This patch implements two new messages that can be sent to the thin
pool target allowing it to take a snapshot of the _metadata_. This,
read-only snapshot can be accessed by userland, concurrently with the
live target.
Only one metadata snapshot can be held at a time. The pool's status
line will give the block location for the current msnap.
Since version 0.1.5 of the userland thin provisioning tools, the
thin_dump program displays the msnap as follows:
thin_dump -m <msnap root> <metadata dev>
Available here: https://github.com/jthornber/thin-provisioning-tools
Now that userland can access the metadata we can do various things
that have traditionally been kernel side tasks:
i) Incremental backups.
By using metadata snapshots we can work out what blocks have
changed over time. Combined with data snapshots we can ensure
the data doesn't change while we back it up.
A short proof of concept script can be found here:
https://github.com/jthornber/thinp-test-suite/blob/master/incremental_backup_example.rb
ii) Migration of thin devices from one pool to another.
iii) Merging snapshots back into an external origin.
iv) Asyncronous replication.
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
Add dm thin target arguments to control discard support.
ignore_discard: Disables discard support
no_discard_passdown: Don't pass discards down to the underlying data
device, but just remove the mapping within the thin provisioning target.
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
Support the use of an external _read only_ device as an origin for a thin
device.
Any read to an unprovisioned area of the thin device will be passed
through to the origin. Writes trigger allocation of new blocks as
usual.
One possible use case for this would be VM hosts that want to run
guests on thinly-provisioned volumes but have the base image on another
device (possibly shared between many VMs).
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
The thin metadata format can only make use of a device that is <=
THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS (currently 15.9375 GB). Therefore, there is no
practical benefit to using a larger device.
However, it may be that other factors impose a certain granularity for
the space that is allocated to a device (E.g. lvm2 can impose a coarse
granularity through the use of large, >= 1 GB, physical extents).
Rather than reject a larger metadata device, during thin-pool device
construction, switch to allowing it but issue a warning if a device
larger than THIN_METADATA_MAX_SECTORS_WARNING (16 GB) is
provided. Any space over 15.9375 GB will not be used.
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
Remove documentation for unimplemented 'trim' message.
I'd planned a 'trim' target message for shrinking thin devices, but
this is better handled via the discard ioctl.
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <ejt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
Initial EXPERIMENTAL implementation of device-mapper thin provisioning
with snapshot support. The 'thin' target is used to create instances of
the virtual devices that are hosted in the 'thin-pool' target. The
thin-pool target provides data sharing among devices. This sharing is
made possible using the persistent-data library in the previous patch.
The main highlight of this implementation, compared to the previous
implementation of snapshots, is that it allows many virtual devices to
be stored on the same data volume, simplifying administration and
allowing sharing of data between volumes (thus reducing disk usage).
Another big feature is support for arbitrary depth of recursive
snapshots (snapshots of snapshots of snapshots ...). The previous
implementation of snapshots did this by chaining together lookup tables,
and so performance was O(depth). This new implementation uses a single
data structure so we don't get this degradation with depth.
For further information and examples of how to use this, please read
Documentation/device-mapper/thin-provisioning.txt
Signed-off-by: Joe Thornber <thornber@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
