Merge tag 'dm-3.15-changes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/device-mapper/linux-dm

Pull device mapper changes from Mike Snitzer:

 - Fix dm-cache corruption caused by discard_block_size > cache_block_size

 - Fix a lock-inversion detected by LOCKDEP in dm-cache

 - Fix a dangling bio bug in the dm-thinp target's process_deferred_bios
   error path

 - Fix corruption due to non-atomic transaction commit which allowed a
   metadata superblock to be written before all other metadata was
   successfully written -- this is common to all targets that use the
   persistent-data library's transaction manager (dm-thinp, dm-cache and
   dm-era).

 - Various small cleanups in the DM core

 - Add the dm-era target which is useful for keeping track of which
   blocks were written within a user defined period of time called an
   'era'.  Use cases include tracking changed blocks for backup
   software, and partially invalidating the contents of a cache to
   restore cache coherency after rolling back a vendor snapshot.

 - Improve the on-disk layout of multithreaded writes to the
   dm-thin-pool by splitting the pool's deferred bio list to be a
   per-thin device list and then sorting that list using an rb_tree.
   The subsequent read throughput of the data written via multiple
   threads improved by ~70%.

 - Simplify the multipath target's handling of queuing IO by pushing
   requests back to the request queue rather than queueing the IO
   internally.

* tag 'dm-3.15-changes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/device-mapper/linux-dm: (24 commits)
  dm cache: fix a lock-inversion
  dm thin: sort the per thin deferred bios using an rb_tree
  dm thin: use per thin device deferred bio lists
  dm thin: simplify pool_is_congested
  dm thin: fix dangling bio in process_deferred_bios error path
  dm mpath: print more useful warnings in multipath_message()
  dm-mpath: do not activate failed paths
  dm mpath: remove extra nesting in map function
  dm mpath: remove map_io()
  dm mpath: reduce memory pressure when requeuing
  dm mpath: remove process_queued_ios()
  dm mpath: push back requests instead of queueing
  dm table: add dm_table_run_md_queue_async
  dm mpath: do not call pg_init when it is already running
  dm: use RCU_INIT_POINTER instead of rcu_assign_pointer in __unbind
  dm: stop using bi_private
  dm: remove dm_get_mapinfo
  dm: make dm_table_alloc_md_mempools static
  dm: take care to copy the space map roots before locking the superblock
  dm transaction manager: fix corruption due to non-atomic transaction commit
  ...

1 files changed, 108 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/era.txt b/Documentation/device-mapper/era.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..3c6d01be3560
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/era.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+Introduction
+============
+
+dm-era is a target that behaves similar to the linear target.  In
+addition it keeps track of which blocks were written within a user
+defined period of time called an 'era'.  Each era target instance
+maintains the current era as a monotonically increasing 32-bit
+counter.
+
+Use cases include tracking changed blocks for backup software, and
+partially invalidating the contents of a cache to restore cache
+coherency after rolling back a vendor snapshot.
+
+Constructor
+===========
+
+ era <metadata dev> <origin dev> <block size>
+
+ metadata dev    : fast device holding the persistent metadata
+ origin dev	 : device holding data blocks that may change
+ block size      : block size of origin data device, granularity that is
+		     tracked by the target
+
+Messages
+========
+
+None of the dm messages take any arguments.
+
+checkpoint
+----------
+
+Possibly move to a new era.  You shouldn't assume the era has
+incremented.  After sending this message, you should check the
+current era via the status line.
+
+take_metadata_snap
+------------------
+
+Create a clone of the metadata, to allow a userland process to read it.
+
+drop_metadata_snap
+------------------
+
+Drop the metadata snapshot.
+
+Status
+======
+
+<metadata block size> <#used metadata blocks>/<#total metadata blocks>
+<current era> <held metadata root | '-'>
+
+metadata block size	 : Fixed block size for each metadata block in
+			     sectors
+#used metadata blocks	 : Number of metadata blocks used
+#total metadata blocks	 : Total number of metadata blocks
+current era		 : The current era
+held metadata root	 : The location, in blocks, of the metadata root
+			     that has been 'held' for userspace read
+			     access. '-' indicates there is no held root
+
+Detailed use case
+=================
+
+The scenario of invalidating a cache when rolling back a vendor
+snapshot was the primary use case when developing this target:
+
+Taking a vendor snapshot
+------------------------
+
+- Send a checkpoint message to the era target
+- Make a note of the current era in its status line
+- Take vendor snapshot (the era and snapshot should be forever
+  associated now).
+
+Rolling back to an vendor snapshot
+----------------------------------
+
+- Cache enters passthrough mode (see: dm-cache's docs in cache.txt)
+- Rollback vendor storage
+- Take metadata snapshot
+- Ascertain which blocks have been written since the snapshot was taken
+  by checking each block's era
+- Invalidate those blocks in the caching software
+- Cache returns to writeback/writethrough mode
+
+Memory usage
+============
+
+The target uses a bitset to record writes in the current era.  It also
+has a spare bitset ready for switching over to a new era.  Other than
+that it uses a few 4k blocks for updating metadata.
+
+   (4 * nr_blocks) bytes + buffers
+
+Resilience
+==========
+
+Metadata is updated on disk before a write to a previously unwritten
+block is performed.  As such dm-era should not be effected by a hard
+crash such as power failure.
+
+Userland tools
+==============
+
+Userland tools are found in the increasingly poorly named
+thin-provisioning-tools project:
+
+    https://github.com/jthornber/thin-provisioning-tools