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diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.rst b/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..bafebf79da4b --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.rst @@ -0,0 +1,427 @@ +================= +Thin provisioning +================= + +Introduction +============ + +This document describes a collection of device-mapper targets that +between them implement thin-provisioning and snapshots. + +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. This simplifies administration and +allows the sharing of data between volumes, thus reducing disk usage. + +Another significant feature is support for an 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 to avoid this degradation +with depth. Fragmentation may still be an issue, however, in some +scenarios. + +Metadata is stored on a separate device from data, giving the +administrator some freedom, for example to: + +- Improve metadata resilience by storing metadata on a mirrored volume + but data on a non-mirrored one. + +- Improve performance by storing the metadata on SSD. + +Status +====== + +These targets are considered safe for production use. But different use +cases will have different performance characteristics, for example due +to fragmentation of the data volume. + +If you find this software is not performing as expected please mail +dm-devel@redhat.com with details and we'll try our best to improve +things for you. + +Userspace tools for checking and repairing the metadata have been fully +developed and are available as 'thin_check' and 'thin_repair'. The name +of the package that provides these utilities varies by distribution (on +a Red Hat distribution it is named 'device-mapper-persistent-data'). + +Cookbook +======== + +This section describes some quick recipes for using thin provisioning. +They use the dmsetup program to control the device-mapper driver +directly. End users will be advised to use a higher-level volume +manager such as LVM2 once support has been added. + +Pool device +----------- + +The pool device ties together the metadata volume and the data volume. +It maps I/O linearly to the data volume and updates the metadata via +two mechanisms: + +- Function calls from the thin targets + +- Device-mapper 'messages' from userspace which control the creation of new + virtual devices amongst other things. + +Setting up a fresh pool device +------------------------------ + +Setting up a pool device requires a valid metadata device, and a +data device. If you do not have an existing metadata device you can +make one by zeroing the first 4k to indicate empty metadata. + + dd if=/dev/zero of=$metadata_dev bs=4096 count=1 + +The amount of metadata you need will vary according to how many blocks +are shared between thin devices (i.e. through snapshots). If you have +less sharing than average you'll need a larger-than-average metadata device. + +As a guide, we suggest you calculate the number of bytes to use in the +metadata device as 48 * $data_dev_size / $data_block_size but round it up +to 2MB if the answer is smaller. If you're creating large numbers of +snapshots which are recording large amounts of change, you may find you +need to increase this. + +The largest size supported is 16GB: If the device is larger, +a warning will be issued and the excess space will not be used. + +Reloading a pool table +---------------------- + +You may reload a pool's table, indeed this is how the pool is resized +if it runs out of space. (N.B. While specifying a different metadata +device when reloading is not forbidden at the moment, things will go +wrong if it does not route I/O to exactly the same on-disk location as +previously.) + +Using an existing pool device +----------------------------- + +:: + + dmsetup create pool \ + --table "0 20971520 thin-pool $metadata_dev $data_dev \ + $data_block_size $low_water_mark" + +$data_block_size gives the smallest unit of disk space that can be +allocated at a time expressed in units of 512-byte sectors. +$data_block_size must be between 128 (64KB) and 2097152 (1GB) and a +multiple of 128 (64KB). $data_block_size cannot be changed after the +thin-pool is created. People primarily interested in thin provisioning +may want to use a value such as 1024 (512KB). People doing lots of +snapshotting may want a smaller value such as 128 (64KB). If you are +not zeroing newly-allocated data, a larger $data_block_size in the +region of 256000 (128MB) is suggested. + +$low_water_mark is expressed in blocks of size $data_block_size. If +free space on the data device drops below this level then a dm event +will be triggered which a userspace daemon should catch allowing it to +extend the pool device. Only one such event will be sent. + +No special event is triggered if a just resumed device's free space is below +the low water mark. However, resuming a device always triggers an +event; a userspace daemon should verify that free space exceeds the low +water mark when handling this event. + +A low water mark for the metadata device is maintained in the kernel and +will trigger a dm event if free space on the metadata device drops below +it. + +Updating on-disk metadata +------------------------- + +On-disk metadata is committed every time a FLUSH or FUA bio is written. +If no such requests are made then commits will occur every second. This +means the thin-provisioning target behaves like a physical disk that has +a volatile write cache. If power is lost you may lose some recent +writes. The metadata should always be consistent in spite of any crash. + +If data space is exhausted the pool will either error or queue IO +according to the configuration (see: error_if_no_space). If metadata +space is exhausted or a metadata operation fails: the pool will error IO +until the pool is taken offline and repair is performed to 1) fix any +potential inconsistencies and 2) clear the flag that imposes repair. +Once the pool's metadata device is repaired it may be resized, which +will allow the pool to return to normal operation. Note that if a pool +is flagged as needing repair, the pool's data and metadata devices +cannot be resized until repair is performed. It should also be noted +that when the pool's metadata space is exhausted the current metadata +transaction is aborted. Given that the pool will cache IO whose +completion may have already been acknowledged to upper IO layers +(e.g. filesystem) it is strongly suggested that consistency checks +(e.g. fsck) be performed on those layers when repair of the pool is +required. + +Thin provisioning +----------------- + +i) Creating a new thinly-provisioned volume. + + To create a new thinly- provisioned volume you must send a message to an + active pool device, /dev/mapper/pool in this example:: + + dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_thin 0" + + Here '0' is an identifier for the volume, a 24-bit number. It's up + to the caller to allocate and manage these identifiers. If the + identifier is already in use, the message will fail with -EEXIST. + +ii) Using a thinly-provisioned volume. + + Thinly-provisioned volumes are activated using the 'thin' target:: + + dmsetup create thin --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 0" + + The last parameter is the identifier for the thinp device. + +Internal snapshots +------------------ + +i) Creating an internal snapshot. + + Snapshots are created with another message to the pool. + + N.B. If the origin device that you wish to snapshot is active, you + must suspend it before creating the snapshot to avoid corruption. + This is NOT enforced at the moment, so please be careful! + + :: + + dmsetup suspend /dev/mapper/thin + dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_snap 1 0" + dmsetup resume /dev/mapper/thin + + Here '1' is the identifier for the volume, a 24-bit number. '0' is the + identifier for the origin device. + +ii) Using an internal snapshot. + + Once created, the user doesn't have to worry about any connection + between the origin and the snapshot. Indeed the snapshot is no + different from any other thinly-provisioned device and can be + snapshotted itself via the same method. It's perfectly legal to + have only one of them active, and there's no ordering requirement on + activating or removing them both. (This differs from conventional + device-mapper snapshots.) + + Activate it exactly the same way as any other thinly-provisioned volume:: + + dmsetup create snap --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 1" + +External snapshots +------------------ + +You can use an external **read only** device as an origin for a +thinly-provisioned volume. Any read to an unprovisioned area of the +thin device will be passed through to the origin. Writes trigger +the allocation of new blocks as usual. + +One use case for this is VM hosts that want to run guests on +thinly-provisioned volumes but have the base image on another device +(possibly shared between many VMs). + +You must not write to the origin device if you use this technique! +Of course, you may write to the thin device and take internal snapshots +of the thin volume. + +i) Creating a snapshot of an external device + + This is the same as creating a thin device. + You don't mention the origin at this stage. + + :: + + dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_thin 0" + +ii) Using a snapshot of an external device. + + Append an extra parameter to the thin target specifying the origin:: + + dmsetup create snap --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 0 /dev/image" + + N.B. All descendants (internal snapshots) of this snapshot require the + same extra origin parameter. + +Deactivation +------------ + +All devices using a pool must be deactivated before the pool itself +can be. + +:: + + dmsetup remove thin + dmsetup remove snap + dmsetup remove pool + +Reference +========= + +'thin-pool' target +------------------ + +i) Constructor + + :: + + thin-pool <metadata dev> <data dev> <data block size (sectors)> \ + <low water mark (blocks)> [<number of feature args> [<arg>]*] + + Optional feature arguments: + + skip_block_zeroing: + Skip the zeroing of newly-provisioned blocks. + + ignore_discard: + Disable discard support. + + no_discard_passdown: + Don't pass discards down to the underlying + data device, but just remove the mapping. + + read_only: + Don't allow any changes to be made to the pool + metadata. This mode is only available after the + thin-pool has been created and first used in full + read/write mode. It cannot be specified on initial + thin-pool creation. + + error_if_no_space: + Error IOs, instead of queueing, if no space. + + Data block size must be between 64KB (128 sectors) and 1GB + (2097152 sectors) inclusive. + + +ii) Status + + :: + + <transaction id> <used metadata blocks>/<total metadata blocks> + <used data blocks>/<total data blocks> <held metadata root> + ro|rw|out_of_data_space [no_]discard_passdown [error|queue]_if_no_space + needs_check|- metadata_low_watermark + + transaction id: + A 64-bit number used by userspace to help synchronise with metadata + from volume managers. + + used data blocks / total data blocks + If the number of free blocks drops below the pool's low water mark a + dm event will be sent to userspace. This event is edge-triggered and + it will occur only once after each resume so volume manager writers + should register for the event and then check the target's status. + + held metadata root: + The location, in blocks, of the metadata root that has been + 'held' for userspace read access. '-' indicates there is no + held root. + + discard_passdown|no_discard_passdown + Whether or not discards are actually being passed down to the + underlying device. When this is enabled when loading the table, + it can get disabled if the underlying device doesn't support it. + + ro|rw|out_of_data_space + If the pool encounters certain types of device failures it will + drop into a read-only metadata mode in which no changes to + the pool metadata (like allocating new blocks) are permitted. + + In serious cases where even a read-only mode is deemed unsafe + no further I/O will be permitted and the status will just + contain the string 'Fail'. The userspace recovery tools + should then be used. + + error_if_no_space|queue_if_no_space + If the pool runs out of data or metadata space, the pool will + either queue or error the IO destined to the data device. The + default is to queue the IO until more space is added or the + 'no_space_timeout' expires. The 'no_space_timeout' dm-thin-pool + module parameter can be used to change this timeout -- it + defaults to 60 seconds but may be disabled using a value of 0. + + needs_check + A metadata operation has failed, resulting in the needs_check + flag being set in the metadata's superblock. The metadata + device must be deactivated and checked/repaired before the + thin-pool can be made fully operational again. '-' indicates + needs_check is not set. + + metadata_low_watermark: + Value of metadata low watermark in blocks. The kernel sets this + value internally but userspace needs to know this value to + determine if an event was caused by crossing this threshold. + +iii) Messages + + create_thin <dev id> + Create a new thinly-provisioned device. + <dev id> is an arbitrary unique 24-bit identifier chosen by + the caller. + + create_snap <dev id> <origin id> + Create a new snapshot of another thinly-provisioned device. + <dev id> is an arbitrary unique 24-bit identifier chosen by + the caller. + <origin id> is the identifier of the thinly-provisioned device + of which the new device will be a snapshot. + + delete <dev id> + Deletes a thin device. Irreversible. + + set_transaction_id <current id> <new id> + Userland volume managers, such as LVM, need a way to + synchronise their external metadata with the internal metadata of the + pool target. The thin-pool target offers to store an + arbitrary 64-bit transaction id and return it on the target's + status line. To avoid races you must provide what you think + the current transaction id is when you change it with this + compare-and-swap message. + + reserve_metadata_snap + Reserve a copy of the data mapping btree for use by userland. + This allows userland to inspect the mappings as they were when + this message was executed. Use the pool's status command to + get the root block associated with the metadata snapshot. + + release_metadata_snap + Release a previously reserved copy of the data mapping btree. + +'thin' target +------------- + +i) Constructor + + :: + + thin <pool dev> <dev id> [<external origin dev>] + + pool dev: + the thin-pool device, e.g. /dev/mapper/my_pool or 253:0 + + dev id: + the internal device identifier of the device to be + activated. + + external origin dev: + an optional block device outside the pool to be treated as a + read-only snapshot origin: reads to unprovisioned areas of the + thin target will be mapped to this device. + +The pool doesn't store any size against the thin devices. If you +load a thin target that is smaller than you've been using previously, +then you'll have no access to blocks mapped beyond the end. If you +load a target that is bigger than before, then extra blocks will be +provisioned as and when needed. + +ii) Status + + <nr mapped sectors> <highest mapped sector> + If the pool has encountered device errors and failed, the status + will just contain the string 'Fail'. The userspace recovery + tools should then be used. + + In the case where <nr mapped sectors> is 0, there is no highest + mapped sector and the value of <highest mapped sector> is unspecified. |