blocks do not have the wear-out property.
+5 Eraseblocks may become bad (only on NAND flashes) and software should
+ deal with this. Blocks on hard drives typically do not become bad,
+ because hardware has mechanisms to substitute bad blocks, at least in
+ modern LBA disks.
+
+It should be quite obvious why UBIFS is very different to traditional
+file-systems.
+
+UBIFS works on top of UBI. UBI is a separate software layer which may be
+found in drivers/mtd/ubi. UBI is basically a volume management and
+wear-leveling layer. It provides so called UBI volumes which is a higher
+level abstraction than a MTD device. The programming model of UBI devices
+is very similar to MTD devices - they still consist of large eraseblocks,
+they have read/write/erase operations, but UBI devices are devoid of
+limitations like wear and bad blocks (items 4 and 5 in the above list).
+
+In a sense, UBIFS is a next generation of JFFS2 file-system, but it is
+very different and incompatible to JFFS2. The following are the main
+differences.
+
+* JFFS2 works on top of MTD devices, UBIFS depends on UBI and works on
+ top of UBI volumes.
+* JFFS2 does not have on-media index and has to build it while mounting,
+ which requires full media scan. UBIFS maintains the FS indexing
+ information on the flash media and does not require full media scan,
+ so it mounts many times faster than JFFS2.
+* JFFS2 is a write-through file-system, while UBIFS supports write-back,
+ which makes UBIFS much faster on writes.
+
+Similarly to JFFS2, UBIFS supports on-the-flight compression which makes
+it possible to fit quite a lot of data to the flash.
+
+Similarly to JFFS2, UBIFS is tolerant of unclean reboots and power-cuts.
+It does not need stuff like ckfs.ext2. UBIFS automatically replays its
+journal and recovers from crashes, ensuring that the on-flash data
+structures are consistent.
+
+UBIFS scales logarithmically (most of the data structures it uses are
+trees), so the mount time and memory consumption do not linearly depend
+on the flash size, like in case of JFFS2. This is because UBIFS
+maintains the FS index on the flash media. However, UBIFS depends on
+UBI, which scales linearly. So overall UBI/UBIFS stack scales linearly.
+Nevertheless, UBI/UBIFS scales considerably better than JFFS2.
+
+The authors of UBIFS believe, that it is possible to develop UBI2 which
+would scale logarithmically as well. UBI2 would support the same API as UBI,
+but it would be binary incompatible to UBI. So UBIFS would not need to be
+changed to use UBI2
+
+
+Mount options
+=============
+
+(*) == default.
+
+norm_unmount (*) commit on unmount; the journal is committed
+ when the file-system is unmounted so that the
+ next mount does not have to replay the journal
+ and it becomes very fast;
+fast_unmount do not commit on unmount; this option makes
+ unmount faster, but the next mount slower
+ because of the need to replay the journal.
+
+
+Quick usage instructions
+========================
+
+The UBI volume to mount is specified using "ubiX_Y" or "ubiX:NAME" syntax,
+where "X" is UBI device number, "Y" is UBI volume number, and "NAME" is
+UBI volume name.
+
+Mount volume 0 on UBI device 0 to /mnt/ubifs:
+$ mount -t ubifs ubi0_0 /mnt/ubifs
+
+Mount "rootfs" volume of UBI device 0 to /mnt/ubifs ("rootfs" is volume
+name):
+$ mount -t ubifs ubi0:rootfs /mnt/ubifs
+
+The following is an example of the kernel boot arguments to attach mtd0
+to UBI and mount volume "rootfs":
+ubi.mtd=0 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs
+
+
+Module Parameters for Debugging
+===============================
+
+When UBIFS has been compiled with debugging enabled, there are 3 module
+parameters that are available to control aspects of testing and debugging.
+The parameters are unsigned integers where each bit controls an option.
+The parameters are:
+
+debug_msgs Selects which debug messages to display, as follows:
+
+ Message Type Flag value
+
+ General messages 1
+ Journal messages 2
+ Mount messages 4
+ Commit messages 8
+ LEB search messages 16
+ Budgeting messages 32
+ Garbage collection messages 64
+ Tree Node Cache (TNC) messages 128
+ LEB properties (lprops) messages 256
+ Input/output messages 512
+ Log messages 1024
+ Scan messages 2048
+ Recovery messages 4096
+
+debug_chks Selects extra checks that UBIFS can do while running:
+
+ Check Flag value
+
+ General checks 1
+ Check Tree Node Cache (TNC) 2
+ Check indexing tree size 4
+ Check orphan area 8
+ Check old indexing tree 16
+ Check LEB properties (lprops) 32
+ Check leaf nodes and inodes 64
+
+debug_tsts Selects a mode of testing, as follows:
+
+ Test mode Flag value
+
+ Force in-the-gaps method 2
+ Failure mode for recovery testing 4
+
+For example, set debug_msgs to 5 to display General messages and Mount
+messages.
+
+
+References
+==========
+
+UBIFS documentation and FAQ/HOWTO at the MTD web site:
+http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/ubifs.html
+http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/faq/ubifs.html