Merge tag 'v4.0-rc1' into perf/core, to refresh the tree

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 94 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/dax.txt
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+Direct Access for files
+-----------------------
+
+Motivation
+----------
+
+The page cache is usually used to buffer reads and writes to files.
+It is also used to provide the pages which are mapped into userspace
+by a call to mmap.
+
+For block devices that are memory-like, the page cache pages would be
+unnecessary copies of the original storage.  The DAX code removes the
+extra copy by performing reads and writes directly to the storage device.
+For file mappings, the storage device is mapped directly into userspace.
+
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+If you have a block device which supports DAX, you can make a filesystem
+on it as usual.  When mounting it, use the -o dax option manually
+or add 'dax' to the options in /etc/fstab.
+
+
+Implementation Tips for Block Driver Writers
+--------------------------------------------
+
+To support DAX in your block driver, implement the 'direct_access'
+block device operation.  It is used to translate the sector number
+(expressed in units of 512-byte sectors) to a page frame number (pfn)
+that identifies the physical page for the memory.  It also returns a
+kernel virtual address that can be used to access the memory.
+
+The direct_access method takes a 'size' parameter that indicates the
+number of bytes being requested.  The function should return the number
+of bytes that can be contiguously accessed at that offset.  It may also
+return a negative errno if an error occurs.
+
+In order to support this method, the storage must be byte-accessible by
+the CPU at all times.  If your device uses paging techniques to expose
+a large amount of memory through a smaller window, then you cannot
+implement direct_access.  Equally, if your device can occasionally
+stall the CPU for an extended period, you should also not attempt to
+implement direct_access.
+
+These block devices may be used for inspiration:
+- axonram: Axon DDR2 device driver
+- brd: RAM backed block device driver
+- dcssblk: s390 dcss block device driver
+
+
+Implementation Tips for Filesystem Writers
+------------------------------------------
+
+Filesystem support consists of
+- adding support to mark inodes as being DAX by setting the S_DAX flag in
+  i_flags
+- implementing the direct_IO address space operation, and calling
+  dax_do_io() instead of blockdev_direct_IO() if S_DAX is set
+- implementing an mmap file operation for DAX files which sets the
+  VM_MIXEDMAP flag on the VMA, and setting the vm_ops to include handlers
+  for fault and page_mkwrite (which should probably call dax_fault() and
+  dax_mkwrite(), passing the appropriate get_block() callback)
+- calling dax_truncate_page() instead of block_truncate_page() for DAX files
+- calling dax_zero_page_range() instead of zero_user() for DAX files
+- ensuring that there is sufficient locking between reads, writes,
+  truncates and page faults
+
+The get_block() callback passed to the DAX functions may return
+uninitialised extents.  If it does, it must ensure that simultaneous
+calls to get_block() (for example by a page-fault racing with a read()
+or a write()) work correctly.
+
+These filesystems may be used for inspiration:
+- ext2: the second extended filesystem, see Documentation/filesystems/ext2.txt
+- ext4: the fourth extended filesystem, see Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt
+
+
+Shortcomings
+------------
+
+Even if the kernel or its modules are stored on a filesystem that supports
+DAX on a block device that supports DAX, they will still be copied into RAM.
+
+The DAX code does not work correctly on architectures which have virtually
+mapped caches such as ARM, MIPS and SPARC.
+
+Calling get_user_pages() on a range of user memory that has been mmaped
+from a DAX file will fail as there are no 'struct page' to describe
+those pages.  This problem is being worked on.  That means that O_DIRECT
+reads/writes to those memory ranges from a non-DAX file will fail (note
+that O_DIRECT reads/writes _of a DAX file_ do work, it is the memory
+that is being accessed that is key here).  Other things that will not
+work include RDMA, sendfile() and splice().