[PATCH] OCFS2: The Second Oracle Cluster Filesystem

dlmfs: A minimal dlm userspace interface implemented via a virtual
file system.
Most of the OCFS2 tools make use of this to take cluster locks when
doing operations on the file system.

Signed-off-by: Mark Fasheh <mark.fasheh@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Kurt Hackel <kurt.hackel@oracle.com>

1 files changed, 130 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/dlmfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/dlmfs.txt
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+dlmfs
+==================
+A minimal DLM userspace interface implemented via a virtual file
+system.
+
+dlmfs is built with OCFS2 as it requires most of its infrastructure.
+
+Project web page:    http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2
+Tools web page:      http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2-tools
+OCFS2 mailing lists: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/mailman/
+
+All code copyright 2005 Oracle except when otherwise noted.
+
+CREDITS
+=======
+
+Some code taken from ramfs which is Copyright (C) 2000 Linus Torvalds
+and Transmeta Corp.
+
+Mark Fasheh <mark.fasheh@oracle.com>
+
+Caveats
+=======
+- Right now it only works with the OCFS2 DLM, though support for other
+  DLM implementations should not be a major issue.
+
+Mount options
+=============
+None
+
+Usage
+=====
+
+If you're just interested in OCFS2, then please see ocfs2.txt. The
+rest of this document will be geared towards those who want to use
+dlmfs for easy to setup and easy to use clustered locking in
+userspace.
+
+Setup
+=====
+
+dlmfs requires that the OCFS2 cluster infrastructure be in
+place. Please download ocfs2-tools from the above url and configure a
+cluster.
+
+You'll want to start heartbeating on a volume which all the nodes in
+your lockspace can access. The easiest way to do this is via
+ocfs2_hb_ctl (distributed with ocfs2-tools). Right now it requires
+that an OCFS2 file system be in place so that it can automatically
+find it's heartbeat area, though it will eventually support heartbeat
+against raw disks.
+
+Please see the ocfs2_hb_ctl and mkfs.ocfs2 manual pages distributed
+with ocfs2-tools.
+
+Once you're heartbeating, DLM lock 'domains' can be easily created /
+destroyed and locks within them accessed.
+
+Locking
+=======
+
+Users may access dlmfs via standard file system calls, or they can use
+'libo2dlm' (distributed with ocfs2-tools) which abstracts the file
+system calls and presents a more traditional locking api.
+
+dlmfs handles lock caching automatically for the user, so a lock
+request for an already acquired lock will not generate another DLM
+call. Userspace programs are assumed to handle their own local
+locking.
+
+Two levels of locks are supported - Shared Read, and Exlcusive.
+Also supported is a Trylock operation.
+
+For information on the libo2dlm interface, please see o2dlm.h,
+distributed with ocfs2-tools.
+
+Lock value blocks can be read and written to a resource via read(2)
+and write(2) against the fd obtained via your open(2) call. The
+maximum currently supported LVB length is 64 bytes (though that is an
+OCFS2 DLM limitation). Through this mechanism, users of dlmfs can share
+small amounts of data amongst their nodes.
+
+mkdir(2) signals dlmfs to join a domain (which will have the same name
+as the resulting directory)
+
+rmdir(2) signals dlmfs to leave the domain
+
+Locks for a given domain are represented by regular inodes inside the
+domain directory.  Locking against them is done via the open(2) system
+call.
+
+The open(2) call will not return until your lock has been granted or
+an error has occurred, unless it has been instructed to do a trylock
+operation. If the lock succeeds, you'll get an fd.
+
+open(2) with O_CREAT to ensure the resource inode is created - dlmfs does
+not automatically create inodes for existing lock resources.
+
+Open Flag     Lock Request Type
+---------     -----------------
+O_RDONLY      Shared Read
+O_RDWR        Exclusive
+
+Open Flag     Resulting Locking Behavior
+---------     --------------------------
+O_NONBLOCK    Trylock operation
+
+You must provide exactly one of O_RDONLY or O_RDWR.
+
+If O_NONBLOCK is also provided and the trylock operation was valid but
+could not lock the resource then open(2) will return ETXTBUSY.
+
+close(2) drops the lock associated with your fd.
+
+Modes passed to mkdir(2) or open(2) are adhered to locally. Chown is
+supported locally as well. This means you can use them to restrict
+access to the resources via dlmfs on your local node only.
+
+The resource LVB may be read from the fd in either Shared Read or
+Exclusive modes via the read(2) system call. It can be written via
+write(2) only when open in Exclusive mode.
+
+Once written, an LVB will be visible to other nodes who obtain Read
+Only or higher level locks on the resource.
+
+See Also
+========
+http://opendlm.sourceforge.net/cvsmirror/opendlm/docs/dlmbook_final.pdf
+
+For more information on the VMS distributed locking API.