Add the rt linux 4.1.3-rt3 as base

[kvmfornfv.git] / kernel / Documentation / device-mapper / dm-log.txt

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+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.