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+ ==========================
+ General Filesystem Caching
+ ==========================
+
+========
+OVERVIEW
+========
+
+This facility is a general purpose cache for network filesystems, though it
+could be used for caching other things such as ISO9660 filesystems too.
+
+FS-Cache mediates between cache backends (such as CacheFS) and network
+filesystems:
+
+ +---------+
+ | | +--------------+
+ | NFS |--+ | |
+ | | | +-->| CacheFS |
+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | /dev/hda5 |
+ | | | | +--------------+
+ +---------+ +-->| | |
+ | | | |--+
+ | AFS |----->| FS-Cache |
+ | | | |--+
+ +---------+ +-->| | |
+ | | | | +--------------+
+ +---------+ | +----------+ | | |
+ | | | +-->| CacheFiles |
+ | ISOFS |--+ | /var/cache |
+ | | +--------------+
+ +---------+
+
+Or to look at it another way, FS-Cache is a module that provides a caching
+facility to a network filesystem such that the cache is transparent to the
+user:
+
+ +---------+
+ | |
+ | Server |
+ | |
+ +---------+
+ | NETWORK
+ ~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ |
+ | +----------+
+ V | |
+ +---------+ | |
+ | | | |
+ | NFS |----->| FS-Cache |
+ | | | |--+
+ +---------+ | | | +--------------+ +--------------+
+ | | | | | | | |
+ V +----------+ +-->| CacheFiles |-->| Ext3 |
+ +---------+ | /var/cache | | /dev/sda6 |
+ | | +--------------+ +--------------+
+ | VFS | ^ ^
+ | | | |
+ +---------+ +--------------+ |
+ | KERNEL SPACE | |
+ ~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~|~~~~
+ | USER SPACE | |
+ V | |
+ +---------+ +--------------+
+ | | | |
+ | Process | | cachefilesd |
+ | | | |
+ +---------+ +--------------+
+
+
+FS-Cache does not follow the idea of completely loading every netfs file
+opened in its entirety into a cache before permitting it to be accessed and
+then serving the pages out of that cache rather than the netfs inode because:
+
+ (1) It must be practical to operate without a cache.
+
+ (2) The size of any accessible file must not be limited to the size of the
+ cache.
+
+ (3) The combined size of all opened files (this includes mapped libraries)
+ must not be limited to the size of the cache.
+
+ (4) The user should not be forced to download an entire file just to do a
+ one-off access of a small portion of it (such as might be done with the
+ "file" program).
+
+It instead serves the cache out in PAGE_SIZE chunks as and when requested by
+the netfs('s) using it.
+
+
+FS-Cache provides the following facilities:
+
+ (1) More than one cache can be used at once. Caches can be selected
+ explicitly by use of tags.
+
+ (2) Caches can be added / removed at any time.
+
+ (3) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to
+ withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (2)).
+
+ (4) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring
+ rather to let the netfs remain oblivious.
+
+ (5) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the
+ netfs. The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing
+ cached there.
+
+ (6) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it
+ desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is
+ recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of
+ indices.
+
+ (7) Data I/O is done direct to and from the netfs's pages. The netfs
+ indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie
+ C, and that it should be read or written. The cache backend may or may
+ not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be
+ invoked to indicate completion. The I/O may be either synchronous or
+ asynchronous.
+
+ (8) Cookies can be "retired" upon release. At this point FS-Cache will mark
+ them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get
+ recycled.
+
+ (9) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches. In addition to
+ saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an
+ entry should be updated or deleted.
+
+(10) As much as possible is done asynchronously.
+
+
+FS-Cache maintains a virtual indexing tree in which all indices, files, objects
+and pages are kept. Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more
+caches.
+
+ FSDEF
+ |
+ +------------------------------------+
+ | |
+ NFS AFS
+ | |
+ +--------------------------+ +-----------+
+ | | | |
+ homedir mirror afs.org redhat.com
+ | | |
+ +------------+ +---------------+ +----------+
+ | | | | | |
+ 00001 00002 00007 00125 vol00001 vol00002
+ | | | | |
+ +---+---+ +-----+ +---+ +------+------+ +-----+----+
+ | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+PG0 PG1 PG2 PG0 XATTR PG0 PG1 DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT R/W R/O Bak
+ | |
+ PG0 +-------+
+ | |
+ 00001 00003
+ |
+ +---+---+
+ | | |
+ PG0 PG1 PG2
+
+In the example above, you can see two netfs's being backed: NFS and AFS. These
+have different index hierarchies:
+
+ (*) The NFS primary index contains per-server indices. Each server index is
+ indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects. Each data file
+ objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child
+ objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries. Extended
+ attribute objects themselves have page-array contents.
+
+ (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices. Each cell index contains
+ per-logical-volume indices. Each of volume index contains up to three
+ indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes.
+ Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an
+ array of pages.
+
+The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's
+have entries.
+
+Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index
+children. Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only
+reside in one cache.
+
+
+The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in:
+
+ Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt
+
+The cache backend API to FS-Cache can be found in:
+
+ Documentation/filesystems/caching/backend-api.txt
+
+A description of the internal representations and object state machine can be
+found in:
+
+ Documentation/filesystems/caching/object.txt
+
+
+=======================
+STATISTICAL INFORMATION
+=======================
+
+If FS-Cache is compiled with the following options enabled:
+
+ CONFIG_FSCACHE_STATS=y
+ CONFIG_FSCACHE_HISTOGRAM=y
+
+then it will gather certain statistics and display them through a number of
+proc files.
+
+ (*) /proc/fs/fscache/stats
+
+ This shows counts of a number of events that can happen in FS-Cache:
+
+ CLASS EVENT MEANING
+ ======= ======= =======================================================
+ Cookies idx=N Number of index cookies allocated
+ dat=N Number of data storage cookies allocated
+ spc=N Number of special cookies allocated
+ Objects alc=N Number of objects allocated
+ nal=N Number of object allocation failures
+ avl=N Number of objects that reached the available state
+ ded=N Number of objects that reached the dead state
+ ChkAux non=N Number of objects that didn't have a coherency check
+ ok=N Number of objects that passed a coherency check
+ upd=N Number of objects that needed a coherency data update
+ obs=N Number of objects that were declared obsolete
+ Pages mrk=N Number of pages marked as being cached
+ unc=N Number of uncache page requests seen
+ Acquire n=N Number of acquire cookie requests seen
+ nul=N Number of acq reqs given a NULL parent
+ noc=N Number of acq reqs rejected due to no cache available
+ ok=N Number of acq reqs succeeded
+ nbf=N Number of acq reqs rejected due to error
+ oom=N Number of acq reqs failed on ENOMEM
+ Lookups n=N Number of lookup calls made on cache backends
+ neg=N Number of negative lookups made
+ pos=N Number of positive lookups made
+ crt=N Number of objects created by lookup
+ Updates n=N Number of update cookie requests seen
+ nul=N Number of upd reqs given a NULL parent
+ run=N Number of upd reqs granted CPU time
+ Relinqs n=N Number of relinquish cookie requests seen
+ nul=N Number of rlq reqs given a NULL parent
+ wcr=N Number of rlq reqs waited on completion of creation
+ AttrChg n=N Number of attribute changed requests seen
+ ok=N Number of attr changed requests queued
+ nbf=N Number of attr changed rejected -ENOBUFS
+ oom=N Number of attr changed failed -ENOMEM
+ run=N Number of attr changed ops given CPU time
+ Allocs n=N Number of allocation requests seen
+ ok=N Number of successful alloc reqs
+ wt=N Number of alloc reqs that waited on lookup completion
+ nbf=N Number of alloc reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
+ ops=N Number of alloc reqs submitted
+ owt=N Number of alloc reqs waited for CPU time
+ Retrvls n=N Number of retrieval (read) requests seen
+ ok=N Number of successful retr reqs
+ wt=N Number of retr reqs that waited on lookup completion
+ nod=N Number of retr reqs returned -ENODATA
+ nbf=N Number of retr reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
+ int=N Number of retr reqs aborted -ERESTARTSYS
+ oom=N Number of retr reqs failed -ENOMEM
+ ops=N Number of retr reqs submitted
+ owt=N Number of retr reqs waited for CPU time
+ Stores n=N Number of storage (write) requests seen
+ ok=N Number of successful store reqs
+ agn=N Number of store reqs on a page already pending storage
+ nbf=N Number of store reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
+ oom=N Number of store reqs failed -ENOMEM
+ ops=N Number of store reqs submitted
+ run=N Number of store reqs granted CPU time
+ Ops pend=N Number of times async ops added to pending queues
+ run=N Number of times async ops given CPU time
+ enq=N Number of times async ops queued for processing
+ dfr=N Number of async ops queued for deferred release
+ rel=N Number of async ops released
+ gc=N Number of deferred-release async ops garbage collected
+
+
+ (*) /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
+
+ cat /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
+ JIFS SECS OBJ INST OP RUNS OBJ RUNS RETRV DLY RETRIEVLS
+ ===== ===== ========= ========= ========= ========= =========
+
+ This shows the breakdown of the number of times each amount of time
+ between 0 jiffies and HZ-1 jiffies a variety of tasks took to run. The
+ columns are as follows:
+
+ COLUMN TIME MEASUREMENT
+ ======= =======================================================
+ OBJ INST Length of time to instantiate an object
+ OP RUNS Length of time a call to process an operation took
+ OBJ RUNS Length of time a call to process an object event took
+ RETRV DLY Time between an requesting a read and lookup completing
+ RETRIEVLS Time between beginning and end of a retrieval
+
+ Each row shows the number of events that took a particular range of times.
+ Each step is 1 jiffy in size. The JIFS column indicates the particular
+ jiffy range covered, and the SECS field the equivalent number of seconds.
+
+
+=========
+DEBUGGING
+=========
+
+If CONFIG_FSCACHE_DEBUG is enabled, the FS-Cache facility can have runtime
+debugging enabled by adjusting the value in:
+
+ /sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
+
+This is a bitmask of debugging streams to enable:
+
+ BIT VALUE STREAM POINT
+ ======= ======= =============================== =======================
+ 0 1 Cache management Function entry trace
+ 1 2 Function exit trace
+ 2 4 General
+ 3 8 Cookie management Function entry trace
+ 4 16 Function exit trace
+ 5 32 General
+ 6 64 Page handling Function entry trace
+ 7 128 Function exit trace
+ 8 256 General
+ 9 512 Operation management Function entry trace
+ 10 1024 Function exit trace
+ 11 2048 General
+
+The appropriate set of values should be OR'd together and the result written to
+the control file. For example:
+
+ echo $((1|8|64)) >/sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
+
+will turn on all function entry debugging.