dm: allow active and inactive tables to share dm_devs

Until this change, when loading a new DM table, DM core would re-open
all of the devices in the DM table.  Now, DM core will avoid redundant
device opens (and closes when destroying the old table) if the old
table already has a device open using the same mode.  This is achieved
by managing reference counts on the table_devices that DM core now
stores in the mapped_device structure (rather than in the dm_table
structure).  So a mapped_device's active and inactive dm_tables' dm_dev
lists now just point to the dm_devs stored in the mapped_device's
table_devices list.

This improvement in DM core's device reference counting has the
side-effect of fixing a long-standing limitation of the multipath
target: a DM multipath table couldn't include any paths that were unusable
(failed).  For example: if all paths have failed and you add a new,
working, path to the table; you can't use it since the table load would
fail due to it still containing failed paths.  Now a re-load of a
multipath table can include failed devices and when those devices become
active again they can be used instantly.

The device list code in dm.c isn't a straight copy/paste from the code in
dm-table.c, but it's very close (aside from some variable renames).  One
subtle difference is that find_table_device for the tables_devices list
will only match devices with the same name and mode.  This is because we
don't want to upgrade a device's mode in the active table when an
inactive table is loaded.

Access to the mapped_device structure's tables_devices list requires a
mutex (tables_devices_lock), so that tables cannot be created and
destroyed concurrently.

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Marzinski <bmarzins@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/dm-ioctl.h b/include/uapi/linux/dm-ioctl.h
index c8a43020..3315ab2 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/dm-ioctl.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/dm-ioctl.h
@@ -267,9 +267,9 @@ enum {
 #define DM_DEV_SET_GEOMETRY	_IOWR(DM_IOCTL, DM_DEV_SET_GEOMETRY_CMD, struct dm_ioctl)
 
 #define DM_VERSION_MAJOR	4
-#define DM_VERSION_MINOR	27
+#define DM_VERSION_MINOR	28
 #define DM_VERSION_PATCHLEVEL	0
-#define DM_VERSION_EXTRA	"-ioctl (2013-10-30)"
+#define DM_VERSION_EXTRA	"-ioctl (2014-09-17)"
 
 /* Status bits */
 #define DM_READONLY_FLAG	(1 << 0) /* In/Out */