dm-log.txt 2.3 KB

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  1. Device-Mapper Logging
  2. =====================
  3. The device-mapper logging code is used by some of the device-mapper
  4. RAID targets to track regions of the disk that are not consistent.
  5. A region (or portion of the address space) of the disk may be
  6. inconsistent because a RAID stripe is currently being operated on or
  7. a machine died while the region was being altered. In the case of
  8. mirrors, a region would be considered dirty/inconsistent while you
  9. are writing to it because the writes need to be replicated for all
  10. the legs of the mirror and may not reach the legs at the same time.
  11. Once all writes are complete, the region is considered clean again.
  12. There is a generic logging interface that the device-mapper RAID
  13. implementations use to perform logging operations (see
  14. dm_dirty_log_type in include/linux/dm-dirty-log.h). Various different
  15. logging implementations are available and provide different
  16. capabilities. The list includes:
  17. Type Files
  18. ==== =====
  19. disk drivers/md/dm-log.c
  20. core drivers/md/dm-log.c
  21. userspace drivers/md/dm-log-userspace* include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h
  22. The "disk" log type
  23. -------------------
  24. This log implementation commits the log state to disk. This way, the
  25. logging state survives reboots/crashes.
  26. The "core" log type
  27. -------------------
  28. This log implementation keeps the log state in memory. The log state
  29. will not survive a reboot or crash, but there may be a small boost in
  30. performance. This method can also be used if no storage device is
  31. available for storing log state.
  32. The "userspace" log type
  33. ------------------------
  34. This log type simply provides a way to export the log API to userspace,
  35. so log implementations can be done there. This is done by forwarding most
  36. logging requests to userspace, where a daemon receives and processes the
  37. request.
  38. The structure used for communication between kernel and userspace are
  39. located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h. Due to the frequency,
  40. diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
  41. kernel and userspace, 'connector' is used as the interface for
  42. communication.
  43. There are currently two userspace log implementations that leverage this
  44. framework - "clustered-disk" and "clustered-core". These implementations
  45. provide a cluster-coherent log for shared-storage. Device-mapper mirroring
  46. can be used in a shared-storage environment when the cluster log implementations
  47. are employed.