20 Nov, 2009

2 commits

  • Count entries to and exits from cache operation table functions. Maintain
    these as a single counter that's added to or removed from as appropriate.

    Signed-off-by: David Howells

    David Howells
     
  • Allow the current state of all fscache objects to be dumped by doing:

    cat /proc/fs/fscache/objects

    By default, all objects and all fields will be shown. This can be restricted
    by adding a suitable key to one of the caller's keyrings (such as the session
    keyring):

    keyctl add user fscache:objlist "" @s

    The are:

    K Show hexdump of object key (don't show if not given)
    A Show hexdump of object aux data (don't show if not given)

    And paired restrictions:

    C Show objects that have a cookie
    c Show objects that don't have a cookie
    B Show objects that are busy
    b Show objects that aren't busy
    W Show objects that have pending writes
    w Show objects that don't have pending writes
    R Show objects that have outstanding reads
    r Show objects that don't have outstanding reads
    S Show objects that have slow work queued
    s Show objects that don't have slow work queued

    If neither side of a restriction pair is given, then both are implied. For
    example:

    keyctl add user fscache:objlist KB @s

    shows objects that are busy, and lists their object keys, but does not dump
    their auxiliary data. It also implies "CcWwRrSs", but as 'B' is given, 'b' is
    not implied.

    Signed-off-by: David Howells

    David Howells
     

03 Apr, 2009

3 commits

  • 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, 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
    Acked-by: Steve Dickson
    Acked-by: Trond Myklebust
    Acked-by: Al Viro
    Tested-by: Daire Byrne

    David Howells
     
  • Implement the entry points by which a cache backend may initialise, add,
    declare an error upon and withdraw a cache.

    Further, an object is created in sysfs under which each cache added will get
    an object created:

    /sys/fs/fscache//

    All of this is described in Documentation/filesystems/caching/backend-api.txt
    added by a previous patch.

    Signed-off-by: David Howells
    Acked-by: Steve Dickson
    Acked-by: Trond Myklebust
    Acked-by: Al Viro
    Tested-by: Daire Byrne

    David Howells
     
  • 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
    Acked-by: Steve Dickson
    Acked-by: Trond Myklebust
    Acked-by: Al Viro
    Tested-by: Daire Byrne

    David Howells