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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2026-09-13 12:27:00 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2026-09-13 12:27:00 -0700
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tree3962f95a34df034652ff93686cdd156c7197f2d9 /Documentation/driver-api/md/raid5-cache.rst
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Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-rc2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-tracegrafted
Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt: - Don't destroy user event fields when removal fails User event fields are destroyed before the event is removed from visibility. But that can fail leaving the still visible event with no fields. Move the destroying of the fields to after the event is successfully removed from visibility. - Initialize function graph state is fork before calling copy_exec_state() For non-CLONE_VM forks, copy_exec_state() allocates a new task_exec_state. If that allocation fails, ftrace_graph_exit_task() will free the tasks ret_stack pointer. Since that pointer is still using the parent's ret_stack, it mistakenly frees the parent's pointer too. Call ftrace_graph_init() on the task first which will NULL out the new tasks's ret_stack and if the copy fails, it will not free anything. - Remove FGRAPH_MAX_INDEX The macro FGRAPH_MAX_INDEX was added but never used. Remove it. - Save ent_size in function graph printing of nested functions The function graph tracer needs to look at the next event to see if the next event is the return of the current function entry. If it is, it prints a single line: ktime_get(); Otherwise it prints it like a nested function: tick_nohz_irq_exit() { ktime_get(); kcpustat_irq_exit(); } In order to look at the next event, it must save the current event so that it has the information to print from it. It saves the event in the iterator descriptor called "ent". What it doesn't save is the ent_size of the event which is now used to know if the function graph arguments are to be printed. The peek doesn't save the size so the size used happens to be that of the size of the last event that was seen. Save the entry event size in the iterator descriptor so that the correct size is used. - Fix several errors with freeing data in the histogram code The histogram code had a lot of leaked or or incorrect accounting when failures happen. Correct them. - Fix histogram regression of .percent and .graph modifiers Up until 6.3 histogram values could have "percent" or "graph" modifiers that changed how they were printed. But a change that added restricting histograms values from being strings, stack traces and other modifiers inadvertently prevented them from using the percent and graph modifiers, which were legal use cases for values. Put back the percent and graph modifiers. - Fix various typos in the comments - Set the trace_clock before initializing a histogram with clock argument The histogram API allows the user to specific which trace clock to use via a "clock=" string. The histogram is set up first before the clock is checked. If the passed in clock is not valid, it exits without fully fixing up the histogram leaving it on the list and a use-after-free can trigger. Update the clock argument first and if it fails then exit gracefully before the histogram trigger is placed on any lists. - Restore :mod: trailer after parsing in ftrace_set_clr_event The function ftrace_set_clr_event() modifies the parse string and needs to put it back to what was passed in. It searches for ":mod:" via a strsep() but fails to put back the first ':' in the string. Add back the ':' in the passed in string. - Take trace_array reference when opening a tracer options file The options files are dynamically created and some tracers add their own options. When a tracer adds their own list of options, the trace_array holding them has an array to hold the list of options for each tracer. This array increases in size via a krealloc(), and the new entry gets a newly allocated array to hold the options of the new tracer being added. The element in each entry of the tracer's option array holds a pointer back to the trace_array, a pointer to the tracer it is associated to, a pointer to the flags of the option. The issue is that these arrays are freed when the trace_array is freed when its instance it represents is removed from the instances directory. There's a race that an open of one of these options files can happen when the instance is being removed. Add a new helper function to be called by the open function of the options file to iterate all existing trace_arrays under a lock and find the one that has the given option element in one of it's tracer arrays. If found, then update the associated trace_array's reference counter to keep it from being freed. If not found, have the open call return -ENODEV. - Disable interrupts when acquiring the lock in rb_wake_up_waiters() The function rb_wake_up_waiters() assumes it will be called in interrupt context and does not disable irqs when taking cpu_buffer->reader_lock, which can be called in hard interrupt context. The issue is in PREEMPT_RT, this function is called in thread context leaving this lock open to a deadlock. Take the lock with interrupts disabled. - Use rcu_assign_pointer() for tmp_ops filter hash The tmp_ops used in update_ftrace_direct_mod() assigns its filter_hash field directly, but that field is annotated as __rcu and sparse complains. Assign it with rcu_assign_pointer() - Fix use-after-free in enable_trigger_private_data_free() The trace_event_call is accessed through the event_trigger_data's trace_event_file pointer to put the trace_event_call on freeing. The issue is that the trace_event_file data may have been freed already causing a use-after-free. Add a field to the event_trigger_data that points directly to the trace_event_call so that it can decrement its reference directly without needing to go through the trace_event_file. - Fix accounting of buffer data remote headers trace_buffer_desc_size() and trace_remote_alloc_buffer() undercount the number of pages is needed for the asked for size as it doesn't take into account the meta data on each page. Add a helper function to do the calculation properly and use that in these functions. - Catch nr_page_va overflow in ring_buffer_desc sizing The number of pages per remote ring buffer is capped by ring_buffer_desc::nr_page_va (32 bits). A buffer_size large enough to overflow that field would silently allocate a descriptor smaller than what was asked for. - Do not resize the subbuf order if any per_cpu buffer is disabled The mmapping of ring buffers disables resizing the subbuffers, but it is done per-cpu whereas the subbuf size change is done for all the per_cpu buffers under the buffer->mutex. It could change the size of some while the mapping is happening on others. Have the resize of the subbuf order check all the per_cpu buffers under the lock to see if any of them is disabled before starting and causing an inconsistency between buffers that are being mapped. * tag 'trace-v7.3-rc2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: (25 commits) ring-buffer: Check resize_disabled before publishing the new subbuf order tracing/remotes: Catch nr_page_va overflow in ring_buffer_desc sizing tracing/remotes: Account for ring buffer page header in size calculation tracing: Don't dereference trace_event_file in deferred trigger free ftrace: Use rcu_assign_pointer() for tmp_ops filter hash ring-buffer: Acquire the lock with irqsave in rb_wake_up_waiters() tracing: Take trace_array reference when opening a tracer options file tracing: Fix ring_buffer_read_page_size() kernel-doc tracing: Restore :mod: trailer after parsing in ftrace_set_clr_event() tracing: Fix memory corruption from a "STACKTRACE" histogram key tracing: Fix memory corruption from the histogram stacktrace modifier tracing: Undo the registration when enabling the histogram trigger fails tracing: Take the reference before publishing the named histogram trigger tracing: Set the trace clock before registering the histogram trigger tracing: Fix typo "preceeded" in comment tracing: Fix typo "availabe" in comment tracing: Let histogram values keep the percent and graph modifiers tracing: Keep the entry count when the histogram stats allocation fails tracing: Free histogram the field rejected for a bad modifier tracing: Free histogram the var ref when its initialization fails ...
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+================
+RAID 4/5/6 cache
+================
+
+Raid 4/5/6 could include an extra disk for data cache besides normal RAID
+disks. The role of RAID disks isn't changed with the cache disk. The cache disk
+caches data to the RAID disks. The cache can be in write-through (supported
+since 4.4) or write-back mode (supported since 4.10). mdadm (supported since
+3.4) has a new option '--write-journal' to create array with cache. Please
+refer to mdadm manual for details. By default (RAID array starts), the cache is
+in write-through mode. A user can switch it to write-back mode by::
+
+ echo "write-back" > /sys/block/md0/md/journal_mode
+
+And switch it back to write-through mode by::
+
+ echo "write-through" > /sys/block/md0/md/journal_mode
+
+In both modes, all writes to the array will hit cache disk first. This means
+the cache disk must be fast and sustainable.
+
+write-through mode
+==================
+
+This mode mainly fixes the 'write hole' issue. For RAID 4/5/6 array, an unclean
+shutdown can cause data in some stripes to not be in consistent state, eg, data
+and parity don't match. The reason is that a stripe write involves several RAID
+disks and it's possible the writes don't hit all RAID disks yet before the
+unclean shutdown. We call an array degraded if it has inconsistent data. MD
+tries to resync the array to bring it back to normal state. But before the
+resync completes, any system crash will expose the chance of real data
+corruption in the RAID array. This problem is called 'write hole'.
+
+The write-through cache will cache all data on cache disk first. After the data
+is safe on the cache disk, the data will be flushed onto RAID disks. The
+two-step write will guarantee MD can recover correct data after unclean
+shutdown even the array is degraded. Thus the cache can close the 'write hole'.
+
+In write-through mode, MD reports IO completion to upper layer (usually
+filesystems) after the data is safe on RAID disks, so cache disk failure
+doesn't cause data loss. Of course cache disk failure means the array is
+exposed to 'write hole' again.
+
+In write-through mode, the cache disk isn't required to be big. Several
+hundreds megabytes are enough.
+
+write-back mode
+===============
+
+write-back mode fixes the 'write hole' issue too, since all write data is
+cached on cache disk. But the main goal of 'write-back' cache is to speed up
+write. If a write crosses all RAID disks of a stripe, we call it full-stripe
+write. For non-full-stripe writes, MD must read old data before the new parity
+can be calculated. These synchronous reads hurt write throughput. Some writes
+which are sequential but not dispatched in the same time will suffer from this
+overhead too. Write-back cache will aggregate the data and flush the data to
+RAID disks only after the data becomes a full stripe write. This will
+completely avoid the overhead, so it's very helpful for some workloads. A
+typical workload which does sequential write followed by fsync is an example.
+
+In write-back mode, MD reports IO completion to upper layer (usually
+filesystems) right after the data hits cache disk. The data is flushed to raid
+disks later after specific conditions met. So cache disk failure will cause
+data loss.
+
+In write-back mode, MD also caches data in memory. The memory cache includes
+the same data stored on cache disk, so a power loss doesn't cause data loss.
+The memory cache size has performance impact for the array. It's recommended
+the size is big. A user can configure the size by::
+
+ echo "2048" > /sys/block/md0/md/stripe_cache_size
+
+Too small cache disk will make the write aggregation less efficient in this
+mode depending on the workloads. It's recommended to use a cache disk with at
+least several gigabytes size in write-back mode.
+
+The implementation
+==================
+
+The write-through and write-back cache use the same disk format. The cache disk
+is organized as a simple write log. The log consists of 'meta data' and 'data'
+pairs. The meta data describes the data. It also includes checksum and sequence
+ID for recovery identification. Data can be IO data and parity data. Data is
+checksummed too. The checksum is stored in the meta data ahead of the data. The
+checksum is an optimization because MD can write meta and data freely without
+worry about the order. MD superblock has a field pointed to the valid meta data
+of log head.
+
+The log implementation is pretty straightforward. The difficult part is the
+order in which MD writes data to cache disk and RAID disks. Specifically, in
+write-through mode, MD calculates parity for IO data, writes both IO data and
+parity to the log, writes the data and parity to RAID disks after the data and
+parity is settled down in log and finally the IO is finished. Read just reads
+from raid disks as usual.
+
+In write-back mode, MD writes IO data to the log and reports IO completion. The
+data is also fully cached in memory at that time, which means read must query
+memory cache. If some conditions are met, MD will flush the data to RAID disks.
+MD will calculate parity for the data and write parity into the log. After this
+is finished, MD will write both data and parity into RAID disks, then MD can
+release the memory cache. The flush conditions could be stripe becomes a full
+stripe write, free cache disk space is low or free in-kernel memory cache space
+is low.
+
+After an unclean shutdown, MD does recovery. MD reads all meta data and data
+from the log. The sequence ID and checksum will help us detect corrupted meta
+data and data. If MD finds a stripe with data and valid parities (1 parity for
+raid4/5 and 2 for raid6), MD will write the data and parities to RAID disks. If
+parities are incompleted, they are discarded. If part of data is corrupted,
+they are discarded too. MD then loads valid data and writes them to RAID disks
+in normal way.