87 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
87 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
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Explicit volatile write back cache control
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=====================================
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Introduction
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------------
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Many storage devices, especially in the consumer market, come with volatile
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write back caches. That means the devices signal I/O completion to the
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operating system before data actually has hit the non-volatile storage. This
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behavior obviously speeds up various workloads, but it means the operating
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system needs to force data out to the non-volatile storage when it performs
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a data integrity operation like fsync, sync or an unmount.
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The Linux block layer provides two simple mechanisms that let filesystems
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control the caching behavior of the storage device. These mechanisms are
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a forced cache flush, and the Force Unit Access (FUA) flag for requests.
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Explicit cache flushes
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----------------------
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The REQ_FLUSH flag can be OR ed into the r/w flags of a bio submitted from
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the filesystem and will make sure the volatile cache of the storage device
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has been flushed before the actual I/O operation is started. This explicitly
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guarantees that previously completed write requests are on non-volatile
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storage before the flagged bio starts. In addition the REQ_FLUSH flag can be
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set on an otherwise empty bio structure, which causes only an explicit cache
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flush without any dependent I/O. It is recommend to use
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the blkdev_issue_flush() helper for a pure cache flush.
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Forced Unit Access
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-----------------
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The REQ_FUA flag can be OR ed into the r/w flags of a bio submitted from the
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filesystem and will make sure that I/O completion for this request is only
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signaled after the data has been committed to non-volatile storage.
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Implementation details for filesystems
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--------------------------------------
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Filesystems can simply set the REQ_FLUSH and REQ_FUA bits and do not have to
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worry if the underlying devices need any explicit cache flushing and how
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the Forced Unit Access is implemented. The REQ_FLUSH and REQ_FUA flags
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may both be set on a single bio.
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Implementation details for make_request_fn based block drivers
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--------------------------------------------------------------
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These drivers will always see the REQ_FLUSH and REQ_FUA bits as they sit
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directly below the submit_bio interface. For remapping drivers the REQ_FUA
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bits need to be propagated to underlying devices, and a global flush needs
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to be implemented for bios with the REQ_FLUSH bit set. For real device
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drivers that do not have a volatile cache the REQ_FLUSH and REQ_FUA bits
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on non-empty bios can simply be ignored, and REQ_FLUSH requests without
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data can be completed successfully without doing any work. Drivers for
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devices with volatile caches need to implement the support for these
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flags themselves without any help from the block layer.
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Implementation details for request_fn based block drivers
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--------------------------------------------------------------
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For devices that do not support volatile write caches there is no driver
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support required, the block layer completes empty REQ_FLUSH requests before
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entering the driver and strips off the REQ_FLUSH and REQ_FUA bits from
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requests that have a payload. For devices with volatile write caches the
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driver needs to tell the block layer that it supports flushing caches by
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doing:
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blk_queue_flush(sdkp->disk->queue, REQ_FLUSH);
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and handle empty REQ_FLUSH requests in its prep_fn/request_fn. Note that
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REQ_FLUSH requests with a payload are automatically turned into a sequence
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of an empty REQ_FLUSH request followed by the actual write by the block
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layer. For devices that also support the FUA bit the block layer needs
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to be told to pass through the REQ_FUA bit using:
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blk_queue_flush(sdkp->disk->queue, REQ_FLUSH | REQ_FUA);
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and the driver must handle write requests that have the REQ_FUA bit set
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in prep_fn/request_fn. If the FUA bit is not natively supported the block
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layer turns it into an empty REQ_FLUSH request after the actual write.
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