Commit Graph

45 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Mike Snitzer
07f2b6e038 dm thin: ensure user takes action to validate data and metadata consistency
If a thin metadata operation fails the current transaction will abort,
whereby causing potential for IO layers up the stack (e.g. filesystems)
to have data loss.  As such, set THIN_METADATA_NEEDS_CHECK_FLAG in the
thin metadata's superblock which:
1) requires the user verify the thin metadata is consistent (e.g. use
   thin_check, etc)
2) suggests the user verify the thin data is consistent (e.g. use fsck)

The only way to clear the superblock's THIN_METADATA_NEEDS_CHECK_FLAG is
to run thin_repair.

On metadata operation failure: abort current metadata transaction, set
pool in read-only mode, and now set the needs_check flag.

As part of this change, constraints are introduced or relaxed:
* don't allow a pool to transition to write mode if needs_check is set
* don't allow data or metadata space to be resized if needs_check is set
* if a thin pool's metadata space is exhausted: the kernel will now
  force the user to take the pool offline for repair before the kernel
  will allow the metadata space to be extended.

Also, update Documentation to include information about when the thin
provisioning target commits metadata, how it handles metadata failures
and running out of space.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
2014-03-05 15:25:35 -05:00
Mike Snitzer
7d48935eff dm thin: allow metadata space larger than supported to go unused
It was always intended that a user could provide a thin metadata device
that is larger than the max supported by the on-disk format.  The extra
space would just go unused.

Unfortunately that never worked.  If the user attempted to use a larger
metadata device on creation they would get an error like the following:

 device-mapper: space map common: space map too large
 device-mapper: transaction manager: couldn't create metadata space map
 device-mapper: thin metadata: tm_create_with_sm failed
 device-mapper: table: 252:17: thin-pool: Error creating metadata object
 device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table

Fix this by allowing the initial metadata space map creation to cap its
size at the max number of blocks supported (DM_SM_METADATA_MAX_BLOCKS).
get_metadata_dev_size() must also impose DM_SM_METADATA_MAX_BLOCKS (via
THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS), otherwise extending metadata would cap at
THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS_WARNING (which is larger than supported).

Also, the calculation for THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS didn't account for
the sizeof the disk_bitmap_header.  So the supported maximum metadata
size is a bit smaller (reduced from 33423360 to 33292800 sectors).

Lastly, remove the "excess space will not be used" warning message from
get_metadata_dev_size(); it resulted in printing the warning multiple
times.  Factor out warn_if_metadata_device_too_big(), call it from
pool_ctr() and maybe_resize_metadata_dev().

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
2014-02-27 11:49:08 -05:00
Mike Snitzer
4d1662a30d dm thin: avoid metadata commit if a pool's thin devices haven't changed
Commit 905e51b ("dm thin: commit outstanding data every second")
introduced a periodic commit.  This commit occurs regardless of whether
any thin devices have made changes.

Fix the periodic commit to check if any of a pool's thin devices have
changed using dm_pool_changed_this_transaction().

Reported-by: Alexander Larsson <alexl@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
2014-02-17 11:00:05 -05:00
Joe Thornber
19fa1a6756 dm thin: fix discard support to a previously shared block
If a snapshot is created and later deleted the origin dm_thin_device's
snapshotted_time will have been updated to reflect the snapshot's
creation time.  The 'shared' flag in the dm_thin_lookup_result struct
returned from dm_thin_find_block() is an approximation based on
snapshotted_time -- this is done to avoid 0(n), or worse, time
complexity.  In this case, the shared flag would be true.

But because the 'shared' flag reflects an approximation a block can be
incorrectly assumed to be shared (e.g. false positive for 'shared'
because the snapshot no longer exists).  This could result in discards
issued to a thin device not being passed down to the pool's underlying
data device.

To fix this we double check that a thin block is really still in-use
after a mapping is removed using dm_pool_block_is_used().  If the
reference count for a block is now zero the discard is allowed to be
passed down.

Also add a 'definitely_not_shared' member to the dm_thin_new_mapping
structure -- reflects that the 'shared' flag in the response from
dm_thin_find_block() can only be held as definitive if false is
returned.

Resolves: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1043527

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
2014-01-07 10:11:43 -05:00
Joe Thornber
9b7aaa64f9 dm thin: allow pool in read-only mode to transition to read-write mode
A thin-pool may be in read-only mode because the pool's data or metadata
space was exhausted.  To allow for recovery, by adding more space to the
pool, we must allow a pool to transition from PM_READ_ONLY to PM_WRITE
mode.  Otherwise, running out of space will render the pool permanently
read-only.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
2013-12-10 16:35:13 -05:00
Joe Thornber
ac8c3f3df6 dm thin: generate event when metadata threshold passed
Generate a dm event when the amount of remaining thin pool metadata
space falls below a certain level.

The threshold is taken to be a quarter of the size of the metadata
device with a minimum threshold of 4MB.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2013-05-10 14:37:21 +01:00
Joe Thornber
24347e9595 dm thin: detect metadata device resizing
Allow the dm thin pool metadata device to be extended.

Whenever a pool is resumed, detect whether the size of the metadata
device has increased, and if so, extend the metadata to use the new
space.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2013-05-10 14:37:19 +01:00
Joe Thornber
b17446df2e dm thin: refactor data dev resize
Refactor device size functions in preparation for similar metadata
device resizing functions.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2013-05-10 14:37:18 +01:00
Mike Snitzer
018cede93c dm persistent data: set some btree fn parms const
Mark some constant parameters constant in some dm-btree functions.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2013-03-01 22:45:47 +00:00
Joe Thornber
e3cbf94513 dm persistent data: fix nested btree deletion
When deleting nested btrees, the code forgets to delete the innermost
btree.  The thin-metadata code serendipitously compensates for this by
claiming there is one extra layer in the tree.

This patch corrects both problems.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-12-21 20:23:32 +00:00
Joe Thornber
da105ed5fd dm thin metadata: introduce dm_pool_abort_metadata
Introduce dm_pool_abort_metadata to abort the current metadata
transaction.  Generally this will only be called when bad things are
happening and dm-thin is trying to roll back to a good state for
read-only mode.

It's complicated by the fact that the metadata device may have failed
completely causing the abort to be unable to read the old transaction.
In this case the metadata object is placed in a 'fail' mode and
everything fails apart from destroying it.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:15 +01:00
Joe Thornber
12ba58af46 dm thin metadata: introduce dm_pool_metadata_set_read_only
Introduce dm_pool_metadata_set_read_only to put the underlying block
manager into read-only mode.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:15 +01:00
Joe Thornber
40db5a5376 dm thin metadata: add dm_thin_changed_this_transaction
Introduce dm_thin_changed_this_transaction to dm-thin-metadata to publish a
useful bit of information we're already tracking.  This will help dm thin
decide when to commit.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:14 +01:00
Joe Thornber
66b1edc05e dm thin metadata: add format option to dm_pool_metadata_open
Add a parameter to dm_pool_metadata_open to indicate whether or not an
unformatted metadata area should be formatted.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:14 +01:00
Joe Thornber
0fa5b17b08 dm thin metadata: tidy up open and format error paths
Tidy up error path in __open_metadata and __format_metadata in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:14 +01:00
Mike Snitzer
d73ec52538 dm thin metadata: only check incompat features on open
Factor out __check_incompat_features and only call it once when we open
the metadata device rather than at the beginning of every transaction.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:13 +01:00
Joe Thornber
b793995108 dm thin metadata: remove duplicate pmd initialisation
Remove some duplicate initialisation of struct dm_pool_metadata.

These pmd fields are initialised by both:
  __format_metadata's calls to dm_btree_empty
  __write_initial_superblock + __begin_transaction

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:13 +01:00
Joe Thornber
8801e06945 dm thin metadata: remove create parameter from __create_persistent_data_objects
Remove 'create' parameter from __create_persistent_data_objects() in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:13 +01:00
Joe Thornber
237074c0a3 dm thin metadata: move __superblock_all_zeroes to __open_or_format_metadata
Move the check for __superblock_all_zeroes from
__create_persistent_data_objects() down to __open_or_format_metadata in
dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:13 +01:00
Joe Thornber
a97e5e6fd0 dm thin metadata: remove nr_blocks arg from __create_persistent_data_objects
Remove nr_blocks arg from __create_persistent_data_objects in dm-thin-metadata.
It was always passed as zero.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:12 +01:00
Joe Thornber
e4d2205cdf dm thin metadata: split __open or format metadata
Split __open_or_format_metadata into __format_metadata and __open_metadata in
dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:12 +01:00
Joe Thornber
d6332814e3 dm thin metadata: use struct dm_pool_metadata members in __open_or_format_metadata
Clean up __open_or_format_metadata in dm-thin-metadata by using struct
dm_pool_metadata members to replace local variables.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:12 +01:00
Joe Thornber
583ceee2ed dm thin metadata: zero unused superblock uuid
Zero the unused uuid when initialising the metadata superblock.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:11 +01:00
Joe Thornber
270938bac5 dm thin metadata: lift __begin_transaction out of __write_initial_superblock
Lift the call to __begin_transaction out of __write_initial_superblock in
dm-thin-metadata.  Called higher up the call chain now.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:11 +01:00
Joe Thornber
10d2a9ff7c dm thin metadata: move dm_commit_pool_metadata into __write_initial_superblock
Move dm_commit_pool_metadata inline into __write_initial_superblock in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:11 +01:00
Joe Thornber
9cb6653f9a dm thin metadata: factor out __write_initial_superblock
Factor out __write_initial_superblock and also pull some other initial
creation code out of dm_pool_metadata_open.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:10 +01:00
Joe Thornber
6a0ebd31b6 dm thin metadata: lift some initialisation out of __open_or_format_metadata
Lift some initialisation out of __open_or_format_metadata in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:10 +01:00
Joe Thornber
f9dd9352b9 dm thin metadata: factor __destroy_persistent_data out of dm_pool_metadata_close
Factor __destroy_persistent_data_objects out of dm_pool_metadata_close.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:10 +01:00
Joe Thornber
332627db00 dm thin metadata: move bm creation code into create_persistent_data_objects
Move block manager creation and the check for unformatted metadata into
__create_persistent_data_objects().

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:10 +01:00
Joe Thornber
77f49a4027 dm thin metadata: rename init_pmd to __create_persistent_data_objects
Rename init_pmd to __create_persistent_data_objects in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:10 +01:00
Joe Thornber
2597119206 dm thin metadata: wrap superblock locking
Introduce wrappers to handle write locking the superblock
appropriately.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:09 +01:00
Joe Thornber
384ef0e62e dm persistent data: tidy transaction manager creation fns
Tidy the transaction manager creation functions.

They no longer lock the superblock.  Superblock locking is pulled out to
the caller.

Also export dm_bm_write_lock_zero.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:09 +01:00
Joe Thornber
eb04cf634f dm thin metadata: stop tracking need for commit
Remove an optimisation that tracks whether or not a thin metadata commit
is needed.

If dm_pool_commit_metadata() is called and no changes have been made
to the metadata then this optimisation avoided writing to disk.

Removing because we're going to do something better later.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:08 +01:00
Joe Thornber
51a0f659c0 dm persistent data: create new dm_block_manager struct
This patch introduces a separate struct for the block_manager.
It also uses IS_ERR to check the return value of dm_bufio_client_create
instead of testing incorrectly for NULL.

Prior to this patch a struct dm_block_manager was really an alias for
a struct dm_bufio_client.  We want to add some functionality to the
block manager that will require extra fields, so this one to one
mapping is no longer valid.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:08 +01:00
Joe Thornber
41675aea32 dm thin metadata: factor __setup_btree_details out of init_pmd
Factor __setup_btree_details out of init_pmd in dm-thin-metadata.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:08:08 +01:00
Joe Thornber
8c971178a7 dm thin metadata: introduce THIN_MAX_CONCURRENT_LOCKS
Introduce THIN_MAX_CONCURRENT_LOCKS into dm-thin-metadata to
give a name to an otherwise "magic" number.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:07:58 +01:00
Joe Thornber
d973ac196b dm thin metadata: remove pointless label from __commit_transaction
Remove the pointless label 'out' from __commit_transaction in
dm-thin-metadata.c

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:07:58 +01:00
Mike Snitzer
17b7d63f7e dm thin: clean up compiler warning
Clean up "warning: dubious: !x & y".  Also make it clear that
__snapshotted_since() returns a bool and that dm_thin_lookup_result's
'shared' member is a flag.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-07-27 15:07:57 +01:00
Joe Thornber
cc8394d86f dm thin: provide userspace access to pool metadata
This patch implements two new messages that can be sent to the thin
pool target allowing it to take a snapshot of the _metadata_.  This,
read-only snapshot can be accessed by userland, concurrently with the
live target.

Only one metadata snapshot can be held at a time.  The pool's status
line will give the block location for the current msnap.

Since version 0.1.5 of the userland thin provisioning tools, the
thin_dump program displays the msnap as follows:

    thin_dump -m <msnap root> <metadata dev>

Available here: https://github.com/jthornber/thin-provisioning-tools

Now that userland can access the metadata we can do various things
that have traditionally been kernel side tasks:

     i) Incremental backups.

     By using metadata snapshots we can work out what blocks have
     changed over time.  Combined with data snapshots we can ensure
     the data doesn't change while we back it up.

     A short proof of concept script can be found here:

     https://github.com/jthornber/thinp-test-suite/blob/master/incremental_backup_example.rb

     ii) Migration of thin devices from one pool to another.

     iii) Merging snapshots back into an external origin.

     iv) Asyncronous replication.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-06-03 00:30:01 +01:00
Mike Snitzer
c4a69ecdb4 dm thin: relax hard limit on the maximum size of a metadata device
The thin metadata format can only make use of a device that is <=
THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS (currently 15.9375 GB).  Therefore, there is no
practical benefit to using a larger device.

However, it may be that other factors impose a certain granularity for
the space that is allocated to a device (E.g. lvm2 can impose a coarse
granularity through the use of large, >= 1 GB, physical extents).

Rather than reject a larger metadata device, during thin-pool device
construction, switch to allowing it but issue a warning if a device
larger than THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS_WARNING (16 GB) is
provided.  Any space over 15.9375 GB will not be used.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-03-28 18:41:28 +01:00
Joe Thornber
fef838cc1a dm thin metadata: pass correct space map to dm_sm_root_size
Fix a harmless typo.

The root is a chunk of data that gets written to the superblock.  This
data is used to recreate the space map when opening a metadata area.
We have two space maps; one tracking space on the metadata device and
one of the data device.  Both of these use the same format for their
root, so this typo was harmless.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-03-28 18:41:25 +01:00
Joe Thornber
af63bcb817 dm thin metadata: decrement counter after removing mapped block
Correct the number of mapped sectors shown on a thin device's
status line by decrementing td->mapped_blocks in __remove() each time
a block is removed.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-03-07 19:09:44 +00:00
Joe Thornber
4469a5f387 dm thin metadata: unlock superblock in init_pmd error path
If dm_sm_disk_create() fails the superblock must be unlocked.

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-03-07 19:09:43 +00:00
Mike Snitzer
1f3db25d8b dm thin metadata: remove incorrect close_device on creation error paths
The __open_device() error paths in __create_thin() and __create_snap()
incorrectly call __close_device() even if td was not initialized by
__open_device().  Remove this.

Also document __open_device() return values, remove a redundant
td->changed = 1 in __create_thin(), and insert an additional
safeguard against creating an already-existing device.

Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2012-03-07 19:09:41 +00:00
Joe Thornber
991d9fa02d dm: add thin provisioning target
Initial EXPERIMENTAL implementation of device-mapper thin provisioning
with snapshot support.  The 'thin' target is used to create instances of
the virtual devices that are hosted in the 'thin-pool' target.  The
thin-pool target provides data sharing among devices.  This sharing is
made possible using the persistent-data library in the previous patch.

The main highlight of this implementation, compared to the previous
implementation of snapshots, is that it allows many virtual devices to
be stored on the same data volume, simplifying administration and
allowing sharing of data between volumes (thus reducing disk usage).

Another big feature is support for arbitrary depth of recursive
snapshots (snapshots of snapshots of snapshots ...).  The previous
implementation of snapshots did this by chaining together lookup tables,
and so performance was O(depth).  This new implementation uses a single
data structure so we don't get this degradation with depth.

For further information and examples of how to use this, please read
Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt

Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <thornber@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2011-10-31 20:21:18 +00:00