linux/Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt

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FS-Cache: Add the FS-Cache netfs API and documentation Add the API for a generic facility (FS-Cache) by which filesystems (such as AFS or NFS) may call on local caching capabilities without having to know anything about how the cache works, or even if there is a cache: +---------+ | | +--------------+ | NFS |--+ | | | | | +-->| CacheFS | +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | |--+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache | | | | |--+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | | | | | +-->| CacheFiles | | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache | | | +--------------+ +---------+ General documentation and documentation of the netfs specific API are provided in addition to the header files. As this patch stands, it is possible to build a filesystem against the facility and attempt to use it. All that will happen is that all requests will be immediately denied as if no cache is present. Further patches will implement the core of the facility. The facility will transfer requests from networking filesystems to appropriate caches if possible, or else gracefully deny them. If this facility is disabled in the kernel configuration, then all its operations will trivially reduce to nothing during compilation. WHY NOT I_MAPPING? ================== I have added my own API to implement caching rather than using i_mapping to do this for a number of reasons. These have been discussed a lot on the LKML and CacheFS mailing lists, but to summarise the basics: (1) Most filesystems don't do hole reportage. Holes in files are treated as blocks of zeros and can't be distinguished otherwise, making it difficult to distinguish blocks that have been read from the network and cached from those that haven't. (2) The backing inode must be fully populated before being exposed to userspace through the main inode because the VM/VFS goes directly to the backing inode and does not interrogate the front inode's VM ops. Therefore: (a) The backing inode must fit entirely within the cache. (b) All backed files currently open must fit entirely within the cache at the same time. (c) A working set of files in total larger than the cache may not be cached. (d) A file may not grow larger than the available space in the cache. (e) A file that's open and cached, and remotely grows larger than the cache is potentially stuffed. (3) Writes go to the backing filesystem, and can only be transferred to the network when the file is closed. (4) There's no record of what changes have been made, so the whole file must be written back. (5) The pages belong to the backing filesystem, and all metadata associated with that page are relevant only to the backing filesystem, and not anything stacked atop it. OVERVIEW ======== FS-Cache provides (or will provide) the following facilities: (1) Caches can be added / removed at any time, even whilst in use. (2) Adds a facility by which tags can be used to refer to caches, even if they're not available yet. (3) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected explicitly by use of tags. (4) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (1)). (5) A netfs may annotate cache objects that belongs to it. This permits the storage of coherency maintenance data. (6) Cache objects will be pinnable and space reservations will be possible. (7) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring rather to let the netfs remain oblivious. (8) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing cached there. (9) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of indices. (10) Indices can be used to group files together to reduce key size and to make group invalidation easier. The use of indices may make lookup quicker, but that's cache dependent. (11) Data I/O is effectively done directly to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or asynchronous. (12) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get recycled. (13) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an entry should be updated or deleted. FS-Cache maintains a virtual index tree in which all indices, files, objects and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more caches. FSDEF | +------------------------------------+ | | NFS AFS | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+ | | | | homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com | | | +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+ | | | | | | 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002 | | | | | +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak | | PG0 +-------+ | | 00001 00003 | +---+---+ | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 In the example above, two netfs's can be seen to be backed: NFS and AFS. These have different index hierarchies: (*) The NFS primary index will probably contain per-server indices. Each server index is indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended attribute objects themselves have page-array contents. (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes. Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an array of pages. The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's have entries. Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only reside in one cache. The FS-Cache overview can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:36 +00:00
==========================
General Filesystem Caching
==========================
========
OVERVIEW
========
This facility is a general purpose cache for network filesystems, though it
could be used for caching other things such as ISO9660 filesystems too.
FS-Cache mediates between cache backends (such as CacheFS) and network
filesystems:
+---------+
| | +--------------+
| NFS |--+ | |
| | | +-->| CacheFS |
+---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 |
| | | | +--------------+
+---------+ +-->| | |
| | | |--+
| AFS |----->| FS-Cache |
| | | |--+
+---------+ +-->| | |
| | | | +--------------+
+---------+ | +----------+ | | |
| | | +-->| CacheFiles |
| ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache |
| | +--------------+
+---------+
Or to look at it another way, FS-Cache is a module that provides a caching
facility to a network filesystem such that the cache is transparent to the
user:
+---------+
| |
| Server |
| |
+---------+
| NETWORK
~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
| +----------+
V | |
+---------+ | |
| | | |
| NFS |----->| FS-Cache |
| | | |--+
+---------+ | | | +--------------+ +--------------+
| | | | | | | |
V +----------+ +-->| CacheFiles |-->| Ext3 |
+---------+ | /var/cache | | /dev/sda6 |
| | +--------------+ +--------------+
| VFS | ^ ^
| | | |
+---------+ +--------------+ |
| KERNEL SPACE | |
~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~|~~~~
| USER SPACE | |
V | |
+---------+ +--------------+
| | | |
| Process | | cachefilesd |
| | | |
+---------+ +--------------+
FS-Cache does not follow the idea of completely loading every netfs file
opened in its entirety into a cache before permitting it to be accessed and
then serving the pages out of that cache rather than the netfs inode because:
(1) It must be practical to operate without a cache.
(2) The size of any accessible file must not be limited to the size of the
cache.
(3) The combined size of all opened files (this includes mapped libraries)
must not be limited to the size of the cache.
(4) The user should not be forced to download an entire file just to do a
one-off access of a small portion of it (such as might be done with the
"file" program).
It instead serves the cache out in PAGE_SIZE chunks as and when requested by
the netfs('s) using it.
FS-Cache provides the following facilities:
(1) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected
explicitly by use of tags.
(2) Caches can be added / removed at any time.
(3) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to
withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (2)).
(4) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring
rather to let the netfs remain oblivious.
(5) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the
netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing
cached there.
(6) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it
desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is
recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of
indices.
(7) Data I/O is done direct to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs
indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie
C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may
not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be
invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or
asynchronous.
(8) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark
them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get
recycled.
(9) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to
saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an
entry should be updated or deleted.
(10) As much as possible is done asynchronously.
FS-Cache maintains a virtual indexing tree in which all indices, files, objects
and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more
caches.
FSDEF
|
+------------------------------------+
| |
NFS AFS
| |
+--------------------------+ +-----------+
| | | |
homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com
| | |
+------------+ +---------------+ +----------+
| | | | | |
00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002
| | | | |
+---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak
| |
PG0 +-------+
| |
00001 00003
|
+---+---+
| | |
PG0 PG1 PG2
In the example above, you can see two netfs's being backed: NFS and AFS. These
have different index hierarchies:
(*) The NFS primary index contains per-server indices. Each server index is
indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file
objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child
objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended
attribute objects themselves have page-array contents.
(*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains
per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three
indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes.
Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an
array of pages.
The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's
have entries.
Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index
children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only
reside in one cache.
The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in:
Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt
The cache backend API to FS-Cache can be found in:
Documentation/filesystems/caching/backend-api.txt
FS-Cache: Object management state machine Implement the cache object management state machine. The following documentation is added to illuminate the working of this state machine. It will also be added as: Documentation/filesystems/caching/object.txt ==================================================== IN-KERNEL CACHE OBJECT REPRESENTATION AND MANAGEMENT ==================================================== ============== REPRESENTATION ============== FS-Cache maintains an in-kernel representation of each object that a netfs is currently interested in. Such objects are represented by the fscache_cookie struct and are referred to as cookies. FS-Cache also maintains a separate in-kernel representation of the objects that a cache backend is currently actively caching. Such objects are represented by the fscache_object struct. The cache backends allocate these upon request, and are expected to embed them in their own representations. These are referred to as objects. There is a 1:N relationship between cookies and objects. A cookie may be represented by multiple objects - an index may exist in more than one cache - or even by no objects (it may not be cached). Furthermore, both cookies and objects are hierarchical. The two hierarchies correspond, but the cookies tree is a superset of the union of the object trees of multiple caches: NETFS INDEX TREE : CACHE 1 : CACHE 2 : : : +-----------+ : +----------->| IObject | : +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | ICookie |-------+ : | : +-----------+ | : | : +-----------+ | +------------------------------>| IObject | | : | : +-----------+ | : V : | | : +-----------+ : | V +----------->| IObject | : | +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | | ICookie |-------+ : | : V +-----------+ | : | : +-----------+ | +------------------------------>| IObject | +-----+-----+ : | : +-----------+ | | : | : | V | : V : | +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | | ICookie |------------------------->| IObject | : | +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | | V : | : V | +-----------+ : | : +-----------+ | | ICookie |-------------------------------->| IObject | | +-----------+ : | : +-----------+ V | : V : | +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | | DCookie |------------------------->| DObject | : | +-----------+ | : +-----------+ : | | : : | +-------+-------+ : : | | | : : | V V : : V +-----------+ +-----------+ : : +-----------+ | DCookie | | DCookie |------------------------>| DObject | +-----------+ +-----------+ : : +-----------+ : : In the above illustration, ICookie and IObject represent indices and DCookie and DObject represent data storage objects. Indices may have representation in multiple caches, but currently, non-index objects may not. Objects of any type may also be entirely unrepresented. As far as the netfs API goes, the netfs is only actually permitted to see pointers to the cookies. The cookies themselves and any objects attached to those cookies are hidden from it. =============================== OBJECT MANAGEMENT STATE MACHINE =============================== Within FS-Cache, each active object is managed by its own individual state machine. The state for an object is kept in the fscache_object struct, in object->state. A cookie may point to a set of objects that are in different states. Each state has an action associated with it that is invoked when the machine wakes up in that state. There are four logical sets of states: (1) Preparation: states that wait for the parent objects to become ready. The representations are hierarchical, and it is expected that an object must be created or accessed with respect to its parent object. (2) Initialisation: states that perform lookups in the cache and validate what's found and that create on disk any missing metadata. (3) Normal running: states that allow netfs operations on objects to proceed and that update the state of objects. (4) Termination: states that detach objects from their netfs cookies, that delete objects from disk, that handle disk and system errors and that free up in-memory resources. In most cases, transitioning between states is in response to signalled events. When a state has finished processing, it will usually set the mask of events in which it is interested (object->event_mask) and relinquish the worker thread. Then when an event is raised (by calling fscache_raise_event()), if the event is not masked, the object will be queued for processing (by calling fscache_enqueue_object()). PROVISION OF CPU TIME --------------------- The work to be done by the various states is given CPU time by the threads of the slow work facility (see Documentation/slow-work.txt). This is used in preference to the workqueue facility because: (1) Threads may be completely occupied for very long periods of time by a particular work item. These state actions may be doing sequences of synchronous, journalled disk accesses (lookup, mkdir, create, setxattr, getxattr, truncate, unlink, rmdir, rename). (2) Threads may do little actual work, but may rather spend a lot of time sleeping on I/O. This means that single-threaded and 1-per-CPU-threaded workqueues don't necessarily have the right numbers of threads. LOCKING SIMPLIFICATION ---------------------- Because only one worker thread may be operating on any particular object's state machine at once, this simplifies the locking, particularly with respect to disconnecting the netfs's representation of a cache object (fscache_cookie) from the cache backend's representation (fscache_object) - which may be requested from either end. ================= THE SET OF STATES ================= The object state machine has a set of states that it can be in. There are preparation states in which the object sets itself up and waits for its parent object to transit to a state that allows access to its children: (1) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT. Initialise the object and wait for the parent object to become active. In the cache, it is expected that it will not be possible to look an object up from the parent object, until that parent object itself has been looked up. There are initialisation states in which the object sets itself up and accesses disk for the object metadata: (2) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_LOOKING_UP. Look up the object on disk, using the parent as a starting point. FS-Cache expects the cache backend to probe the cache to see whether this object is represented there, and if it is, to see if it's valid (coherency management). The cache should call fscache_object_lookup_negative() to indicate lookup failure for whatever reason, and should call fscache_obtained_object() to indicate success. At the completion of lookup, FS-Cache will let the netfs go ahead with read operations, no matter whether the file is yet cached. If not yet cached, read operations will be immediately rejected with ENODATA until the first known page is uncached - as to that point there can be no data to be read out of the cache for that file that isn't currently also held in the pagecache. (3) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_CREATING. Create an object on disk, using the parent as a starting point. This happens if the lookup failed to find the object, or if the object's coherency data indicated what's on disk is out of date. In this state, FS-Cache expects the cache to create The cache should call fscache_obtained_object() if creation completes successfully, fscache_object_lookup_negative() otherwise. At the completion of creation, FS-Cache will start processing write operations the netfs has queued for an object. If creation failed, the write ops will be transparently discarded, and nothing recorded in the cache. There are some normal running states in which the object spends its time servicing netfs requests: (4) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_AVAILABLE. A transient state in which pending operations are started, child objects are permitted to advance from FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT state, and temporary lookup data is freed. (5) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_ACTIVE. The normal running state. In this state, requests the netfs makes will be passed on to the cache. (6) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_UPDATING. The state machine comes here to update the object in the cache from the netfs's records. This involves updating the auxiliary data that is used to maintain coherency. And there are terminal states in which an object cleans itself up, deallocates memory and potentially deletes stuff from disk: (7) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_LC_DYING. The object comes here if it is dying because of a lookup or creation error. This would be due to a disk error or system error of some sort. Temporary data is cleaned up, and the parent is released. (8) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_DYING. The object comes here if it is dying due to an error, because its parent cookie has been relinquished by the netfs or because the cache is being withdrawn. Any child objects waiting on this one are given CPU time so that they too can destroy themselves. This object waits for all its children to go away before advancing to the next state. (9) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_ABORT_INIT. The object comes to this state if it was waiting on its parent in FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT, but its parent died. The object will destroy itself so that the parent may proceed from the FSCACHE_OBJECT_DYING state. (10) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_RELEASING. (11) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_RECYCLING. The object comes to one of these two states when dying once it is rid of all its children, if it is dying because the netfs relinquished its cookie. In the first state, the cached data is expected to persist, and in the second it will be deleted. (12) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_WITHDRAWING. The object transits to this state if the cache decides it wants to withdraw the object from service, perhaps to make space, but also due to error or just because the whole cache is being withdrawn. (13) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_DEAD. The object transits to this state when the in-memory object record is ready to be deleted. The object processor shouldn't ever see an object in this state. THE SET OF EVENTS ----------------- There are a number of events that can be raised to an object state machine: (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_UPDATE The netfs requested that an object be updated. The state machine will ask the cache backend to update the object, and the cache backend will ask the netfs for details of the change through its cookie definition ops. (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_CLEARED This is signalled in two circumstances: (a) when an object's last child object is dropped and (b) when the last operation outstanding on an object is completed. This is used to proceed from the dying state. (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_ERROR This is signalled when an I/O error occurs during the processing of some object. (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_RELEASE (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_RETIRE These are signalled when the netfs relinquishes a cookie it was using. The event selected depends on whether the netfs asks for the backing object to be retired (deleted) or retained. (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_WITHDRAW This is signalled when the cache backend wants to withdraw an object. This means that the object will have to be detached from the netfs's cookie. Because the withdrawing releasing/retiring events are all handled by the object state machine, it doesn't matter if there's a collision with both ends trying to sever the connection at the same time. The state machine can just pick which one it wants to honour, and that effects the other. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:38 +00:00
A description of the internal representations and object state machine can be
found in:
Documentation/filesystems/caching/object.txt
FS-Cache: Add the FS-Cache netfs API and documentation Add the API for a generic facility (FS-Cache) by which filesystems (such as AFS or NFS) may call on local caching capabilities without having to know anything about how the cache works, or even if there is a cache: +---------+ | | +--------------+ | NFS |--+ | | | | | +-->| CacheFS | +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | |--+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache | | | | |--+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | | | | | +-->| CacheFiles | | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache | | | +--------------+ +---------+ General documentation and documentation of the netfs specific API are provided in addition to the header files. As this patch stands, it is possible to build a filesystem against the facility and attempt to use it. All that will happen is that all requests will be immediately denied as if no cache is present. Further patches will implement the core of the facility. The facility will transfer requests from networking filesystems to appropriate caches if possible, or else gracefully deny them. If this facility is disabled in the kernel configuration, then all its operations will trivially reduce to nothing during compilation. WHY NOT I_MAPPING? ================== I have added my own API to implement caching rather than using i_mapping to do this for a number of reasons. These have been discussed a lot on the LKML and CacheFS mailing lists, but to summarise the basics: (1) Most filesystems don't do hole reportage. Holes in files are treated as blocks of zeros and can't be distinguished otherwise, making it difficult to distinguish blocks that have been read from the network and cached from those that haven't. (2) The backing inode must be fully populated before being exposed to userspace through the main inode because the VM/VFS goes directly to the backing inode and does not interrogate the front inode's VM ops. Therefore: (a) The backing inode must fit entirely within the cache. (b) All backed files currently open must fit entirely within the cache at the same time. (c) A working set of files in total larger than the cache may not be cached. (d) A file may not grow larger than the available space in the cache. (e) A file that's open and cached, and remotely grows larger than the cache is potentially stuffed. (3) Writes go to the backing filesystem, and can only be transferred to the network when the file is closed. (4) There's no record of what changes have been made, so the whole file must be written back. (5) The pages belong to the backing filesystem, and all metadata associated with that page are relevant only to the backing filesystem, and not anything stacked atop it. OVERVIEW ======== FS-Cache provides (or will provide) the following facilities: (1) Caches can be added / removed at any time, even whilst in use. (2) Adds a facility by which tags can be used to refer to caches, even if they're not available yet. (3) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected explicitly by use of tags. (4) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (1)). (5) A netfs may annotate cache objects that belongs to it. This permits the storage of coherency maintenance data. (6) Cache objects will be pinnable and space reservations will be possible. (7) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring rather to let the netfs remain oblivious. (8) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing cached there. (9) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of indices. (10) Indices can be used to group files together to reduce key size and to make group invalidation easier. The use of indices may make lookup quicker, but that's cache dependent. (11) Data I/O is effectively done directly to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or asynchronous. (12) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get recycled. (13) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an entry should be updated or deleted. FS-Cache maintains a virtual index tree in which all indices, files, objects and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more caches. FSDEF | +------------------------------------+ | | NFS AFS | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+ | | | | homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com | | | +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+ | | | | | | 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002 | | | | | +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak | | PG0 +-------+ | | 00001 00003 | +---+---+ | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 In the example above, two netfs's can be seen to be backed: NFS and AFS. These have different index hierarchies: (*) The NFS primary index will probably contain per-server indices. Each server index is indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended attribute objects themselves have page-array contents. (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes. Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an array of pages. The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's have entries. Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only reside in one cache. The FS-Cache overview can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:36 +00:00
=======================
STATISTICAL INFORMATION
=======================
If FS-Cache is compiled with the following options enabled:
CONFIG_FSCACHE_STATS=y
CONFIG_FSCACHE_HISTOGRAM=y
then it will gather certain statistics and display them through a number of
proc files.
(*) /proc/fs/fscache/stats
This shows counts of a number of events that can happen in FS-Cache:
CLASS EVENT MEANING
======= ======= =======================================================
Cookies idx=N Number of index cookies allocated
dat=N Number of data storage cookies allocated
spc=N Number of special cookies allocated
Objects alc=N Number of objects allocated
nal=N Number of object allocation failures
avl=N Number of objects that reached the available state
ded=N Number of objects that reached the dead state
ChkAux non=N Number of objects that didn't have a coherency check
ok=N Number of objects that passed a coherency check
upd=N Number of objects that needed a coherency data update
obs=N Number of objects that were declared obsolete
Pages mrk=N Number of pages marked as being cached
unc=N Number of uncache page requests seen
Acquire n=N Number of acquire cookie requests seen
nul=N Number of acq reqs given a NULL parent
noc=N Number of acq reqs rejected due to no cache available
ok=N Number of acq reqs succeeded
nbf=N Number of acq reqs rejected due to error
oom=N Number of acq reqs failed on ENOMEM
Lookups n=N Number of lookup calls made on cache backends
neg=N Number of negative lookups made
pos=N Number of positive lookups made
crt=N Number of objects created by lookup
Updates n=N Number of update cookie requests seen
nul=N Number of upd reqs given a NULL parent
run=N Number of upd reqs granted CPU time
Relinqs n=N Number of relinquish cookie requests seen
nul=N Number of rlq reqs given a NULL parent
wcr=N Number of rlq reqs waited on completion of creation
AttrChg n=N Number of attribute changed requests seen
ok=N Number of attr changed requests queued
nbf=N Number of attr changed rejected -ENOBUFS
oom=N Number of attr changed failed -ENOMEM
run=N Number of attr changed ops given CPU time
Allocs n=N Number of allocation requests seen
ok=N Number of successful alloc reqs
wt=N Number of alloc reqs that waited on lookup completion
nbf=N Number of alloc reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
ops=N Number of alloc reqs submitted
owt=N Number of alloc reqs waited for CPU time
Retrvls n=N Number of retrieval (read) requests seen
ok=N Number of successful retr reqs
wt=N Number of retr reqs that waited on lookup completion
nod=N Number of retr reqs returned -ENODATA
nbf=N Number of retr reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
int=N Number of retr reqs aborted -ERESTARTSYS
oom=N Number of retr reqs failed -ENOMEM
ops=N Number of retr reqs submitted
owt=N Number of retr reqs waited for CPU time
Stores n=N Number of storage (write) requests seen
ok=N Number of successful store reqs
agn=N Number of store reqs on a page already pending storage
nbf=N Number of store reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
oom=N Number of store reqs failed -ENOMEM
ops=N Number of store reqs submitted
run=N Number of store reqs granted CPU time
Ops pend=N Number of times async ops added to pending queues
run=N Number of times async ops given CPU time
enq=N Number of times async ops queued for processing
dfr=N Number of async ops queued for deferred release
rel=N Number of async ops released
gc=N Number of deferred-release async ops garbage collected
(*) /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
cat /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
JIFS SECS OBJ INST OP RUNS OBJ RUNS RETRV DLY RETRIEVLS
FS-Cache: Add the FS-Cache netfs API and documentation Add the API for a generic facility (FS-Cache) by which filesystems (such as AFS or NFS) may call on local caching capabilities without having to know anything about how the cache works, or even if there is a cache: +---------+ | | +--------------+ | NFS |--+ | | | | | +-->| CacheFS | +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | |--+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache | | | | |--+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | | | | | +-->| CacheFiles | | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache | | | +--------------+ +---------+ General documentation and documentation of the netfs specific API are provided in addition to the header files. As this patch stands, it is possible to build a filesystem against the facility and attempt to use it. All that will happen is that all requests will be immediately denied as if no cache is present. Further patches will implement the core of the facility. The facility will transfer requests from networking filesystems to appropriate caches if possible, or else gracefully deny them. If this facility is disabled in the kernel configuration, then all its operations will trivially reduce to nothing during compilation. WHY NOT I_MAPPING? ================== I have added my own API to implement caching rather than using i_mapping to do this for a number of reasons. These have been discussed a lot on the LKML and CacheFS mailing lists, but to summarise the basics: (1) Most filesystems don't do hole reportage. Holes in files are treated as blocks of zeros and can't be distinguished otherwise, making it difficult to distinguish blocks that have been read from the network and cached from those that haven't. (2) The backing inode must be fully populated before being exposed to userspace through the main inode because the VM/VFS goes directly to the backing inode and does not interrogate the front inode's VM ops. Therefore: (a) The backing inode must fit entirely within the cache. (b) All backed files currently open must fit entirely within the cache at the same time. (c) A working set of files in total larger than the cache may not be cached. (d) A file may not grow larger than the available space in the cache. (e) A file that's open and cached, and remotely grows larger than the cache is potentially stuffed. (3) Writes go to the backing filesystem, and can only be transferred to the network when the file is closed. (4) There's no record of what changes have been made, so the whole file must be written back. (5) The pages belong to the backing filesystem, and all metadata associated with that page are relevant only to the backing filesystem, and not anything stacked atop it. OVERVIEW ======== FS-Cache provides (or will provide) the following facilities: (1) Caches can be added / removed at any time, even whilst in use. (2) Adds a facility by which tags can be used to refer to caches, even if they're not available yet. (3) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected explicitly by use of tags. (4) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (1)). (5) A netfs may annotate cache objects that belongs to it. This permits the storage of coherency maintenance data. (6) Cache objects will be pinnable and space reservations will be possible. (7) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring rather to let the netfs remain oblivious. (8) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing cached there. (9) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of indices. (10) Indices can be used to group files together to reduce key size and to make group invalidation easier. The use of indices may make lookup quicker, but that's cache dependent. (11) Data I/O is effectively done directly to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or asynchronous. (12) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get recycled. (13) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an entry should be updated or deleted. FS-Cache maintains a virtual index tree in which all indices, files, objects and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more caches. FSDEF | +------------------------------------+ | | NFS AFS | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+ | | | | homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com | | | +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+ | | | | | | 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002 | | | | | +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak | | PG0 +-------+ | | 00001 00003 | +---+---+ | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 In the example above, two netfs's can be seen to be backed: NFS and AFS. These have different index hierarchies: (*) The NFS primary index will probably contain per-server indices. Each server index is indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended attribute objects themselves have page-array contents. (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes. Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an array of pages. The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's have entries. Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only reside in one cache. The FS-Cache overview can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:36 +00:00
===== ===== ========= ========= ========= ========= =========
This shows the breakdown of the number of times each amount of time
between 0 jiffies and HZ-1 jiffies a variety of tasks took to run. The
columns are as follows:
COLUMN TIME MEASUREMENT
======= =======================================================
OBJ INST Length of time to instantiate an object
OP RUNS Length of time a call to process an operation took
OBJ RUNS Length of time a call to process an object event took
RETRV DLY Time between an requesting a read and lookup completing
RETRIEVLS Time between beginning and end of a retrieval
Each row shows the number of events that took a particular range of times.
Each step is 1 jiffy in size. The JIFS column indicates the particular
jiffy range covered, and the SECS field the equivalent number of seconds.
FS-Cache: Add the FS-Cache netfs API and documentation Add the API for a generic facility (FS-Cache) by which filesystems (such as AFS or NFS) may call on local caching capabilities without having to know anything about how the cache works, or even if there is a cache: +---------+ | | +--------------+ | NFS |--+ | | | | | +-->| CacheFS | +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | |--+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache | | | | |--+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | | | | | +-->| CacheFiles | | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache | | | +--------------+ +---------+ General documentation and documentation of the netfs specific API are provided in addition to the header files. As this patch stands, it is possible to build a filesystem against the facility and attempt to use it. All that will happen is that all requests will be immediately denied as if no cache is present. Further patches will implement the core of the facility. The facility will transfer requests from networking filesystems to appropriate caches if possible, or else gracefully deny them. If this facility is disabled in the kernel configuration, then all its operations will trivially reduce to nothing during compilation. WHY NOT I_MAPPING? ================== I have added my own API to implement caching rather than using i_mapping to do this for a number of reasons. These have been discussed a lot on the LKML and CacheFS mailing lists, but to summarise the basics: (1) Most filesystems don't do hole reportage. Holes in files are treated as blocks of zeros and can't be distinguished otherwise, making it difficult to distinguish blocks that have been read from the network and cached from those that haven't. (2) The backing inode must be fully populated before being exposed to userspace through the main inode because the VM/VFS goes directly to the backing inode and does not interrogate the front inode's VM ops. Therefore: (a) The backing inode must fit entirely within the cache. (b) All backed files currently open must fit entirely within the cache at the same time. (c) A working set of files in total larger than the cache may not be cached. (d) A file may not grow larger than the available space in the cache. (e) A file that's open and cached, and remotely grows larger than the cache is potentially stuffed. (3) Writes go to the backing filesystem, and can only be transferred to the network when the file is closed. (4) There's no record of what changes have been made, so the whole file must be written back. (5) The pages belong to the backing filesystem, and all metadata associated with that page are relevant only to the backing filesystem, and not anything stacked atop it. OVERVIEW ======== FS-Cache provides (or will provide) the following facilities: (1) Caches can be added / removed at any time, even whilst in use. (2) Adds a facility by which tags can be used to refer to caches, even if they're not available yet. (3) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected explicitly by use of tags. (4) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (1)). (5) A netfs may annotate cache objects that belongs to it. This permits the storage of coherency maintenance data. (6) Cache objects will be pinnable and space reservations will be possible. (7) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring rather to let the netfs remain oblivious. (8) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing cached there. (9) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of indices. (10) Indices can be used to group files together to reduce key size and to make group invalidation easier. The use of indices may make lookup quicker, but that's cache dependent. (11) Data I/O is effectively done directly to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or asynchronous. (12) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get recycled. (13) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an entry should be updated or deleted. FS-Cache maintains a virtual index tree in which all indices, files, objects and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more caches. FSDEF | +------------------------------------+ | | NFS AFS | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+ | | | | homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com | | | +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+ | | | | | | 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002 | | | | | +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak | | PG0 +-------+ | | 00001 00003 | +---+---+ | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 In the example above, two netfs's can be seen to be backed: NFS and AFS. These have different index hierarchies: (*) The NFS primary index will probably contain per-server indices. Each server index is indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended attribute objects themselves have page-array contents. (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes. Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an array of pages. The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's have entries. Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only reside in one cache. The FS-Cache overview can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:36 +00:00
=========
DEBUGGING
=========
If CONFIG_FSCACHE_DEBUG is enabled, the FS-Cache facility can have runtime
debugging enabled by adjusting the value in:
FS-Cache: Add the FS-Cache netfs API and documentation Add the API for a generic facility (FS-Cache) by which filesystems (such as AFS or NFS) may call on local caching capabilities without having to know anything about how the cache works, or even if there is a cache: +---------+ | | +--------------+ | NFS |--+ | | | | | +-->| CacheFS | +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | |--+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache | | | | |--+ +---------+ +-->| | | | | | | +--------------+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | | | | | +-->| CacheFiles | | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache | | | +--------------+ +---------+ General documentation and documentation of the netfs specific API are provided in addition to the header files. As this patch stands, it is possible to build a filesystem against the facility and attempt to use it. All that will happen is that all requests will be immediately denied as if no cache is present. Further patches will implement the core of the facility. The facility will transfer requests from networking filesystems to appropriate caches if possible, or else gracefully deny them. If this facility is disabled in the kernel configuration, then all its operations will trivially reduce to nothing during compilation. WHY NOT I_MAPPING? ================== I have added my own API to implement caching rather than using i_mapping to do this for a number of reasons. These have been discussed a lot on the LKML and CacheFS mailing lists, but to summarise the basics: (1) Most filesystems don't do hole reportage. Holes in files are treated as blocks of zeros and can't be distinguished otherwise, making it difficult to distinguish blocks that have been read from the network and cached from those that haven't. (2) The backing inode must be fully populated before being exposed to userspace through the main inode because the VM/VFS goes directly to the backing inode and does not interrogate the front inode's VM ops. Therefore: (a) The backing inode must fit entirely within the cache. (b) All backed files currently open must fit entirely within the cache at the same time. (c) A working set of files in total larger than the cache may not be cached. (d) A file may not grow larger than the available space in the cache. (e) A file that's open and cached, and remotely grows larger than the cache is potentially stuffed. (3) Writes go to the backing filesystem, and can only be transferred to the network when the file is closed. (4) There's no record of what changes have been made, so the whole file must be written back. (5) The pages belong to the backing filesystem, and all metadata associated with that page are relevant only to the backing filesystem, and not anything stacked atop it. OVERVIEW ======== FS-Cache provides (or will provide) the following facilities: (1) Caches can be added / removed at any time, even whilst in use. (2) Adds a facility by which tags can be used to refer to caches, even if they're not available yet. (3) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected explicitly by use of tags. (4) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (1)). (5) A netfs may annotate cache objects that belongs to it. This permits the storage of coherency maintenance data. (6) Cache objects will be pinnable and space reservations will be possible. (7) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring rather to let the netfs remain oblivious. (8) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing cached there. (9) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of indices. (10) Indices can be used to group files together to reduce key size and to make group invalidation easier. The use of indices may make lookup quicker, but that's cache dependent. (11) Data I/O is effectively done directly to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or asynchronous. (12) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get recycled. (13) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an entry should be updated or deleted. FS-Cache maintains a virtual index tree in which all indices, files, objects and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more caches. FSDEF | +------------------------------------+ | | NFS AFS | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+ | | | | homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com | | | +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+ | | | | | | 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002 | | | | | +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak | | PG0 +-------+ | | 00001 00003 | +---+---+ | | | PG0 PG1 PG2 In the example above, two netfs's can be seen to be backed: NFS and AFS. These have different index hierarchies: (*) The NFS primary index will probably contain per-server indices. Each server index is indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended attribute objects themselves have page-array contents. (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes. Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an array of pages. The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's have entries. Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only reside in one cache. The FS-Cache overview can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in: Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 15:42:36 +00:00
/sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
This is a bitmask of debugging streams to enable:
BIT VALUE STREAM POINT
======= ======= =============================== =======================
0 1 Cache management Function entry trace
1 2 Function exit trace
2 4 General
3 8 Cookie management Function entry trace
4 16 Function exit trace
5 32 General
6 64 Page handling Function entry trace
7 128 Function exit trace
8 256 General
9 512 Operation management Function entry trace
10 1024 Function exit trace
11 2048 General
The appropriate set of values should be OR'd together and the result written to
the control file. For example:
echo $((1|8|64)) >/sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
will turn on all function entry debugging.