block: add ability to flag write back caching on a device

Add an internal helper and flag for setting whether a queue has
write back caching, or write through (or none). Add a sysfs file
to show this as well, and make it changeable from user space.

This will replace the (awkward) blk_queue_flush() interface that
drivers currently use to inform the block layer of write cache state
and capabilities.

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt b/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
index e5d9148..dce25d8 100644
--- a/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
@@ -141,6 +141,15 @@ control of this block device to that new IO scheduler. Note that writing
 an IO scheduler name to this file will attempt to load that IO scheduler
 module, if it isn't already present in the system.
 
+write_cache (RW)
+----------------
+When read, this file will display whether the device has write back
+caching enabled or not. It will return "write back" for the former
+case, and "write through" for the latter. Writing to this file can
+change the kernels view of the device, but it doesn't alter the
+device state. This means that it might not be safe to toggle the
+setting from "write back" to "write through", since that will also
+eliminate cache flushes issued by the kernel.
 
 
 Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>, February 2009