dm raid1: add userspace log

This patch contains a device-mapper mirror log module that forwards
requests to userspace for processing.

The structures used for communication between kernel and userspace are
located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h.  Due to the frequency,
diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
kernel and userspace, 'connector' was chosen as the interface for
communication.

The first log implementations written in userspace - "clustered-disk"
and "clustered-core" - support clustered shared storage.   A userspace
daemon (in the LVM2 source code repository) uses openAIS/corosync to
process requests in an ordered fashion with the rest of the nodes in the
cluster so as to prevent log state corruption.  Other implementations
with no association to LVM or openAIS/corosync, are certainly possible.

(Imagine if two machines are writing to the same region of a mirror.
They would both mark the region dirty, but you need a cluster-aware
entity that can handle properly marking the region clean when they are
done.  Otherwise, you might clear the region when the first machine is
done, not the second.)

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Brassow <jbrassow@redhat.com>
Cc: Evgeniy Polyakov <johnpol@2ka.mipt.ru>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 54 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..994dd75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+Device-Mapper Logging
+=====================
+The device-mapper logging code is used by some of the device-mapper
+RAID targets to track regions of the disk that are not consistent.
+A region (or portion of the address space) of the disk may be
+inconsistent because a RAID stripe is currently being operated on or
+a machine died while the region was being altered.  In the case of
+mirrors, a region would be considered dirty/inconsistent while you
+are writing to it because the writes need to be replicated for all
+the legs of the mirror and may not reach the legs at the same time.
+Once all writes are complete, the region is considered clean again.
+
+There is a generic logging interface that the device-mapper RAID
+implementations use to perform logging operations (see
+dm_dirty_log_type in include/linux/dm-dirty-log.h).  Various different
+logging implementations are available and provide different
+capabilities.  The list includes:
+
+Type		Files
+====		=====
+disk		drivers/md/dm-log.c
+core		drivers/md/dm-log.c
+userspace	drivers/md/dm-log-userspace* include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h
+
+The "disk" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation commits the log state to disk.  This way, the
+logging state survives reboots/crashes.
+
+The "core" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation keeps the log state in memory.  The log state
+will not survive a reboot or crash, but there may be a small boost in
+performance.  This method can also be used if no storage device is
+available for storing log state.
+
+The "userspace" log type
+------------------------
+This log type simply provides a way to export the log API to userspace,
+so log implementations can be done there.  This is done by forwarding most
+logging requests to userspace, where a daemon receives and processes the
+request.
+
+The structure used for communication between kernel and userspace are
+located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h.  Due to the frequency,
+diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
+kernel and userspace, 'connector' is used as the interface for
+communication.
+
+There are currently two userspace log implementations that leverage this
+framework - "clustered_disk" and "clustered_core".  These implementations
+provide a cluster-coherent log for shared-storage.  Device-mapper mirroring
+can be used in a shared-storage environment when the cluster log implementations
+are employed.