diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/btrfs.txt | 91 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt | 85 |
2 files changed, 158 insertions, 18 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/btrfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/btrfs.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..64087c34327f --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/btrfs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ + + BTRFS + ===== + +Btrfs is a new copy on write filesystem for Linux aimed at +implementing advanced features while focusing on fault tolerance, +repair and easy administration. Initially developed by Oracle, Btrfs +is licensed under the GPL and open for contribution from anyone. + +Linux has a wealth of filesystems to choose from, but we are facing a +number of challenges with scaling to the large storage subsystems that +are becoming common in today's data centers. Filesystems need to scale +in their ability to address and manage large storage, and also in +their ability to detect, repair and tolerate errors in the data stored +on disk. Btrfs is under heavy development, and is not suitable for +any uses other than benchmarking and review. The Btrfs disk format is +not yet finalized. + +The main Btrfs features include: + + * Extent based file storage (2^64 max file size) + * Space efficient packing of small files + * Space efficient indexed directories + * Dynamic inode allocation + * Writable snapshots + * Subvolumes (separate internal filesystem roots) + * Object level mirroring and striping + * Checksums on data and metadata (multiple algorithms available) + * Compression + * Integrated multiple device support, with several raid algorithms + * Online filesystem check (not yet implemented) + * Very fast offline filesystem check + * Efficient incremental backup and FS mirroring (not yet implemented) + * Online filesystem defragmentation + + + + MAILING LIST + ============ + +There is a Btrfs mailing list hosted on vger.kernel.org. You can +find details on how to subscribe here: + +http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#linux-btrfs + +Mailing list archives are available from gmane: + +http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file-systems.btrfs + + + + IRC + === + +Discussion of Btrfs also occurs on the #btrfs channel of the Freenode +IRC network. + + + + UTILITIES + ========= + +Userspace tools for creating and manipulating Btrfs file systems are +available from the git repository at the following location: + + http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/mason/btrfs-progs-unstable.git + git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mason/btrfs-progs-unstable.git + +These include the following tools: + +mkfs.btrfs: create a filesystem + +btrfsctl: control program to create snapshots and subvolumes: + + mount /dev/sda2 /mnt + btrfsctl -s new_subvol_name /mnt + btrfsctl -s snapshot_of_default /mnt/default + btrfsctl -s snapshot_of_new_subvol /mnt/new_subvol_name + btrfsctl -s snapshot_of_a_snapshot /mnt/snapshot_of_new_subvol + ls /mnt + default snapshot_of_a_snapshot snapshot_of_new_subvol + new_subvol_name snapshot_of_default + + Snapshots and subvolumes cannot be deleted right now, but you can + rm -rf all the files and directories inside them. + +btrfsck: do a limited check of the FS extent trees. + +btrfs-debug-tree: print all of the FS metadata in text form. Example: + + btrfs-debug-tree /dev/sda2 >& big_output_file diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt index 174eaff7ded9..cec829bc7291 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt @@ -58,13 +58,22 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be # mount -t ext4 /dev/hda1 /wherever - - When comparing performance with other filesystems, remember that - ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most. - So when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, such - as ext3, use `mount -o data=writeback'. And you might as well use - `mount -o nobh' too along with it. Making the journal larger than - the mke2fs default often helps performance with metadata-intensive - workloads. + - When comparing performance with other filesystems, it's always + important to try multiple workloads; very often a subtle change in a + workload parameter can completely change the ranking of which + filesystems do well compared to others. When comparing versus ext3, + note that ext4 enables write barriers by default, while ext3 does + not enable write barriers by default. So it is useful to use + explicitly specify whether barriers are enabled or not when via the + '-o barriers=[0|1]' mount option for both ext3 and ext4 filesystems + for a fair comparison. When tuning ext3 for best benchmark numbers, + it is often worthwhile to try changing the data journaling mode; '-o + data=writeback,nobh' can be faster for some workloads. (Note + however that running mounted with data=writeback can potentially + leave stale data exposed in recently written files in case of an + unclean shutdown, which could be a security exposure in some + situations.) Configuring the filesystem with a large journal can + also be helpful for metadata-intensive workloads. 2. Features =========== @@ -74,7 +83,7 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be * ability to use filesystems > 16TB (e2fsprogs support not available yet) * extent format reduces metadata overhead (RAM, IO for access, transactions) * extent format more robust in face of on-disk corruption due to magics, -* internal redunancy in tree +* internal redundancy in tree * improved file allocation (multi-block alloc) * fix 32000 subdirectory limit * nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time @@ -116,10 +125,11 @@ grouping of bitmaps and inode tables. Some test results available here: When mounting an ext4 filesystem, the following option are accepted: (*) == default -extents (*) ext4 will use extents to address file data. The - file system will no longer be mountable by ext3. - -noextents ext4 will not use extents for newly created files +ro Mount filesystem read only. Note that ext4 will + replay the journal (and thus write to the + partition) even when mounted "read only". The + mount options "ro,noload" can be used to prevent + writes to the filesystem. journal_checksum Enable checksumming of the journal transactions. This will allow the recovery code in e2fsck and the @@ -134,17 +144,17 @@ journal_async_commit Commit block can be written to disk without waiting journal=update Update the ext4 file system's journal to the current format. -journal=inum When a journal already exists, this option is ignored. - Otherwise, it specifies the number of the inode which - will represent the ext4 file system's journal file. - journal_dev=devnum When the external journal device's major/minor numbers have changed, this option allows the user to specify the new journal location. The journal device is identified through its new major/minor numbers encoded in devnum. -noload Don't load the journal on mounting. +noload Don't load the journal on mounting. Note that + if the filesystem was not unmounted cleanly, + skipping the journal replay will lead to the + filesystem containing inconsistencies that can + lead to any number of problems. data=journal All data are committed into the journal prior to being written into the main file system. @@ -219,9 +229,12 @@ minixdf Make 'df' act like Minix. debug Extra debugging information is sent to syslog. -errors=remount-ro(*) Remount the filesystem read-only on an error. +errors=remount-ro Remount the filesystem read-only on an error. errors=continue Keep going on a filesystem error. errors=panic Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs. + (These mount options override the errors behavior + specified in the superblock, which can be configured + using tune2fs) data_err=ignore(*) Just print an error message if an error occurs in a file data buffer in ordered mode. @@ -261,6 +274,42 @@ delalloc (*) Deferring block allocation until write-out time. nodelalloc Disable delayed allocation. Blocks are allocation when data is copied from user to page cache. +max_batch_time=usec Maximum amount of time ext4 should wait for + additional filesystem operations to be batch + together with a synchronous write operation. + Since a synchronous write operation is going to + force a commit and then a wait for the I/O + complete, it doesn't cost much, and can be a + huge throughput win, we wait for a small amount + of time to see if any other transactions can + piggyback on the synchronous write. The + algorithm used is designed to automatically tune + for the speed of the disk, by measuring the + amount of time (on average) that it takes to + finish committing a transaction. Call this time + the "commit time". If the time that the + transactoin has been running is less than the + commit time, ext4 will try sleeping for the + commit time to see if other operations will join + the transaction. The commit time is capped by + the max_batch_time, which defaults to 15000us + (15ms). This optimization can be turned off + entirely by setting max_batch_time to 0. + +min_batch_time=usec This parameter sets the commit time (as + described above) to be at least min_batch_time. + It defaults to zero microseconds. Increasing + this parameter may improve the throughput of + multi-threaded, synchronous workloads on very + fast disks, at the cost of increasing latency. + +journal_ioprio=prio The I/O priority (from 0 to 7, where 0 is the + highest priorty) which should be used for I/O + operations submitted by kjournald2 during a + commit operation. This defaults to 3, which is + a slightly higher priority than the default I/O + priority. + Data Mode ========= There are 3 different data modes: |