diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/nfs')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX | 16 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/Exporting | 147 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/knfsd-stats.txt | 159 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs-rdma.txt | 271 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs.txt | 98 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs41-server.txt | 222 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt | 270 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/nfs/rpc-cache.txt | 202 |
8 files changed, 1385 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..2f68cd68876 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/00-INDEX @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +00-INDEX + - this file (nfs-related documentation). +Exporting + - explanation of how to make filesystems exportable. +knfsd-stats.txt + - statistics which the NFS server makes available to user space. +nfs.txt + - nfs client, and DNS resolution for fs_locations. +nfs41-server.txt + - info on the Linux server implementation of NFSv4 minor version 1. +nfs-rdma.txt + - how to install and setup the Linux NFS/RDMA client and server software +nfsroot.txt + - short guide on setting up a diskless box with NFS root filesystem. +rpc-cache.txt + - introduction to the caching mechanisms in the sunrpc layer. diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/Exporting b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/Exporting new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..87019d2b598 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/Exporting @@ -0,0 +1,147 @@ + +Making Filesystems Exportable +============================= + +Overview +-------- + +All filesystem operations require a dentry (or two) as a starting +point. Local applications have a reference-counted hold on suitable +dentries via open file descriptors or cwd/root. However remote +applications that access a filesystem via a remote filesystem protocol +such as NFS may not be able to hold such a reference, and so need a +different way to refer to a particular dentry. As the alternative +form of reference needs to be stable across renames, truncates, and +server-reboot (among other things, though these tend to be the most +problematic), there is no simple answer like 'filename'. + +The mechanism discussed here allows each filesystem implementation to +specify how to generate an opaque (outside of the filesystem) byte +string for any dentry, and how to find an appropriate dentry for any +given opaque byte string. +This byte string will be called a "filehandle fragment" as it +corresponds to part of an NFS filehandle. + +A filesystem which supports the mapping between filehandle fragments +and dentries will be termed "exportable". + + + +Dcache Issues +------------- + +The dcache normally contains a proper prefix of any given filesystem +tree. This means that if any filesystem object is in the dcache, then +all of the ancestors of that filesystem object are also in the dcache. +As normal access is by filename this prefix is created naturally and +maintained easily (by each object maintaining a reference count on +its parent). + +However when objects are included into the dcache by interpreting a +filehandle fragment, there is no automatic creation of a path prefix +for the object. This leads to two related but distinct features of +the dcache that are not needed for normal filesystem access. + +1/ The dcache must sometimes contain objects that are not part of the + proper prefix. i.e that are not connected to the root. +2/ The dcache must be prepared for a newly found (via ->lookup) directory + to already have a (non-connected) dentry, and must be able to move + that dentry into place (based on the parent and name in the + ->lookup). This is particularly needed for directories as + it is a dcache invariant that directories only have one dentry. + +To implement these features, the dcache has: + +a/ A dentry flag DCACHE_DISCONNECTED which is set on + any dentry that might not be part of the proper prefix. + This is set when anonymous dentries are created, and cleared when a + dentry is noticed to be a child of a dentry which is in the proper + prefix. + +b/ A per-superblock list "s_anon" of dentries which are the roots of + subtrees that are not in the proper prefix. These dentries, as + well as the proper prefix, need to be released at unmount time. As + these dentries will not be hashed, they are linked together on the + d_hash list_head. + +c/ Helper routines to allocate anonymous dentries, and to help attach + loose directory dentries at lookup time. They are: + d_alloc_anon(inode) will return a dentry for the given inode. + If the inode already has a dentry, one of those is returned. + If it doesn't, a new anonymous (IS_ROOT and + DCACHE_DISCONNECTED) dentry is allocated and attached. + In the case of a directory, care is taken that only one dentry + can ever be attached. + d_splice_alias(inode, dentry) will make sure that there is a + dentry with the same name and parent as the given dentry, and + which refers to the given inode. + If the inode is a directory and already has a dentry, then that + dentry is d_moved over the given dentry. + If the passed dentry gets attached, care is taken that this is + mutually exclusive to a d_alloc_anon operation. + If the passed dentry is used, NULL is returned, else the used + dentry is returned. This corresponds to the calling pattern of + ->lookup. + + +Filesystem Issues +----------------- + +For a filesystem to be exportable it must: + + 1/ provide the filehandle fragment routines described below. + 2/ make sure that d_splice_alias is used rather than d_add + when ->lookup finds an inode for a given parent and name. + Typically the ->lookup routine will end with a: + + return d_splice_alias(inode, dentry); + } + + + + A file system implementation declares that instances of the filesystem +are exportable by setting the s_export_op field in the struct +super_block. This field must point to a "struct export_operations" +struct which has the following members: + + encode_fh (optional) + Takes a dentry and creates a filehandle fragment which can later be used + to find or create a dentry for the same object. The default + implementation creates a filehandle fragment that encodes a 32bit inode + and generation number for the inode encoded, and if necessary the + same information for the parent. + + fh_to_dentry (mandatory) + Given a filehandle fragment, this should find the implied object and + create a dentry for it (possibly with d_alloc_anon). + + fh_to_parent (optional but strongly recommended) + Given a filehandle fragment, this should find the parent of the + implied object and create a dentry for it (possibly with d_alloc_anon). + May fail if the filehandle fragment is too small. + + get_parent (optional but strongly recommended) + When given a dentry for a directory, this should return a dentry for + the parent. Quite possibly the parent dentry will have been allocated + by d_alloc_anon. The default get_parent function just returns an error + so any filehandle lookup that requires finding a parent will fail. + ->lookup("..") is *not* used as a default as it can leave ".." entries + in the dcache which are too messy to work with. + + get_name (optional) + When given a parent dentry and a child dentry, this should find a name + in the directory identified by the parent dentry, which leads to the + object identified by the child dentry. If no get_name function is + supplied, a default implementation is provided which uses vfs_readdir + to find potential names, and matches inode numbers to find the correct + match. + + +A filehandle fragment consists of an array of 1 or more 4byte words, +together with a one byte "type". +The decode_fh routine should not depend on the stated size that is +passed to it. This size may be larger than the original filehandle +generated by encode_fh, in which case it will have been padded with +nuls. Rather, the encode_fh routine should choose a "type" which +indicates the decode_fh how much of the filehandle is valid, and how +it should be interpreted. diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/knfsd-stats.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/knfsd-stats.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..64ced5149d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/knfsd-stats.txt @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ + +Kernel NFS Server Statistics +============================ + +This document describes the format and semantics of the statistics +which the kernel NFS server makes available to userspace. These +statistics are available in several text form pseudo files, each of +which is described separately below. + +In most cases you don't need to know these formats, as the nfsstat(8) +program from the nfs-utils distribution provides a helpful command-line +interface for extracting and printing them. + +All the files described here are formatted as a sequence of text lines, +separated by newline '\n' characters. Lines beginning with a hash +'#' character are comments intended for humans and should be ignored +by parsing routines. All other lines contain a sequence of fields +separated by whitespace. + +/proc/fs/nfsd/pool_stats +------------------------ + +This file is available in kernels from 2.6.30 onwards, if the +/proc/fs/nfsd filesystem is mounted (it almost always should be). + +The first line is a comment which describes the fields present in +all the other lines. The other lines present the following data as +a sequence of unsigned decimal numeric fields. One line is shown +for each NFS thread pool. + +All counters are 64 bits wide and wrap naturally. There is no way +to zero these counters, instead applications should do their own +rate conversion. + +pool + The id number of the NFS thread pool to which this line applies. + This number does not change. + + Thread pool ids are a contiguous set of small integers starting + at zero. The maximum value depends on the thread pool mode, but + currently cannot be larger than the number of CPUs in the system. + Note that in the default case there will be a single thread pool + which contains all the nfsd threads and all the CPUs in the system, + and thus this file will have a single line with a pool id of "0". + +packets-arrived + Counts how many NFS packets have arrived. More precisely, this + is the number of times that the network stack has notified the + sunrpc server layer that new data may be available on a transport + (e.g. an NFS or UDP socket or an NFS/RDMA endpoint). + + Depending on the NFS workload patterns and various network stack + effects (such as Large Receive Offload) which can combine packets + on the wire, this may be either more or less than the number + of NFS calls received (which statistic is available elsewhere). + However this is a more accurate and less workload-dependent measure + of how much CPU load is being placed on the sunrpc server layer + due to NFS network traffic. + +sockets-enqueued + Counts how many times an NFS transport is enqueued to wait for + an nfsd thread to service it, i.e. no nfsd thread was considered + available. + + The circumstance this statistic tracks indicates that there was NFS + network-facing work to be done but it couldn't be done immediately, + thus introducing a small delay in servicing NFS calls. The ideal + rate of change for this counter is zero; significantly non-zero + values may indicate a performance limitation. + + This can happen either because there are too few nfsd threads in the + thread pool for the NFS workload (the workload is thread-limited), + or because the NFS workload needs more CPU time than is available in + the thread pool (the workload is CPU-limited). In the former case, + configuring more nfsd threads will probably improve the performance + of the NFS workload. In the latter case, the sunrpc server layer is + already choosing not to wake idle nfsd threads because there are too + many nfsd threads which want to run but cannot, so configuring more + nfsd threads will make no difference whatsoever. The overloads-avoided + statistic (see below) can be used to distinguish these cases. + +threads-woken + Counts how many times an idle nfsd thread is woken to try to + receive some data from an NFS transport. + + This statistic tracks the circumstance where incoming + network-facing NFS work is being handled quickly, which is a good + thing. The ideal rate of change for this counter will be close + to but less than the rate of change of the packets-arrived counter. + +overloads-avoided + Counts how many times the sunrpc server layer chose not to wake an + nfsd thread, despite the presence of idle nfsd threads, because + too many nfsd threads had been recently woken but could not get + enough CPU time to actually run. + + This statistic counts a circumstance where the sunrpc layer + heuristically avoids overloading the CPU scheduler with too many + runnable nfsd threads. The ideal rate of change for this counter + is zero. Significant non-zero values indicate that the workload + is CPU limited. Usually this is associated with heavy CPU usage + on all the CPUs in the nfsd thread pool. + + If a sustained large overloads-avoided rate is detected on a pool, + the top(1) utility should be used to check for the following + pattern of CPU usage on all the CPUs associated with the given + nfsd thread pool. + + - %us ~= 0 (as you're *NOT* running applications on your NFS server) + + - %wa ~= 0 + + - %id ~= 0 + + - %sy + %hi + %si ~= 100 + + If this pattern is seen, configuring more nfsd threads will *not* + improve the performance of the workload. If this patten is not + seen, then something more subtle is wrong. + +threads-timedout + Counts how many times an nfsd thread triggered an idle timeout, + i.e. was not woken to handle any incoming network packets for + some time. + + This statistic counts a circumstance where there are more nfsd + threads configured than can be used by the NFS workload. This is + a clue that the number of nfsd threads can be reduced without + affecting performance. Unfortunately, it's only a clue and not + a strong indication, for a couple of reasons: + + - Currently the rate at which the counter is incremented is quite + slow; the idle timeout is 60 minutes. Unless the NFS workload + remains constant for hours at a time, this counter is unlikely + to be providing information that is still useful. + + - It is usually a wise policy to provide some slack, + i.e. configure a few more nfsds than are currently needed, + to allow for future spikes in load. + + +Note that incoming packets on NFS transports will be dealt with in +one of three ways. An nfsd thread can be woken (threads-woken counts +this case), or the transport can be enqueued for later attention +(sockets-enqueued counts this case), or the packet can be temporarily +deferred because the transport is currently being used by an nfsd +thread. This last case is not very interesting and is not explicitly +counted, but can be inferred from the other counters thus: + +packets-deferred = packets-arrived - ( sockets-enqueued + threads-woken ) + + +More +---- +Descriptions of the other statistics file should go here. + + +Greg Banks <gnb@sgi.com> +26 Mar 2009 diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs-rdma.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs-rdma.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..e386f7e4bce --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs-rdma.txt @@ -0,0 +1,271 @@ +################################################################################ +# # +# NFS/RDMA README # +# # +################################################################################ + + Author: NetApp and Open Grid Computing + Date: May 29, 2008 + +Table of Contents +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + - Overview + - Getting Help + - Installation + - Check RDMA and NFS Setup + - NFS/RDMA Setup + +Overview +~~~~~~~~ + + This document describes how to install and setup the Linux NFS/RDMA client + and server software. + + The NFS/RDMA client was first included in Linux 2.6.24. The NFS/RDMA server + was first included in the following release, Linux 2.6.25. + + In our testing, we have obtained excellent performance results (full 10Gbit + wire bandwidth at minimal client CPU) under many workloads. The code passes + the full Connectathon test suite and operates over both Infiniband and iWARP + RDMA adapters. + +Getting Help +~~~~~~~~~~~~ + + If you get stuck, you can ask questions on the + + nfs-rdma-devel@lists.sourceforge.net + + mailing list. + +Installation +~~~~~~~~~~~~ + + These instructions are a step by step guide to building a machine for + use with NFS/RDMA. + + - Install an RDMA device + + Any device supported by the drivers in drivers/infiniband/hw is acceptable. + + Testing has been performed using several Mellanox-based IB cards, the + Ammasso AMS1100 iWARP adapter, and the Chelsio cxgb3 iWARP adapter. + + - Install a Linux distribution and tools + + The first kernel release to contain both the NFS/RDMA client and server was + Linux 2.6.25 Therefore, a distribution compatible with this and subsequent + Linux kernel release should be installed. + + The procedures described in this document have been tested with + distributions from Red Hat's Fedora Project (http://fedora.redhat.com/). + + - Install nfs-utils-1.1.2 or greater on the client + + An NFS/RDMA mount point can be obtained by using the mount.nfs command in + nfs-utils-1.1.2 or greater (nfs-utils-1.1.1 was the first nfs-utils + version with support for NFS/RDMA mounts, but for various reasons we + recommend using nfs-utils-1.1.2 or greater). To see which version of + mount.nfs you are using, type: + + $ /sbin/mount.nfs -V + + If the version is less than 1.1.2 or the command does not exist, + you should install the latest version of nfs-utils. + + Download the latest package from: + + http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/nfs + + Uncompress the package and follow the installation instructions. + + If you will not need the idmapper and gssd executables (you do not need + these to create an NFS/RDMA enabled mount command), the installation + process can be simplified by disabling these features when running + configure: + + $ ./configure --disable-gss --disable-nfsv4 + + To build nfs-utils you will need the tcp_wrappers package installed. For + more information on this see the package's README and INSTALL files. + + After building the nfs-utils package, there will be a mount.nfs binary in + the utils/mount directory. This binary can be used to initiate NFS v2, v3, + or v4 mounts. To initiate a v4 mount, the binary must be called + mount.nfs4. The standard technique is to create a symlink called + mount.nfs4 to mount.nfs. + + This mount.nfs binary should be installed at /sbin/mount.nfs as follows: + + $ sudo cp utils/mount/mount.nfs /sbin/mount.nfs + + In this location, mount.nfs will be invoked automatically for NFS mounts + by the system mount command. + + NOTE: mount.nfs and therefore nfs-utils-1.1.2 or greater is only needed + on the NFS client machine. You do not need this specific version of + nfs-utils on the server. Furthermore, only the mount.nfs command from + nfs-utils-1.1.2 is needed on the client. + + - Install a Linux kernel with NFS/RDMA + + The NFS/RDMA client and server are both included in the mainline Linux + kernel version 2.6.25 and later. This and other versions of the 2.6 Linux + kernel can be found at: + + ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ + + Download the sources and place them in an appropriate location. + + - Configure the RDMA stack + + Make sure your kernel configuration has RDMA support enabled. Under + Device Drivers -> InfiniBand support, update the kernel configuration + to enable InfiniBand support [NOTE: the option name is misleading. Enabling + InfiniBand support is required for all RDMA devices (IB, iWARP, etc.)]. + + Enable the appropriate IB HCA support (mlx4, mthca, ehca, ipath, etc.) or + iWARP adapter support (amso, cxgb3, etc.). + + If you are using InfiniBand, be sure to enable IP-over-InfiniBand support. + + - Configure the NFS client and server + + Your kernel configuration must also have NFS file system support and/or + NFS server support enabled. These and other NFS related configuration + options can be found under File Systems -> Network File Systems. + + - Build, install, reboot + + The NFS/RDMA code will be enabled automatically if NFS and RDMA + are turned on. The NFS/RDMA client and server are configured via the hidden + SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA config option that depends on SUNRPC and INFINIBAND. The + value of SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA will be: + + - N if either SUNRPC or INFINIBAND are N, in this case the NFS/RDMA client + and server will not be built + - M if both SUNRPC and INFINIBAND are on (M or Y) and at least one is M, + in this case the NFS/RDMA client and server will be built as modules + - Y if both SUNRPC and INFINIBAND are Y, in this case the NFS/RDMA client + and server will be built into the kernel + + Therefore, if you have followed the steps above and turned no NFS and RDMA, + the NFS/RDMA client and server will be built. + + Build a new kernel, install it, boot it. + +Check RDMA and NFS Setup +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + + Before configuring the NFS/RDMA software, it is a good idea to test + your new kernel to ensure that the kernel is working correctly. + In particular, it is a good idea to verify that the RDMA stack + is functioning as expected and standard NFS over TCP/IP and/or UDP/IP + is working properly. + + - Check RDMA Setup + + If you built the RDMA components as modules, load them at + this time. For example, if you are using a Mellanox Tavor/Sinai/Arbel + card: + + $ modprobe ib_mthca + $ modprobe ib_ipoib + + If you are using InfiniBand, make sure there is a Subnet Manager (SM) + running on the network. If your IB switch has an embedded SM, you can + use it. Otherwise, you will need to run an SM, such as OpenSM, on one + of your end nodes. + + If an SM is running on your network, you should see the following: + + $ cat /sys/class/infiniband/driverX/ports/1/state + 4: ACTIVE + + where driverX is mthca0, ipath5, ehca3, etc. + + To further test the InfiniBand software stack, use IPoIB (this + assumes you have two IB hosts named host1 and host2): + + host1$ ifconfig ib0 a.b.c.x + host2$ ifconfig ib0 a.b.c.y + host1$ ping a.b.c.y + host2$ ping a.b.c.x + + For other device types, follow the appropriate procedures. + + - Check NFS Setup + + For the NFS components enabled above (client and/or server), + test their functionality over standard Ethernet using TCP/IP or UDP/IP. + +NFS/RDMA Setup +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + + We recommend that you use two machines, one to act as the client and + one to act as the server. + + One time configuration: + + - On the server system, configure the /etc/exports file and + start the NFS/RDMA server. + + Exports entries with the following formats have been tested: + + /vol0 192.168.0.47(fsid=0,rw,async,insecure,no_root_squash) + /vol0 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(fsid=0,rw,async,insecure,no_root_squash) + + The IP address(es) is(are) the client's IPoIB address for an InfiniBand + HCA or the cleint's iWARP address(es) for an RNIC. + + NOTE: The "insecure" option must be used because the NFS/RDMA client does + not use a reserved port. + + Each time a machine boots: + + - Load and configure the RDMA drivers + + For InfiniBand using a Mellanox adapter: + + $ modprobe ib_mthca + $ modprobe ib_ipoib + $ ifconfig ib0 a.b.c.d + + NOTE: use unique addresses for the client and server + + - Start the NFS server + + If the NFS/RDMA server was built as a module (CONFIG_SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA=m in + kernel config), load the RDMA transport module: + + $ modprobe svcrdma + + Regardless of how the server was built (module or built-in), start the + server: + + $ /etc/init.d/nfs start + + or + + $ service nfs start + + Instruct the server to listen on the RDMA transport: + + $ echo rdma 20049 > /proc/fs/nfsd/portlist + + - On the client system + + If the NFS/RDMA client was built as a module (CONFIG_SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA=m in + kernel config), load the RDMA client module: + + $ modprobe xprtrdma.ko + + Regardless of how the client was built (module or built-in), use this + command to mount the NFS/RDMA server: + + $ mount -o rdma,port=20049 <IPoIB-server-name-or-address>:/<export> /mnt + + To verify that the mount is using RDMA, run "cat /proc/mounts" and check + the "proto" field for the given mount. + + Congratulations! You're using NFS/RDMA! diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..f50f26ce6cd --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ + +The NFS client +============== + +The NFS version 2 protocol was first documented in RFC1094 (March 1989). +Since then two more major releases of NFS have been published, with NFSv3 +being documented in RFC1813 (June 1995), and NFSv4 in RFC3530 (April +2003). + +The Linux NFS client currently supports all the above published versions, +and work is in progress on adding support for minor version 1 of the NFSv4 +protocol. + +The purpose of this document is to provide information on some of the +upcall interfaces that are used in order to provide the NFS client with +some of the information that it requires in order to fully comply with +the NFS spec. + +The DNS resolver +================ + +NFSv4 allows for one server to refer the NFS client to data that has been +migrated onto another server by means of the special "fs_locations" +attribute. See + http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3530#section-6 +and + http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-nfsv4-referrals-00 + +The fs_locations information can take the form of either an ip address and +a path, or a DNS hostname and a path. The latter requires the NFS client to +do a DNS lookup in order to mount the new volume, and hence the need for an +upcall to allow userland to provide this service. + +Assuming that the user has the 'rpc_pipefs' filesystem mounted in the usual +/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs, the upcall consists of the following steps: + + (1) The process checks the dns_resolve cache to see if it contains a + valid entry. If so, it returns that entry and exits. + + (2) If no valid entry exists, the helper script '/sbin/nfs_cache_getent' + (may be changed using the 'nfs.cache_getent' kernel boot parameter) + is run, with two arguments: + - the cache name, "dns_resolve" + - the hostname to resolve + + (3) After looking up the corresponding ip address, the helper script + writes the result into the rpc_pipefs pseudo-file + '/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs/cache/dns_resolve/channel' + in the following (text) format: + + "<ip address> <hostname> <ttl>\n" + + Where <ip address> is in the usual IPv4 (123.456.78.90) or IPv6 + (ffee:ddcc:bbaa:9988:7766:5544:3322:1100, ffee::1100, ...) format. + <hostname> is identical to the second argument of the helper + script, and <ttl> is the 'time to live' of this cache entry (in + units of seconds). + + Note: If <ip address> is invalid, say the string "0", then a negative + entry is created, which will cause the kernel to treat the hostname + as having no valid DNS translation. + + + + +A basic sample /sbin/nfs_cache_getent +===================================== + +#!/bin/bash +# +ttl=600 +# +cut=/usr/bin/cut +getent=/usr/bin/getent +rpc_pipefs=/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs +# +die() +{ + echo "Usage: $0 cache_name entry_name" + exit 1 +} + +[ $# -lt 2 ] && die +cachename="$1" +cache_path=${rpc_pipefs}/cache/${cachename}/channel + +case "${cachename}" in + dns_resolve) + name="$2" + result="$(${getent} hosts ${name} | ${cut} -f1 -d\ )" + [ -z "${result}" ] && result="0" + ;; + *) + die + ;; +esac +echo "${result} ${name} ${ttl}" >${cache_path} + diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs41-server.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs41-server.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..1bd0d0c0517 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfs41-server.txt @@ -0,0 +1,222 @@ +NFSv4.1 Server Implementation + +Server support for minorversion 1 can be controlled using the +/proc/fs/nfsd/versions control file. The string output returned +by reading this file will contain either "+4.1" or "-4.1" +correspondingly. + +Currently, server support for minorversion 1 is disabled by default. +It can be enabled at run time by writing the string "+4.1" to +the /proc/fs/nfsd/versions control file. Note that to write this +control file, the nfsd service must be taken down. Use your user-mode +nfs-utils to set this up; see rpc.nfsd(8) + +(Warning: older servers will interpret "+4.1" and "-4.1" as "+4" and +"-4", respectively. Therefore, code meant to work on both new and old +kernels must turn 4.1 on or off *before* turning support for version 4 +on or off; rpc.nfsd does this correctly.) + +The NFSv4 minorversion 1 (NFSv4.1) implementation in nfsd is based +on the latest NFSv4.1 Internet Draft: +http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-nfsv4-minorversion1-29 + +From the many new features in NFSv4.1 the current implementation +focuses on the mandatory-to-implement NFSv4.1 Sessions, providing +"exactly once" semantics and better control and throttling of the +resources allocated for each client. + +Other NFSv4.1 features, Parallel NFS operations in particular, +are still under development out of tree. +See http://wiki.linux-nfs.org/wiki/index.php/PNFS_prototype_design +for more information. + +The current implementation is intended for developers only: while it +does support ordinary file operations on clients we have tested against +(including the linux client), it is incomplete in ways which may limit +features unexpectedly, cause known bugs in rare cases, or cause +interoperability problems with future clients. Known issues: + + - gss support is questionable: currently mounts with kerberos + from a linux client are possible, but we aren't really + conformant with the spec (for example, we don't use kerberos + on the backchannel correctly). + - no trunking support: no clients currently take advantage of + trunking, but this is a mandatory feature, and its use is + recommended to clients in a number of places. (E.g. to ensure + timely renewal in case an existing connection's retry timeouts + have gotten too long; see section 8.3 of the draft.) + Therefore, lack of this feature may cause future clients to + fail. + - Incomplete backchannel support: incomplete backchannel gss + support and no support for BACKCHANNEL_CTL mean that + callbacks (hence delegations and layouts) may not be + available and clients confused by the incomplete + implementation may fail. + - Server reboot recovery is unsupported; if the server reboots, + clients may fail. + - We do not support SSV, which provides security for shared + client-server state (thus preventing unauthorized tampering + with locks and opens, for example). It is mandatory for + servers to support this, though no clients use it yet. + - Mandatory operations which we do not support, such as + DESTROY_CLIENTID, FREE_STATEID, SECINFO_NO_NAME, and + TEST_STATEID, are not currently used by clients, but will be + (and the spec recommends their uses in common cases), and + clients should not be expected to know how to recover from the + case where they are not supported. This will eventually cause + interoperability failures. + +In addition, some limitations are inherited from the current NFSv4 +implementation: + + - Incomplete delegation enforcement: if a file is renamed or + unlinked, a client holding a delegation may continue to + indefinitely allow opens of the file under the old name. + +The table below, taken from the NFSv4.1 document, lists +the operations that are mandatory to implement (REQ), optional +(OPT), and NFSv4.0 operations that are required not to implement (MNI) +in minor version 1. The first column indicates the operations that +are not supported yet by the linux server implementation. + +The OPTIONAL features identified and their abbreviations are as follows: + pNFS Parallel NFS + FDELG File Delegations + DDELG Directory Delegations + +The following abbreviations indicate the linux server implementation status. + I Implemented NFSv4.1 operations. + NS Not Supported. + NS* unimplemented optional feature. + P pNFS features implemented out of tree. + PNS pNFS features that are not supported yet (out of tree). + +Operations + + +----------------------+------------+--------------+----------------+ + | Operation | REQ, REC, | Feature | Definition | + | | OPT, or | (REQ, REC, | | + | | MNI | or OPT) | | + +----------------------+------------+--------------+----------------+ + | ACCESS | REQ | | Section 18.1 | +NS | BACKCHANNEL_CTL | REQ | | Section 18.33 | +NS | BIND_CONN_TO_SESSION | REQ | | Section 18.34 | + | CLOSE | REQ | | Section 18.2 | + | COMMIT | REQ | | Section 18.3 | + | CREATE | REQ | | Section 18.4 | +I | CREATE_SESSION | REQ | | Section 18.36 | +NS*| DELEGPURGE | OPT | FDELG (REQ) | Section 18.5 | + | DELEGRETURN | OPT | FDELG, | Section 18.6 | + | | | DDELG, pNFS | | + | | | (REQ) | | +NS | DESTROY_CLIENTID | REQ | | Section 18.50 | +I | DESTROY_SESSION | REQ | | Section 18.37 | +I | EXCHANGE_ID | REQ | | Section 18.35 | +NS | FREE_STATEID | REQ | | Section 18.38 | + | GETATTR | REQ | | Section 18.7 | +P | GETDEVICEINFO | OPT | pNFS (REQ) | Section 18.40 | +P | GETDEVICELIST | OPT | pNFS (OPT) | Section 18.41 | + | GETFH | REQ | | Section 18.8 | +NS*| GET_DIR_DELEGATION | OPT | DDELG (REQ) | Section 18.39 | +P | LAYOUTCOMMIT | OPT | pNFS (REQ) | Section 18.42 | +P | LAYOUTGET | OPT | pNFS (REQ) | Section 18.43 | +P | LAYOUTRETURN | OPT | pNFS (REQ) | Section 18.44 | + | LINK | OPT | | Section 18.9 | + | LOCK | REQ | | Section 18.10 | + | LOCKT | REQ | | Section 18.11 | + | LOCKU | REQ | | Section 18.12 | + | LOOKUP | REQ | | Section 18.13 | + | LOOKUPP | REQ | | Section 18.14 | + | NVERIFY | REQ | | Section 18.15 | + | OPEN | REQ | | Section 18.16 | +NS*| OPENATTR | OPT | | Section 18.17 | + | OPEN_CONFIRM | MNI | | N/A | + | OPEN_DOWNGRADE | REQ | | Section 18.18 | + | PUTFH | REQ | | Section 18.19 | + | PUTPUBFH | REQ | | Section 18.20 | + | PUTROOTFH | REQ | | Section 18.21 | + | READ | REQ | | Section 18.22 | + | READDIR | REQ | | Section 18.23 | + | READLINK | OPT | | Section 18.24 | +NS | RECLAIM_COMPLETE | REQ | | Section 18.51 | + | RELEASE_LOCKOWNER | MNI | | N/A | + | REMOVE | REQ | | Section 18.25 | + | RENAME | REQ | | Section 18.26 | + | RENEW | MNI | | N/A | + | RESTOREFH | REQ | | Section 18.27 | + | SAVEFH | REQ | | Section 18.28 | + | SECINFO | REQ | | Section 18.29 | +NS | SECINFO_NO_NAME | REC | pNFS files | Section 18.45, | + | | | layout (REQ) | Section 13.12 | +I | SEQUENCE | REQ | | Section 18.46 | + | SETATTR | REQ | | Section 18.30 | + | SETCLIENTID | MNI | | N/A | + | SETCLIENTID_CONFIRM | MNI | | N/A | +NS | SET_SSV | REQ | | Section 18.47 | +NS | TEST_STATEID | REQ | | Section 18.48 | + | VERIFY | REQ | | Section 18.31 | +NS*| WANT_DELEGATION | OPT | FDELG (OPT) | Section 18.49 | + | WRITE | REQ | | Section 18.32 | + +Callback Operations + + +-------------------------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ + | Operation | REQ, REC, | Feature | Definition | + | | OPT, or | (REQ, REC, | | + | | MNI | or OPT) | | + +-------------------------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ + | CB_GETATTR | OPT | FDELG (REQ) | Section 20.1 | +P | CB_LAYOUTRECALL | OPT | pNFS (REQ) | Section 20.3 | +NS*| CB_NOTIFY | OPT | DDELG (REQ) | Section 20.4 | +P | CB_NOTIFY_DEVICEID | OPT | pNFS (OPT) | Section 20.12 | +NS*| CB_NOTIFY_LOCK | OPT | | Section 20.11 | +NS*| CB_PUSH_DELEG | OPT | FDELG (OPT) | Section 20.5 | + | CB_RECALL | OPT | FDELG, | Section 20.2 | + | | | DDELG, pNFS | | + | | | (REQ) | | +NS*| CB_RECALL_ANY | OPT | FDELG, | Section 20.6 | + | | | DDELG, pNFS | | + | | | (REQ) | | +NS | CB_RECALL_SLOT | REQ | | Section 20.8 | +NS*| CB_RECALLABLE_OBJ_AVAIL | OPT | DDELG, pNFS | Section 20.7 | + | | | (REQ) | | +I | CB_SEQUENCE | OPT | FDELG, | Section 20.9 | + | | | DDELG, pNFS | | + | | | (REQ) | | +NS*| CB_WANTS_CANCELLED | OPT | FDELG, | Section 20.10 | + | | | DDELG, pNFS | | + | | | (REQ) | | + +-------------------------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ + +Implementation notes: + +DELEGPURGE: +* mandatory only for servers that support CLAIM_DELEGATE_PREV and/or + CLAIM_DELEG_PREV_FH (which allows clients to keep delegations that + persist across client reboots). Thus we need not implement this for + now. + +EXCHANGE_ID: +* only SP4_NONE state protection supported +* implementation ids are ignored + +CREATE_SESSION: +* backchannel attributes are ignored +* backchannel security parameters are ignored + +SEQUENCE: +* no support for dynamic slot table renegotiation (optional) + +nfsv4.1 COMPOUND rules: +The following cases aren't supported yet: +* Enforcing of NFS4ERR_NOT_ONLY_OP for: BIND_CONN_TO_SESSION, CREATE_SESSION, + DESTROY_CLIENTID, DESTROY_SESSION, EXCHANGE_ID. +* DESTROY_SESSION MUST be the final operation in the COMPOUND request. + +Nonstandard compound limitations: +* No support for a sessions fore channel RPC compound that requires both a + ca_maxrequestsize request and a ca_maxresponsesize reply, so we may + fail to live up to the promise we made in CREATE_SESSION fore channel + negotiation. +* No more than one IO operation (read, write, readdir) allowed per + compound. diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..3ba0b945aaf --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt @@ -0,0 +1,270 @@ +Mounting the root filesystem via NFS (nfsroot) +=============================================== + +Written 1996 by Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de> +Updated 1997 by Martin Mares <mj@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> +Updated 2006 by Nico Schottelius <nico-kernel-nfsroot@schottelius.org> +Updated 2006 by Horms <horms@verge.net.au> + + + +In order to use a diskless system, such as an X-terminal or printer server +for example, it is necessary for the root filesystem to be present on a +non-disk device. This may be an initramfs (see Documentation/filesystems/ +ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt), a ramdisk (see Documentation/initrd.txt) or a +filesystem mounted via NFS. The following text describes on how to use NFS +for the root filesystem. For the rest of this text 'client' means the +diskless system, and 'server' means the NFS server. + + + + +1.) Enabling nfsroot capabilities + ----------------------------- + +In order to use nfsroot, NFS client support needs to be selected as +built-in during configuration. Once this has been selected, the nfsroot +option will become available, which should also be selected. + +In the networking options, kernel level autoconfiguration can be selected, +along with the types of autoconfiguration to support. Selecting all of +DHCP, BOOTP and RARP is safe. + + + + +2.) Kernel command line + ------------------- + +When the kernel has been loaded by a boot loader (see below) it needs to be +told what root fs device to use. And in the case of nfsroot, where to find +both the server and the name of the directory on the server to mount as root. +This can be established using the following kernel command line parameters: + + +root=/dev/nfs + + This is necessary to enable the pseudo-NFS-device. Note that it's not a + real device but just a synonym to tell the kernel to use NFS instead of + a real device. + + +nfsroot=[<server-ip>:]<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>] + + If the `nfsroot' parameter is NOT given on the command line, + the default "/tftpboot/%s" will be used. + + <server-ip> Specifies the IP address of the NFS server. + The default address is determined by the `ip' parameter + (see below). This parameter allows the use of different + servers for IP autoconfiguration and NFS. + + <root-dir> Name of the directory on the server to mount as root. + If there is a "%s" token in the string, it will be + replaced by the ASCII-representation of the client's + IP address. + + <nfs-options> Standard NFS options. All options are separated by commas. + The following defaults are used: + port = as given by server portmap daemon + rsize = 4096 + wsize = 4096 + timeo = 7 + retrans = 3 + acregmin = 3 + acregmax = 60 + acdirmin = 30 + acdirmax = 60 + flags = hard, nointr, noposix, cto, ac + + +ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf> + + This parameter tells the kernel how to configure IP addresses of devices + and also how to set up the IP routing table. It was originally called + `nfsaddrs', but now the boot-time IP configuration works independently of + NFS, so it was renamed to `ip' and the old name remained as an alias for + compatibility reasons. + + If this parameter is missing from the kernel command line, all fields are + assumed to be empty, and the defaults mentioned below apply. In general + this means that the kernel tries to configure everything using + autoconfiguration. + + The <autoconf> parameter can appear alone as the value to the `ip' + parameter (without all the ':' characters before). If the value is + "ip=off" or "ip=none", no autoconfiguration will take place, otherwise + autoconfiguration will take place. The most common way to use this + is "ip=dhcp". + + <client-ip> IP address of the client. + + Default: Determined using autoconfiguration. + + <server-ip> IP address of the NFS server. If RARP is used to determine + the client address and this parameter is NOT empty only + replies from the specified server are accepted. + + Only required for NFS root. That is autoconfiguration + will not be triggered if it is missing and NFS root is not + in operation. + + Default: Determined using autoconfiguration. + The address of the autoconfiguration server is used. + + <gw-ip> IP address of a gateway if the server is on a different subnet. + + Default: Determined using autoconfiguration. + + <netmask> Netmask for local network interface. If unspecified + the netmask is derived from the client IP address assuming + classful addressing. + + Default: Determined using autoconfiguration. + + <hostname> Name of the client. May be supplied by autoconfiguration, + but its absence will not trigger autoconfiguration. + + Default: Client IP address is used in ASCII notation. + + <device> Name of network device to use. + + Default: If the host only has one device, it is used. + Otherwise the device is determined using + autoconfiguration. This is done by sending + autoconfiguration requests out of all devices, + and using the device that received the first reply. + + <autoconf> Method to use for autoconfiguration. In the case of options + which specify multiple autoconfiguration protocols, + requests are sent using all protocols, and the first one + to reply is used. + + Only autoconfiguration protocols that have been compiled + into the kernel will be used, regardless of the value of + this option. + + off or none: don't use autoconfiguration + (do static IP assignment instead) + on or any: use any protocol available in the kernel + (default) + dhcp: use DHCP + bootp: use BOOTP + rarp: use RARP + both: use both BOOTP and RARP but not DHCP + (old option kept for backwards compatibility) + + Default: any + + + + +3.) Boot Loader + ---------- + +To get the kernel into memory different approaches can be used. +They depend on various facilities being available: + + +3.1) Booting from a floppy using syslinux + + When building kernels, an easy way to create a boot floppy that uses + syslinux is to use the zdisk or bzdisk make targets which use zimage + and bzimage images respectively. Both targets accept the + FDARGS parameter which can be used to set the kernel command line. + + e.g. + make bzdisk FDARGS="root=/dev/nfs" + + Note that the user running this command will need to have + access to the floppy drive device, /dev/fd0 + + For more information on syslinux, including how to create bootdisks + for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/ + + N.B: Previously it was possible to write a kernel directly to + a floppy using dd, configure the boot device using rdev, and + boot using the resulting floppy. Linux no longer supports this + method of booting. + +3.2) Booting from a cdrom using isolinux + + When building kernels, an easy way to create a bootable cdrom that + uses isolinux is to use the isoimage target which uses a bzimage + image. Like zdisk and bzdisk, this target accepts the FDARGS + parameter which can be used to set the kernel command line. + + e.g. + make isoimage FDARGS="root=/dev/nfs" + + The resulting iso image will be arch/<ARCH>/boot/image.iso + This can be written to a cdrom using a variety of tools including + cdrecord. + + e.g. + cdrecord dev=ATAPI:1,0,0 arch/i386/boot/image.iso + + For more information on isolinux, including how to create bootdisks + for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/ + +3.2) Using LILO + When using LILO all the necessary command line parameters may be + specified using the 'append=' directive in the LILO configuration + file. + + However, to use the 'root=' directive you also need to create + a dummy root device, which may be removed after LILO is run. + + mknod /dev/boot255 c 0 255 + + For information on configuring LILO, please refer to its documentation. + +3.3) Using GRUB + When using GRUB, kernel parameter are simply appended after the kernel + specification: kernel <kernel> <parameters> + +3.4) Using loadlin + loadlin may be used to boot Linux from a DOS command prompt without + requiring a local hard disk to mount as root. This has not been + thoroughly tested by the authors of this document, but in general + it should be possible configure the kernel command line similarly + to the configuration of LILO. + + Please refer to the loadlin documentation for further information. + +3.5) Using a boot ROM + This is probably the most elegant way of booting a diskless client. + With a boot ROM the kernel is loaded using the TFTP protocol. The + authors of this document are not aware of any no commercial boot + ROMs that support booting Linux over the network. However, there + are two free implementations of a boot ROM, netboot-nfs and + etherboot, both of which are available on sunsite.unc.edu, and both + of which contain everything you need to boot a diskless Linux client. + +3.6) Using pxelinux + Pxelinux may be used to boot linux using the PXE boot loader + which is present on many modern network cards. + + When using pxelinux, the kernel image is specified using + "kernel <relative-path-below /tftpboot>". The nfsroot parameters + are passed to the kernel by adding them to the "append" line. + It is common to use serial console in conjunction with pxeliunx, + see Documentation/serial-console.txt for more information. + + For more information on isolinux, including how to create bootdisks + for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/ + + + + +4.) Credits + ------- + + The nfsroot code in the kernel and the RARP support have been written + by Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de>. + + The rest of the IP layer autoconfiguration code has been written + by Martin Mares <mj@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>. + + In order to write the initial version of nfsroot I would like to thank + Jens-Uwe Mager <jum@anubis.han.de> for his help. diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/rpc-cache.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/rpc-cache.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..8a382bea680 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/rpc-cache.txt @@ -0,0 +1,202 @@ + This document gives a brief introduction to the caching +mechanisms in the sunrpc layer that is used, in particular, +for NFS authentication. + +CACHES +====== +The caching replaces the old exports table and allows for +a wide variety of values to be caches. + +There are a number of caches that are similar in structure though +quite possibly very different in content and use. There is a corpus +of common code for managing these caches. + +Examples of caches that are likely to be needed are: + - mapping from IP address to client name + - mapping from client name and filesystem to export options + - mapping from UID to list of GIDs, to work around NFS's limitation + of 16 gids. + - mappings between local UID/GID and remote UID/GID for sites that + do not have uniform uid assignment + - mapping from network identify to public key for crypto authentication. + +The common code handles such things as: + - general cache lookup with correct locking + - supporting 'NEGATIVE' as well as positive entries + - allowing an EXPIRED time on cache items, and removing + items after they expire, and are no longer in-use. + - making requests to user-space to fill in cache entries + - allowing user-space to directly set entries in the cache + - delaying RPC requests that depend on as-yet incomplete + cache entries, and replaying those requests when the cache entry + is complete. + - clean out old entries as they expire. + +Creating a Cache +---------------- + +1/ A cache needs a datum to store. This is in the form of a + structure definition that must contain a + struct cache_head + as an element, usually the first. + It will also contain a key and some content. + Each cache element is reference counted and contains + expiry and update times for use in cache management. +2/ A cache needs a "cache_detail" structure that + describes the cache. This stores the hash table, some + parameters for cache management, and some operations detailing how + to work with particular cache items. + The operations requires are: + struct cache_head *alloc(void) + This simply allocates appropriate memory and returns + a pointer to the cache_detail embedded within the + structure + void cache_put(struct kref *) + This is called when the last reference to an item is + dropped. The pointer passed is to the 'ref' field + in the cache_head. cache_put should release any + references create by 'cache_init' and, if CACHE_VALID + is set, any references created by cache_update. + It should then release the memory allocated by + 'alloc'. + int match(struct cache_head *orig, struct cache_head *new) + test if the keys in the two structures match. Return + 1 if they do, 0 if they don't. + void init(struct cache_head *orig, struct cache_head *new) + Set the 'key' fields in 'new' from 'orig'. This may + include taking references to shared objects. + void update(struct cache_head *orig, struct cache_head *new) + Set the 'content' fileds in 'new' from 'orig'. + int cache_show(struct seq_file *m, struct cache_detail *cd, + struct cache_head *h) + Optional. Used to provide a /proc file that lists the + contents of a cache. This should show one item, + usually on just one line. + int cache_request(struct cache_detail *cd, struct cache_head *h, + char **bpp, int *blen) + Format a request to be send to user-space for an item + to be instantiated. *bpp is a buffer of size *blen. + bpp should be moved forward over the encoded message, + and *blen should be reduced to show how much free + space remains. Return 0 on success or <0 if not + enough room or other problem. + int cache_parse(struct cache_detail *cd, char *buf, int len) + A message from user space has arrived to fill out a + cache entry. It is in 'buf' of length 'len'. + cache_parse should parse this, find the item in the + cache with sunrpc_cache_lookup, and update the item + with sunrpc_cache_update. + + +3/ A cache needs to be registered using cache_register(). This + includes it on a list of caches that will be regularly + cleaned to discard old data. + +Using a cache +------------- + +To find a value in a cache, call sunrpc_cache_lookup passing a pointer +to the cache_head in a sample item with the 'key' fields filled in. +This will be passed to ->match to identify the target entry. If no +entry is found, a new entry will be create, added to the cache, and +marked as not containing valid data. + +The item returned is typically passed to cache_check which will check +if the data is valid, and may initiate an up-call to get fresh data. +cache_check will return -ENOENT in the entry is negative or if an up +call is needed but not possible, -EAGAIN if an upcall is pending, +or 0 if the data is valid; + +cache_check can be passed a "struct cache_req *". This structure is +typically embedded in the actual request and can be used to create a +deferred copy of the request (struct cache_deferred_req). This is +done when the found cache item is not uptodate, but the is reason to +believe that userspace might provide information soon. When the cache +item does become valid, the deferred copy of the request will be +revisited (->revisit). It is expected that this method will +reschedule the request for processing. + +The value returned by sunrpc_cache_lookup can also be passed to +sunrpc_cache_update to set the content for the item. A second item is +passed which should hold the content. If the item found by _lookup +has valid data, then it is discarded and a new item is created. This +saves any user of an item from worrying about content changing while +it is being inspected. If the item found by _lookup does not contain +valid data, then the content is copied across and CACHE_VALID is set. + +Populating a cache +------------------ + +Each cache has a name, and when the cache is registered, a directory +with that name is created in /proc/net/rpc + +This directory contains a file called 'channel' which is a channel +for communicating between kernel and user for populating the cache. +This directory may later contain other files of interacting +with the cache. + +The 'channel' works a bit like a datagram socket. Each 'write' is +passed as a whole to the cache for parsing and interpretation. +Each cache can treat the write requests differently, but it is +expected that a message written will contain: + - a key + - an expiry time + - a content. +with the intention that an item in the cache with the give key +should be create or updated to have the given content, and the +expiry time should be set on that item. + +Reading from a channel is a bit more interesting. When a cache +lookup fails, or when it succeeds but finds an entry that may soon +expire, a request is lodged for that cache item to be updated by +user-space. These requests appear in the channel file. + +Successive reads will return successive requests. +If there are no more requests to return, read will return EOF, but a +select or poll for read will block waiting for another request to be +added. + +Thus a user-space helper is likely to: + open the channel. + select for readable + read a request + write a response + loop. + +If it dies and needs to be restarted, any requests that have not been +answered will still appear in the file and will be read by the new +instance of the helper. + +Each cache should define a "cache_parse" method which takes a message +written from user-space and processes it. It should return an error +(which propagates back to the write syscall) or 0. + +Each cache should also define a "cache_request" method which +takes a cache item and encodes a request into the buffer +provided. + +Note: If a cache has no active readers on the channel, and has had not +active readers for more than 60 seconds, further requests will not be +added to the channel but instead all lookups that do not find a valid +entry will fail. This is partly for backward compatibility: The +previous nfs exports table was deemed to be authoritative and a +failed lookup meant a definite 'no'. + +request/response format +----------------------- + +While each cache is free to use it's own format for requests +and responses over channel, the following is recommended as +appropriate and support routines are available to help: +Each request or response record should be printable ASCII +with precisely one newline character which should be at the end. +Fields within the record should be separated by spaces, normally one. +If spaces, newlines, or nul characters are needed in a field they +much be quoted. two mechanisms are available: +1/ If a field begins '\x' then it must contain an even number of + hex digits, and pairs of these digits provide the bytes in the + field. +2/ otherwise a \ in the field must be followed by 3 octal digits + which give the code for a byte. Other characters are treated + as them selves. At the very least, space, newline, nul, and + '\' must be quoted in this way. |