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Author SHA1 Message Date
David Howells
952efe7b78 FS-Cache: Add and document asynchronous operation handling
Add and document asynchronous operation handling for use by FS-Cache's data
storage and retrieval routines.

The following documentation is added to:

	Documentation/filesystems/caching/operations.txt

		       ================================
		       ASYNCHRONOUS OPERATIONS HANDLING
		       ================================

========
OVERVIEW
========

FS-Cache has an asynchronous operations handling facility that it uses for its
data storage and retrieval routines.  Its operations are represented by
fscache_operation structs, though these are usually embedded into some other
structure.

This facility is available to and expected to be be used by the cache backends,
and FS-Cache will create operations and pass them off to the appropriate cache
backend for completion.

To make use of this facility, <linux/fscache-cache.h> should be #included.

===============================
OPERATION RECORD INITIALISATION
===============================

An operation is recorded in an fscache_operation struct:

	struct fscache_operation {
		union {
			struct work_struct fast_work;
			struct slow_work slow_work;
		};
		unsigned long		flags;
		fscache_operation_processor_t processor;
		...
	};

Someone wanting to issue an operation should allocate something with this
struct embedded in it.  They should initialise it by calling:

	void fscache_operation_init(struct fscache_operation *op,
				    fscache_operation_release_t release);

with the operation to be initialised and the release function to use.

The op->flags parameter should be set to indicate the CPU time provision and
the exclusivity (see the Parameters section).

The op->fast_work, op->slow_work and op->processor flags should be set as
appropriate for the CPU time provision (see the Parameters section).

FSCACHE_OP_WAITING may be set in op->flags prior to each submission of the
operation and waited for afterwards.

==========
PARAMETERS
==========

There are a number of parameters that can be set in the operation record's flag
parameter.  There are three options for the provision of CPU time in these
operations:

 (1) The operation may be done synchronously (FSCACHE_OP_MYTHREAD).  A thread
     may decide it wants to handle an operation itself without deferring it to
     another thread.

     This is, for example, used in read operations for calling readpages() on
     the backing filesystem in CacheFiles.  Although readpages() does an
     asynchronous data fetch, the determination of whether pages exist is done
     synchronously - and the netfs does not proceed until this has been
     determined.

     If this option is to be used, FSCACHE_OP_WAITING must be set in op->flags
     before submitting the operation, and the operating thread must wait for it
     to be cleared before proceeding:

		wait_on_bit(&op->flags, FSCACHE_OP_WAITING,
			    fscache_wait_bit, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);

 (2) The operation may be fast asynchronous (FSCACHE_OP_FAST), in which case it
     will be given to keventd to process.  Such an operation is not permitted
     to sleep on I/O.

     This is, for example, used by CacheFiles to copy data from a backing fs
     page to a netfs page after the backing fs has read the page in.

     If this option is used, op->fast_work and op->processor must be
     initialised before submitting the operation:

		INIT_WORK(&op->fast_work, do_some_work);

 (3) The operation may be slow asynchronous (FSCACHE_OP_SLOW), in which case it
     will be given to the slow work facility to process.  Such an operation is
     permitted to sleep on I/O.

     This is, for example, used by FS-Cache to handle background writes of
     pages that have just been fetched from a remote server.

     If this option is used, op->slow_work and op->processor must be
     initialised before submitting the operation:

		fscache_operation_init_slow(op, processor)

Furthermore, operations may be one of two types:

 (1) Exclusive (FSCACHE_OP_EXCLUSIVE).  Operations of this type may not run in
     conjunction with any other operation on the object being operated upon.

     An example of this is the attribute change operation, in which the file
     being written to may need truncation.

 (2) Shareable.  Operations of this type may be running simultaneously.  It's
     up to the operation implementation to prevent interference between other
     operations running at the same time.

=========
PROCEDURE
=========

Operations are used through the following procedure:

 (1) The submitting thread must allocate the operation and initialise it
     itself.  Normally this would be part of a more specific structure with the
     generic op embedded within.

 (2) The submitting thread must then submit the operation for processing using
     one of the following two functions:

	int fscache_submit_op(struct fscache_object *object,
			      struct fscache_operation *op);

	int fscache_submit_exclusive_op(struct fscache_object *object,
					struct fscache_operation *op);

     The first function should be used to submit non-exclusive ops and the
     second to submit exclusive ones.  The caller must still set the
     FSCACHE_OP_EXCLUSIVE flag.

     If successful, both functions will assign the operation to the specified
     object and return 0.  -ENOBUFS will be returned if the object specified is
     permanently unavailable.

     The operation manager will defer operations on an object that is still
     undergoing lookup or creation.  The operation will also be deferred if an
     operation of conflicting exclusivity is in progress on the object.

     If the operation is asynchronous, the manager will retain a reference to
     it, so the caller should put their reference to it by passing it to:

	void fscache_put_operation(struct fscache_operation *op);

 (3) If the submitting thread wants to do the work itself, and has marked the
     operation with FSCACHE_OP_MYTHREAD, then it should monitor
     FSCACHE_OP_WAITING as described above and check the state of the object if
     necessary (the object might have died whilst the thread was waiting).

     When it has finished doing its processing, it should call
     fscache_put_operation() on it.

 (4) The operation holds an effective lock upon the object, preventing other
     exclusive ops conflicting until it is released.  The operation can be
     enqueued for further immediate asynchronous processing by adjusting the
     CPU time provisioning option if necessary, eg:

	op->flags &= ~FSCACHE_OP_TYPE;
	op->flags |= ~FSCACHE_OP_FAST;

     and calling:

	void fscache_enqueue_operation(struct fscache_operation *op)

     This can be used to allow other things to have use of the worker thread
     pools.

=====================
ASYNCHRONOUS CALLBACK
=====================

When used in asynchronous mode, the worker thread pool will invoke the
processor method with a pointer to the operation.  This should then get at the
container struct by using container_of():

	static void fscache_write_op(struct fscache_operation *_op)
	{
		struct fscache_storage *op =
			container_of(_op, struct fscache_storage, op);
	...
	}

The caller holds a reference on the operation, and will invoke
fscache_put_operation() when the processor function returns.  The processor
function is at liberty to call fscache_enqueue_operation() or to take extra
references.

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 16:42:39 +01:00
David Howells
36c9559022 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 16:42:38 +01:00
David Howells
2868cbea72 FS-Cache: Bit waiting helpers
Add helpers for use with wait_on_bit().

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 16:42:38 +01:00
David Howells
955d00917f FS-Cache: Provide a slab for cookie allocation
Provide a slab from which can be allocated the FS-Cache cookies that will be
presented to the netfs.

Also provide a slab constructor and a function to recursively discard a cookie
and its ancestor chain.

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 16:42:38 +01:00
David Howells
0e04d4cefc FS-Cache: Add cache tag handling
Implement two features of FS-Cache:

 (1) The ability to request and release cache tags - names by which a cache may
     be known to a netfs, and thus selected for use.

 (2) An internal function by which a cache is selected by consulting the netfs,
     if the netfs wishes to be consulted.

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 16:42:37 +01:00
David Howells
a6891645cf FS-Cache: Root index definition
Add a description of the root index of the cache for later patches to make use
of.

The root index is owned by FS-Cache itself.  When a netfs requests caching
facilities, FS-Cache will, if one doesn't already exist, create an entry in
the root index with the key being the name of the netfs ("AFS" for example),
and the auxiliary data holding the index structure version supplied by the
netfs:

				     FSDEF
				       |
				 +-----------+
				 |           |
				NFS         AFS
			       [v=1]       [v=1]

If an entry with the appropriate name does already exist, the version is
compared.  If the version is different, the entire subtree from that entry
will be discarded and a new entry created.

The new entry will be an index, and a cookie referring to it will be passed to
the netfs.  This is then the root handle by which the netfs accesses the
cache.  It can create whatever objects it likes in that index, including
further indices.

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 16:42:37 +01:00
David Howells
7394daa8c6 FS-Cache: Add use of /proc and presentation of statistics
Make FS-Cache create its /proc interface and present various statistical
information through it.  Also provide the functions for updating this
information.

These features are enabled by:

	CONFIG_FSCACHE_PROC
	CONFIG_FSCACHE_STATS
	CONFIG_FSCACHE_HISTOGRAM

The /proc directory for FS-Cache is also exported so that caching modules can
add their own statistics there too.

The FS-Cache module is loadable at this point, and the statistics files can be
examined by userspace:

	cat /proc/fs/fscache/stats
	cat /proc/fs/fscache/histogram

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 16:42:37 +01:00
David Howells
06b3db1b9b FS-Cache: Add main configuration option, module entry points and debugging
Add the main configuration option, allowing FS-Cache to be selected; the
module entry and exit functions and the debugging stuff used by these patches.

The two configuration options added are:

	CONFIG_FSCACHE
	CONFIG_FSCACHE_DEBUG

The first enables the facility, and the second makes the debugging statements
enableable through the "debug" module parameter.  The value of this parameter
is a bitmask as described in:

	Documentation/filesystems/caching/fscache.txt

The module can be loaded at this point, but all it will do at this point in
the patch series is to start up the slow work facility and shut it down again.

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 16:42:36 +01:00