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authorPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-26 19:20:30 -0300
committerPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-30 14:24:12 -0300
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tree23efdcaa0b8031f6ac6f57b6734d18d6c1adc6f2 /Documentation/admin-guide/device-mapper/writecache.rst
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netfs: zero the tail of a short DIO/unbuffered readgrafted
The buffered read collector zero-fills the tail of a short read that stops below the inode's i_size (netfs_clear_unread()), so a read that races an extending write still returns the expected number of bytes. The non-buffered collector path does no such thing: it just records how much was transferred. Add the same zero-fill for the non-buffered case, gated on NETFS_SREQ_CLEAR_TAIL: a subreq's source sets that flag when a short result from it is known to be safe to treat as a hole, as opposed to NETFS_SREQ_HIT_EOF, which means the read genuinely ran off the end of the file and should be reported short as-is. Only CLEAR_TAIL should zero-fill here; a real EOF must stay a real short read. No source currently sets CLEAR_TAIL on an unbuffered/DIO subrequest, so this is inert on its own -- a following change teaches cifs to set it in the one case that needs it. Fixes: e2d46f2ec332 ("netfs: Change the read result collector to only use one work item") Reviewed-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Paulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org> Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org> Cc: Ronnie Sahlberg <ronniesahlberg@gmail.com> Cc: Shyam Prasad N <sprasad@microsoft.com> Cc: Tom Talpey <tom@talpey.com> Cc: Bharath SM <bharathsm@microsoft.com> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
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+=================
+Writecache target
+=================
+
+The writecache target caches writes on persistent memory or on SSD. It
+doesn't cache reads because reads are supposed to be cached in page cache
+in normal RAM.
+
+When the device is constructed, the first sector should be zeroed or the
+first sector should contain valid superblock from previous invocation.
+
+Constructor parameters:
+
+1. type of the cache device - "p" or "s"
+ - p - persistent memory
+ - s - SSD
+2. the underlying device that will be cached
+3. the cache device
+4. block size (4096 is recommended; the maximum block size is the page
+ size)
+5. the number of optional parameters (the parameters with an argument
+ count as two)
+
+ start_sector n (default: 0)
+ offset from the start of cache device in 512-byte sectors
+ high_watermark n (default: 50)
+ start writeback when the number of used blocks reach this
+ watermark
+ low_watermark x (default: 45)
+ stop writeback when the number of used blocks drops below
+ this watermark
+ writeback_jobs n (default: unlimited)
+ limit the number of blocks that are in flight during
+ writeback. Setting this value reduces writeback
+ throughput, but it may improve latency of read requests
+ autocommit_blocks n (default: 64 for pmem, 65536 for ssd)
+ when the application writes this amount of blocks without
+ issuing the FLUSH request, the blocks are automatically
+ committed
+ autocommit_time ms (default: 1000)
+ autocommit time in milliseconds. The data is automatically
+ committed if this time passes and no FLUSH request is
+ received
+ fua (by default on)
+ applicable only to persistent memory - use the FUA flag
+ when writing data from persistent memory back to the
+ underlying device
+ nofua
+ applicable only to persistent memory - don't use the FUA
+ flag when writing back data and send the FLUSH request
+ afterwards
+
+ - some underlying devices perform better with fua, some
+ with nofua. The user should test it
+ cleaner
+ when this option is activated (either in the constructor
+ arguments or by a message), the cache will not promote
+ new writes (however, writes to already cached blocks are
+ promoted, to avoid data corruption due to misordered
+ writes) and it will gradually writeback any cached
+ data. The userspace can then monitor the cleaning
+ process with "dmsetup status". When the number of cached
+ blocks drops to zero, userspace can unload the
+ dm-writecache target and replace it with dm-linear or
+ other targets.
+ max_age n
+ specifies the maximum age of a block in milliseconds. If
+ a block is stored in the cache for too long, it will be
+ written to the underlying device and cleaned up.
+ metadata_only
+ only metadata is promoted to the cache. This option
+ improves performance for heavier REQ_META workloads.
+ pause_writeback n (default: 3000)
+ pause writeback if there was some write I/O redirected to
+ the origin volume in the last n milliseconds
+
+Status:
+
+1. error indicator - 0 if there was no error, otherwise error number
+2. the number of blocks
+3. the number of free blocks
+4. the number of blocks under writeback
+5. the number of read blocks
+6. the number of read blocks that hit the cache
+7. the number of write blocks
+8. the number of write blocks that hit uncommitted block
+9. the number of write blocks that hit committed block
+10. the number of write blocks that bypass the cache
+11. the number of write blocks that are allocated in the cache
+12. the number of write requests that are blocked on the freelist
+13. the number of flush requests
+14. the number of discarded blocks
+
+Messages:
+ flush
+ Flush the cache device. The message returns successfully
+ if the cache device was flushed without an error
+ flush_on_suspend
+ Flush the cache device on next suspend. Use this message
+ when you are going to remove the cache device. The proper
+ sequence for removing the cache device is:
+
+ 1. send the "flush_on_suspend" message
+ 2. load an inactive table with a linear target that maps
+ to the underlying device
+ 3. suspend the device
+ 4. ask for status and verify that there are no errors
+ 5. resume the device, so that it will use the linear
+ target
+ 6. the cache device is now inactive and it can be deleted
+ cleaner
+ See above "cleaner" constructor documentation.
+ clear_stats
+ Clear the statistics that are reported on the status line