Merge tag 'docs-5.3' of git://git.lwn.net/linux

Pull Documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
 "It's been a relatively busy cycle for docs:

   - A fair pile of RST conversions, many from Mauro. These create more
     than the usual number of simple but annoying merge conflicts with
     other trees, unfortunately. He has a lot more of these waiting on
     the wings that, I think, will go to you directly later on.

   - A new document on how to use merges and rebases in kernel repos,
     and one on Spectre vulnerabilities.

   - Various improvements to the build system, including automatic
     markup of function() references because some people, for reasons I
     will never understand, were of the opinion that
     :c:func:``function()`` is unattractive and not fun to type.

   - We now recommend using sphinx 1.7, but still support back to 1.4.

   - Lots of smaller improvements, warning fixes, typo fixes, etc"

* tag 'docs-5.3' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (129 commits)
  docs: automarkup.py: ignore exceptions when seeking for xrefs
  docs: Move binderfs to admin-guide
  Disable Sphinx SmartyPants in HTML output
  doc: RCU callback locks need only _bh, not necessarily _irq
  docs: format kernel-parameters -- as code
  Doc : doc-guide : Fix a typo
  platform: x86: get rid of a non-existent document
  Add the RCU docs to the core-api manual
  Documentation: RCU: Add TOC tree hooks
  Documentation: RCU: Rename txt files to rst
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU UP systems to reST
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU linked list to reST
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU basic concepts to reST
  docs: filesystems: Remove uneeded .rst extension on toctables
  scripts/sphinx-pre-install: fix out-of-tree build
  docs: zh_CN: submitting-drivers.rst: Remove a duplicated Documentation/
  Documentation: PGP: update for newer HW devices
  Documentation: Add section about CPU vulnerabilities for Spectre
  Documentation: platform: Delete x86-laptop-drivers.txt
  docs: Note that :c:func: should no longer be used
  ...

1 files changed, 180 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/snapshot.rst b/Documentation/device-mapper/snapshot.rst
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+==============================
+Device-mapper snapshot support
+==============================
+
+Device-mapper allows you, without massive data copying:
+
+-  To create snapshots of any block device i.e. mountable, saved states of
+   the block device which are also writable without interfering with the
+   original content;
+-  To create device "forks", i.e. multiple different versions of the
+   same data stream.
+-  To merge a snapshot of a block device back into the snapshot's origin
+   device.
+
+In the first two cases, dm copies only the chunks of data that get
+changed and uses a separate copy-on-write (COW) block device for
+storage.
+
+For snapshot merge the contents of the COW storage are merged back into
+the origin device.
+
+
+There are three dm targets available:
+snapshot, snapshot-origin, and snapshot-merge.
+
+-  snapshot-origin <origin>
+
+which will normally have one or more snapshots based on it.
+Reads will be mapped directly to the backing device. For each write, the
+original data will be saved in the <COW device> of each snapshot to keep
+its visible content unchanged, at least until the <COW device> fills up.
+
+
+-  snapshot <origin> <COW device> <persistent?> <chunksize>
+
+A snapshot of the <origin> block device is created. Changed chunks of
+<chunksize> sectors will be stored on the <COW device>.  Writes will
+only go to the <COW device>.  Reads will come from the <COW device> or
+from <origin> for unchanged data.  <COW device> will often be
+smaller than the origin and if it fills up the snapshot will become
+useless and be disabled, returning errors.  So it is important to monitor
+the amount of free space and expand the <COW device> before it fills up.
+
+<persistent?> is P (Persistent) or N (Not persistent - will not survive
+after reboot).  O (Overflow) can be added as a persistent store option
+to allow userspace to advertise its support for seeing "Overflow" in the
+snapshot status.  So supported store types are "P", "PO" and "N".
+
+The difference between persistent and transient is with transient
+snapshots less metadata must be saved on disk - they can be kept in
+memory by the kernel.
+
+When loading or unloading the snapshot target, the corresponding
+snapshot-origin or snapshot-merge target must be suspended. A failure to
+suspend the origin target could result in data corruption.
+
+
+* snapshot-merge <origin> <COW device> <persistent> <chunksize>
+
+takes the same table arguments as the snapshot target except it only
+works with persistent snapshots.  This target assumes the role of the
+"snapshot-origin" target and must not be loaded if the "snapshot-origin"
+is still present for <origin>.
+
+Creates a merging snapshot that takes control of the changed chunks
+stored in the <COW device> of an existing snapshot, through a handover
+procedure, and merges these chunks back into the <origin>.  Once merging
+has started (in the background) the <origin> may be opened and the merge
+will continue while I/O is flowing to it.  Changes to the <origin> are
+deferred until the merging snapshot's corresponding chunk(s) have been
+merged.  Once merging has started the snapshot device, associated with
+the "snapshot" target, will return -EIO when accessed.
+
+
+How snapshot is used by LVM2
+============================
+When you create the first LVM2 snapshot of a volume, four dm devices are used:
+
+1) a device containing the original mapping table of the source volume;
+2) a device used as the <COW device>;
+3) a "snapshot" device, combining #1 and #2, which is the visible snapshot
+   volume;
+4) the "original" volume (which uses the device number used by the original
+   source volume), whose table is replaced by a "snapshot-origin" mapping
+   from device #1.
+
+A fixed naming scheme is used, so with the following commands::
+
+  lvcreate -L 1G -n base volumeGroup
+  lvcreate -L 100M --snapshot -n snap volumeGroup/base
+
+we'll have this situation (with volumes in above order)::
+
+  # dmsetup table|grep volumeGroup
+
+  volumeGroup-base-real: 0 2097152 linear 8:19 384
+  volumeGroup-snap-cow: 0 204800 linear 8:19 2097536
+  volumeGroup-snap: 0 2097152 snapshot 254:11 254:12 P 16
+  volumeGroup-base: 0 2097152 snapshot-origin 254:11
+
+  # ls -lL /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-*
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 11 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-real
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 12 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-snap-cow
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 13 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-snap
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 10 29 ago 18:14 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base
+
+
+How snapshot-merge is used by LVM2
+==================================
+A merging snapshot assumes the role of the "snapshot-origin" while
+merging.  As such the "snapshot-origin" is replaced with
+"snapshot-merge".  The "-real" device is not changed and the "-cow"
+device is renamed to <origin name>-cow to aid LVM2's cleanup of the
+merging snapshot after it completes.  The "snapshot" that hands over its
+COW device to the "snapshot-merge" is deactivated (unless using lvchange
+--refresh); but if it is left active it will simply return I/O errors.
+
+A snapshot will merge into its origin with the following command::
+
+  lvconvert --merge volumeGroup/snap
+
+we'll now have this situation::
+
+  # dmsetup table|grep volumeGroup
+
+  volumeGroup-base-real: 0 2097152 linear 8:19 384
+  volumeGroup-base-cow: 0 204800 linear 8:19 2097536
+  volumeGroup-base: 0 2097152 snapshot-merge 254:11 254:12 P 16
+
+  # ls -lL /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-*
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 11 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-real
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 12 29 ago 18:16 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-cow
+  brw-------  1 root root 254, 10 29 ago 18:16 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base
+
+
+How to determine when a merging is complete
+===========================================
+The snapshot-merge and snapshot status lines end with:
+
+  <sectors_allocated>/<total_sectors> <metadata_sectors>
+
+Both <sectors_allocated> and <total_sectors> include both data and metadata.
+During merging, the number of sectors allocated gets smaller and
+smaller.  Merging has finished when the number of sectors holding data
+is zero, in other words <sectors_allocated> == <metadata_sectors>.
+
+Here is a practical example (using a hybrid of lvm and dmsetup commands)::
+
+  # lvs
+    LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+    base    volumeGroup owi-a- 4.00g
+    snap    volumeGroup swi-a- 1.00g base  18.97
+
+  # dmsetup status volumeGroup-snap
+  0 8388608 snapshot 397896/2097152 1560
+                                    ^^^^ metadata sectors
+
+  # lvconvert --merge -b volumeGroup/snap
+    Merging of volume snap started.
+
+  # lvs volumeGroup/snap
+    LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+    base    volumeGroup Owi-a- 4.00g          17.23
+
+  # dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+  0 8388608 snapshot-merge 281688/2097152 1104
+
+  # dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+  0 8388608 snapshot-merge 180480/2097152 712
+
+  # dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+  0 8388608 snapshot-merge 16/2097152 16
+
+Merging has finished.
+
+::
+
+  # lvs
+    LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+    base    volumeGroup owi-a- 4.00g