1			  ==========================
2			  General Filesystem Caching
3			  ==========================
4
5========
6OVERVIEW
7========
8
9This facility is a general purpose cache for network filesystems, though it
10could be used for caching other things such as ISO9660 filesystems too.
11
12FS-Cache mediates between cache backends (such as CacheFS) and network
13filesystems:
14
15	+---------+
16	|         |                        +--------------+
17	|   NFS   |--+                     |              |
18	|         |  |                 +-->|   CacheFS    |
19	+---------+  |   +----------+  |   |  /dev/hda5   |
20	             |   |          |  |   +--------------+
21	+---------+  +-->|          |  |
22	|         |      |          |--+
23	|   AFS   |----->| FS-Cache |
24	|         |      |          |--+
25	+---------+  +-->|          |  |
26	             |   |          |  |   +--------------+
27	+---------+  |   +----------+  |   |              |
28	|         |  |                 +-->|  CacheFiles  |
29	|  ISOFS  |--+                     |  /var/cache  |
30	|         |                        +--------------+
31	+---------+
32
33Or to look at it another way, FS-Cache is a module that provides a caching
34facility to a network filesystem such that the cache is transparent to the
35user:
36
37	+---------+
38	|         |
39	| Server  |
40	|         |
41	+---------+
42	     |                  NETWORK
43	~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
44	     |
45	     |           +----------+
46	     V           |          |
47	+---------+      |          |
48	|         |      |          |
49	|   NFS   |----->| FS-Cache |
50	|         |      |          |--+
51	+---------+      |          |  |   +--------------+   +--------------+
52	     |           |          |  |   |              |   |              |
53	     V           +----------+  +-->|  CacheFiles  |-->|  Ext3        |
54	+---------+                        |  /var/cache  |   |  /dev/sda6   |
55	|         |                        +--------------+   +--------------+
56	|   VFS   |                                ^                     ^
57	|         |                                |                     |
58	+---------+                                +--------------+      |
59	     |                  KERNEL SPACE                      |      |
60	~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~|~~~~
61	     |                  USER SPACE                        |      |
62	     V                                                    |      |
63	+---------+                                           +--------------+
64	|         |                                           |              |
65	| Process |                                           | cachefilesd  |
66	|         |                                           |              |
67	+---------+                                           +--------------+
68
69
70FS-Cache does not follow the idea of completely loading every netfs file
71opened in its entirety into a cache before permitting it to be accessed and
72then serving the pages out of that cache rather than the netfs inode because:
73
74 (1) It must be practical to operate without a cache.
75
76 (2) The size of any accessible file must not be limited to the size of the
77     cache.
78
79 (3) The combined size of all opened files (this includes mapped libraries)
80     must not be limited to the size of the cache.
81
82 (4) The user should not be forced to download an entire file just to do a
83     one-off access of a small portion of it (such as might be done with the
84     "file" program).
85
86It instead serves the cache out in PAGE_SIZE chunks as and when requested by
87the netfs('s) using it.
88
89
90FS-Cache provides the following facilities:
91
92 (1) More than one cache can be used at once.  Caches can be selected
93     explicitly by use of tags.
94
95 (2) Caches can be added / removed at any time.
96
97 (3) The netfs is provided with an interface that allows either party to
98     withdraw caching facilities from a file (required for (2)).
99
100 (4) The interface to the netfs returns as few errors as possible, preferring
101     rather to let the netfs remain oblivious.
102
103 (5) Cookies are used to represent indices, files and other objects to the
104     netfs.  The simplest cookie is just a NULL pointer - indicating nothing
105     cached there.
106
107 (6) The netfs is allowed to propose - dynamically - any index hierarchy it
108     desires, though it must be aware that the index search function is
109     recursive, stack space is limited, and indices can only be children of
110     indices.
111
112 (7) Data I/O is done direct to and from the netfs's pages.  The netfs
113     indicates that page A is at index B of the data-file represented by cookie
114     C, and that it should be read or written.  The cache backend may or may
115     not start I/O on that page, but if it does, a netfs callback will be
116     invoked to indicate completion.  The I/O may be either synchronous or
117     asynchronous.
118
119 (8) Cookies can be "retired" upon release.  At this point FS-Cache will mark
120     them as obsolete and the index hierarchy rooted at that point will get
121     recycled.
122
123 (9) The netfs provides a "match" function for index searches.  In addition to
124     saying whether a match was made or not, this can also specify that an
125     entry should be updated or deleted.
126
127(10) As much as possible is done asynchronously.
128
129
130FS-Cache maintains a virtual indexing tree in which all indices, files, objects
131and pages are kept.  Bits of this tree may actually reside in one or more
132caches.
133
134                                           FSDEF
135                                             |
136                        +------------------------------------+
137                        |                                    |
138                       NFS                                  AFS
139                        |                                    |
140           +--------------------------+                +-----------+
141           |                          |                |           |
142        homedir                     mirror          afs.org   redhat.com
143           |                          |                            |
144     +------------+           +---------------+              +----------+
145     |            |           |               |              |          |
146   00001        00002       00007           00125        vol00001   vol00002
147     |            |           |               |                         |
148 +---+---+     +-----+      +---+      +------+------+            +-----+----+
149 |   |   |     |     |      |   |      |      |      |            |     |    |
150PG0 PG1 PG2   PG0  XATTR   PG0 PG1   DIRENT DIRENT DIRENT        R/W   R/O  Bak
151                     |                                            |
152                    PG0                                       +-------+
153                                                              |       |
154                                                            00001   00003
155                                                              |
156                                                          +---+---+
157                                                          |   |   |
158                                                         PG0 PG1 PG2
159
160In the example above, you can see two netfs's being backed: NFS and AFS.  These
161have different index hierarchies:
162
163 (*) The NFS primary index contains per-server indices.  Each server index is
164     indexed by NFS file handles to get data file objects.  Each data file
165     objects can have an array of pages, but may also have further child
166     objects, such as extended attributes and directory entries.  Extended
167     attribute objects themselves have page-array contents.
168
169 (*) The AFS primary index contains per-cell indices.  Each cell index contains
170     per-logical-volume indices.  Each of volume index contains up to three
171     indices for the read-write, read-only and backup mirrors of those volumes.
172     Each of these contains vnode data file objects, each of which contains an
173     array of pages.
174
175The very top index is the FS-Cache master index in which individual netfs's
176have entries.
177
178Any index object may reside in more than one cache, provided it only has index
179children.  Any index with non-index object children will be assumed to only
180reside in one cache.
181
182
183The netfs API to FS-Cache can be found in:
184
185	Documentation/filesystems/caching/netfs-api.txt
186
187The cache backend API to FS-Cache can be found in:
188
189	Documentation/filesystems/caching/backend-api.txt
190
191A description of the internal representations and object state machine can be
192found in:
193
194	Documentation/filesystems/caching/object.txt
195
196
197=======================
198STATISTICAL INFORMATION
199=======================
200
201If FS-Cache is compiled with the following options enabled:
202
203	CONFIG_FSCACHE_STATS=y
204	CONFIG_FSCACHE_HISTOGRAM=y
205
206then it will gather certain statistics and display them through a number of
207proc files.
208
209 (*) /proc/fs/fscache/stats
210
211     This shows counts of a number of events that can happen in FS-Cache:
212
213	CLASS	EVENT	MEANING
214	=======	=======	=======================================================
215	Cookies	idx=N	Number of index cookies allocated
216		dat=N	Number of data storage cookies allocated
217		spc=N	Number of special cookies allocated
218	Objects	alc=N	Number of objects allocated
219		nal=N	Number of object allocation failures
220		avl=N	Number of objects that reached the available state
221		ded=N	Number of objects that reached the dead state
222	ChkAux	non=N	Number of objects that didn't have a coherency check
223		ok=N	Number of objects that passed a coherency check
224		upd=N	Number of objects that needed a coherency data update
225		obs=N	Number of objects that were declared obsolete
226	Pages	mrk=N	Number of pages marked as being cached
227		unc=N	Number of uncache page requests seen
228	Acquire	n=N	Number of acquire cookie requests seen
229		nul=N	Number of acq reqs given a NULL parent
230		noc=N	Number of acq reqs rejected due to no cache available
231		ok=N	Number of acq reqs succeeded
232		nbf=N	Number of acq reqs rejected due to error
233		oom=N	Number of acq reqs failed on ENOMEM
234	Lookups	n=N	Number of lookup calls made on cache backends
235		neg=N	Number of negative lookups made
236		pos=N	Number of positive lookups made
237		crt=N	Number of objects created by lookup
238		tmo=N	Number of lookups timed out and requeued
239	Updates	n=N	Number of update cookie requests seen
240		nul=N	Number of upd reqs given a NULL parent
241		run=N	Number of upd reqs granted CPU time
242	Relinqs	n=N	Number of relinquish cookie requests seen
243		nul=N	Number of rlq reqs given a NULL parent
244		wcr=N	Number of rlq reqs waited on completion of creation
245	AttrChg	n=N	Number of attribute changed requests seen
246		ok=N	Number of attr changed requests queued
247		nbf=N	Number of attr changed rejected -ENOBUFS
248		oom=N	Number of attr changed failed -ENOMEM
249		run=N	Number of attr changed ops given CPU time
250	Allocs	n=N	Number of allocation requests seen
251		ok=N	Number of successful alloc reqs
252		wt=N	Number of alloc reqs that waited on lookup completion
253		nbf=N	Number of alloc reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
254		int=N	Number of alloc reqs aborted -ERESTARTSYS
255		ops=N	Number of alloc reqs submitted
256		owt=N	Number of alloc reqs waited for CPU time
257		abt=N	Number of alloc reqs aborted due to object death
258	Retrvls	n=N	Number of retrieval (read) requests seen
259		ok=N	Number of successful retr reqs
260		wt=N	Number of retr reqs that waited on lookup completion
261		nod=N	Number of retr reqs returned -ENODATA
262		nbf=N	Number of retr reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
263		int=N	Number of retr reqs aborted -ERESTARTSYS
264		oom=N	Number of retr reqs failed -ENOMEM
265		ops=N	Number of retr reqs submitted
266		owt=N	Number of retr reqs waited for CPU time
267		abt=N	Number of retr reqs aborted due to object death
268	Stores	n=N	Number of storage (write) requests seen
269		ok=N	Number of successful store reqs
270		agn=N	Number of store reqs on a page already pending storage
271		nbf=N	Number of store reqs rejected -ENOBUFS
272		oom=N	Number of store reqs failed -ENOMEM
273		ops=N	Number of store reqs submitted
274		run=N	Number of store reqs granted CPU time
275		pgs=N	Number of pages given store req processing time
276		rxd=N	Number of store reqs deleted from tracking tree
277		olm=N	Number of store reqs over store limit
278	VmScan	nos=N	Number of release reqs against pages with no pending store
279		gon=N	Number of release reqs against pages stored by time lock granted
280		bsy=N	Number of release reqs ignored due to in-progress store
281		can=N	Number of page stores cancelled due to release req
282	Ops	pend=N	Number of times async ops added to pending queues
283		run=N	Number of times async ops given CPU time
284		enq=N	Number of times async ops queued for processing
285		can=N	Number of async ops cancelled
286		rej=N	Number of async ops rejected due to object lookup/create failure
287		dfr=N	Number of async ops queued for deferred release
288		rel=N	Number of async ops released
289		gc=N	Number of deferred-release async ops garbage collected
290	CacheOp	alo=N	Number of in-progress alloc_object() cache ops
291		luo=N	Number of in-progress lookup_object() cache ops
292		luc=N	Number of in-progress lookup_complete() cache ops
293		gro=N	Number of in-progress grab_object() cache ops
294		upo=N	Number of in-progress update_object() cache ops
295		dro=N	Number of in-progress drop_object() cache ops
296		pto=N	Number of in-progress put_object() cache ops
297		syn=N	Number of in-progress sync_cache() cache ops
298		atc=N	Number of in-progress attr_changed() cache ops
299		rap=N	Number of in-progress read_or_alloc_page() cache ops
300		ras=N	Number of in-progress read_or_alloc_pages() cache ops
301		alp=N	Number of in-progress allocate_page() cache ops
302		als=N	Number of in-progress allocate_pages() cache ops
303		wrp=N	Number of in-progress write_page() cache ops
304		ucp=N	Number of in-progress uncache_page() cache ops
305		dsp=N	Number of in-progress dissociate_pages() cache ops
306
307
308 (*) /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
309
310	cat /proc/fs/fscache/histogram
311	JIFS  SECS  OBJ INST  OP RUNS   OBJ RUNS  RETRV DLY RETRIEVLS
312	===== ===== ========= ========= ========= ========= =========
313
314     This shows the breakdown of the number of times each amount of time
315     between 0 jiffies and HZ-1 jiffies a variety of tasks took to run.  The
316     columns are as follows:
317
318	COLUMN		TIME MEASUREMENT
319	=======		=======================================================
320	OBJ INST	Length of time to instantiate an object
321	OP RUNS		Length of time a call to process an operation took
322	OBJ RUNS	Length of time a call to process an object event took
323	RETRV DLY	Time between an requesting a read and lookup completing
324	RETRIEVLS	Time between beginning and end of a retrieval
325
326     Each row shows the number of events that took a particular range of times.
327     Each step is 1 jiffy in size.  The JIFS column indicates the particular
328     jiffy range covered, and the SECS field the equivalent number of seconds.
329
330
331===========
332OBJECT LIST
333===========
334
335If CONFIG_FSCACHE_OBJECT_LIST is enabled, the FS-Cache facility will maintain a
336list of all the objects currently allocated and allow them to be viewed
337through:
338
339	/proc/fs/fscache/objects
340
341This will look something like:
342
343	[root@andromeda ~]# head /proc/fs/fscache/objects
344	OBJECT   PARENT   STAT CHLDN OPS OOP IPR EX READS EM EV F S | NETFS_COOKIE_DEF TY FL NETFS_DATA       OBJECT_KEY, AUX_DATA
345	======== ======== ==== ===== === === === == ===== == == = = | ================ == == ================ ================
346	   17e4b        2 ACTV     0   0   0   0  0     0 7b  4 0 0 | NFS.fh           DT  0 ffff88001dd82820 010006017edcf8bbc93b43298fdfbe71e50b57b13a172c0117f38472, e567634700000000000000000000000063f2404a000000000000000000000000c9030000000000000000000063f2404a
347	   1693a        2 ACTV     0   0   0   0  0     0 7b  4 0 0 | NFS.fh           DT  0 ffff88002db23380 010006017edcf8bbc93b43298fdfbe71e50b57b1e0162c01a2df0ea6, 420ebc4a000000000000000000000000420ebc4a0000000000000000000000000e1801000000000000000000420ebc4a
348
349where the first set of columns before the '|' describe the object:
350
351	COLUMN	DESCRIPTION
352	=======	===============================================================
353	OBJECT	Object debugging ID (appears as OBJ%x in some debug messages)
354	PARENT	Debugging ID of parent object
355	STAT	Object state
356	CHLDN	Number of child objects of this object
357	OPS	Number of outstanding operations on this object
358	OOP	Number of outstanding child object management operations
359	IPR
360	EX	Number of outstanding exclusive operations
361	READS	Number of outstanding read operations
362	EM	Object's event mask
363	EV	Events raised on this object
364	F	Object flags
365	S	Object work item busy state mask (1:pending 2:running)
366
367and the second set of columns describe the object's cookie, if present:
368
369	COLUMN		DESCRIPTION
370	===============	=======================================================
371	NETFS_COOKIE_DEF Name of netfs cookie definition
372	TY		Cookie type (IX - index, DT - data, hex - special)
373	FL		Cookie flags
374	NETFS_DATA	Netfs private data stored in the cookie
375	OBJECT_KEY	Object key	} 1 column, with separating comma
376	AUX_DATA	Object aux data	} presence may be configured
377
378The data shown may be filtered by attaching the a key to an appropriate keyring
379before viewing the file.  Something like:
380
381		keyctl add user fscache:objlist <restrictions> @s
382
383where <restrictions> are a selection of the following letters:
384
385	K	Show hexdump of object key (don't show if not given)
386	A	Show hexdump of object aux data (don't show if not given)
387
388and the following paired letters:
389
390	C	Show objects that have a cookie
391	c	Show objects that don't have a cookie
392	B	Show objects that are busy
393	b	Show objects that aren't busy
394	W	Show objects that have pending writes
395	w	Show objects that don't have pending writes
396	R	Show objects that have outstanding reads
397	r	Show objects that don't have outstanding reads
398	S	Show objects that have work queued
399	s	Show objects that don't have work queued
400
401If neither side of a letter pair is given, then both are implied.  For example:
402
403	keyctl add user fscache:objlist KB @s
404
405shows objects that are busy, and lists their object keys, but does not dump
406their auxiliary data.  It also implies "CcWwRrSs", but as 'B' is given, 'b' is
407not implied.
408
409By default all objects and all fields will be shown.
410
411
412=========
413DEBUGGING
414=========
415
416If CONFIG_FSCACHE_DEBUG is enabled, the FS-Cache facility can have runtime
417debugging enabled by adjusting the value in:
418
419	/sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
420
421This is a bitmask of debugging streams to enable:
422
423	BIT	VALUE	STREAM				POINT
424	=======	=======	===============================	=======================
425	0	1	Cache management		Function entry trace
426	1	2					Function exit trace
427	2	4					General
428	3	8	Cookie management		Function entry trace
429	4	16					Function exit trace
430	5	32					General
431	6	64	Page handling			Function entry trace
432	7	128					Function exit trace
433	8	256					General
434	9	512	Operation management		Function entry trace
435	10	1024					Function exit trace
436	11	2048					General
437
438The appropriate set of values should be OR'd together and the result written to
439the control file.  For example:
440
441	echo $((1|8|64)) >/sys/module/fscache/parameters/debug
442
443will turn on all function entry debugging.
444