Device-mapper userspace logs (like the clustered log) are
identified by a universally unique identifier (UUID). This
identifier is used to associate requests from the kernel to
a specific log in userspace. The UUID must be unique everywhere,
since multiple machines may use this identifier when communicating
about a particular log, as is the case for cluster logs.
Sometimes, device-mapper/LVM may re-use a UUID. This is the
case during pvmoves, when moving from one segment of an LV
to another, or when resizing a mirror, etc. In these cases,
a new log is created with the same UUID and loaded in the
"inactive" slot. When a device-mapper "resume" is issued,
the "live" table is deactivated and the new "inactive" table
becomes "live". (The "inactive" table can also be removed
via a device-mapper 'clear' command.)
The above two issues were colliding. More than one log was being
created with the same UUID, and there was no way to distinguish
between them. So, sometimes the wrong log would be swapped
out during the exchange.
The solution is to create a locally unique identifier,
'luid', to go along with the UUID. This new identifier is used
to determine exactly which log is being referenced by the kernel
when the log exchange is made. The identifier is not
universally safe, but it does not need to be, since
create/destroy/suspend/resume operations are bound to a specific
machine; and these are the operations that make up the exchange.
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Brassow <jbrassow@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
This patch contains a device-mapper mirror log module that forwards
requests to userspace for processing.
The structures used for communication between kernel and userspace are
located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h. Due to the frequency,
diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
kernel and userspace, 'connector' was chosen as the interface for
communication.
The first log implementations written in userspace - "clustered-disk"
and "clustered-core" - support clustered shared storage. A userspace
daemon (in the LVM2 source code repository) uses openAIS/corosync to
process requests in an ordered fashion with the rest of the nodes in the
cluster so as to prevent log state corruption. Other implementations
with no association to LVM or openAIS/corosync, are certainly possible.
(Imagine if two machines are writing to the same region of a mirror.
They would both mark the region dirty, but you need a cluster-aware
entity that can handle properly marking the region clean when they are
done. Otherwise, you might clear the region when the first machine is
done, not the second.)
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Brassow <jbrassow@redhat.com>
Cc: Evgeniy Polyakov <johnpol@2ka.mipt.ru>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
