1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 .. _iomap_porting: 3 4 .. 5 Dumb style notes to maintain the author's sanity: 6 Please try to start sentences on separate lines so that 7 sentence changes don't bleed colors in diff. 8 Heading decorations are documented in sphinx.rst. 9 10 ======================= 11 Porting Your Filesystem 12 ======================= 13 14 .. contents:: Table of Contents 15 :local: 16 17 Why Convert? 18 ============ 19 20 There are several reasons to convert a filesystem to iomap: 21 22 1. The classic Linux I/O path is not terribly efficient. 23 Pagecache operations lock a single base page at a time and then call 24 into the filesystem to return a mapping for only that page. 25 Direct I/O operations build I/O requests a single file block at a 26 time. 27 This worked well enough for direct/indirect-mapped filesystems such 28 as ext2, but is very inefficient for extent-based filesystems such 29 as XFS. 30 31 2. Large folios are only supported via iomap; there are no plans to 32 convert the old buffer_head path to use them. 33 34 3. Direct access to storage on memory-like devices (fsdax) is only 35 supported via iomap. 36 37 4. Lower maintenance overhead for individual filesystem maintainers. 38 iomap handles common pagecache related operations itself, such as 39 allocating, instantiating, locking, and unlocking of folios. 40 No ->write_begin(), ->write_end() or direct_IO 41 address_space_operations are required to be implemented by 42 filesystem using iomap. 43 44 How Do I Convert a Filesystem? 45 ============================== 46 47 First, add ``#include <linux/iomap.h>`` from your source code and add 48 ``select FS_IOMAP`` to your filesystem's Kconfig option. 49 Build the kernel, run fstests with the ``-g all`` option across a wide 50 variety of your filesystem's supported configurations to build a 51 baseline of which tests pass and which ones fail. 52 53 The recommended approach is first to implement ``->iomap_begin`` (and 54 ``->iomap_end`` if necessary) to allow iomap to obtain a read-only 55 mapping of a file range. 56 In most cases, this is a relatively trivial conversion of the existing 57 ``get_block()`` function for read-only mappings. 58 ``FS_IOC_FIEMAP`` is a good first target because it is trivial to 59 implement support for it and then to determine that the extent map 60 iteration is correct from userspace. 61 If FIEMAP is returning the correct information, it's a good sign that 62 other read-only mapping operations will do the right thing. 63 64 Next, modify the filesystem's ``get_block(create = false)`` 65 implementation to use the new ``->iomap_begin`` implementation to map 66 file space for selected read operations. 67 Hide behind a debugging knob the ability to switch on the iomap mapping 68 functions for selected call paths. 69 It is necessary to write some code to fill out the bufferhead-based 70 mapping information from the ``iomap`` structure, but the new functions 71 can be tested without needing to implement any iomap APIs. 72 73 Once the read-only functions are working like this, convert each high 74 level file operation one by one to use iomap native APIs instead of 75 going through ``get_block()``. 76 Done one at a time, regressions should be self evident. 77 You *do* have a regression test baseline for fstests, right? 78 It is suggested to convert swap file activation, ``SEEK_DATA``, and 79 ``SEEK_HOLE`` before tackling the I/O paths. 80 A likely complexity at this point will be converting the buffered read 81 I/O path because of bufferheads. 82 The buffered read I/O paths doesn't need to be converted yet, though the 83 direct I/O read path should be converted in this phase. 84 85 At this point, you should look over your ``->iomap_begin`` function. 86 If it switches between large blocks of code based on dispatching of the 87 ``flags`` argument, you should consider breaking it up into 88 per-operation iomap ops with smaller, more cohesive functions. 89 XFS is a good example of this. 90 91 The next thing to do is implement ``get_blocks(create == true)`` 92 functionality in the ``->iomap_begin``/``->iomap_end`` methods. 93 It is strongly recommended to create separate mapping functions and 94 iomap ops for write operations. 95 Then convert the direct I/O write path to iomap, and start running fsx 96 w/ DIO enabled in earnest on filesystem. 97 This will flush out lots of data integrity corner case bugs that the new 98 write mapping implementation introduces. 99 100 Now, convert any remaining file operations to call the iomap functions. 101 This will get the entire filesystem using the new mapping functions, and 102 they should largely be debugged and working correctly after this step. 103 104 Most likely at this point, the buffered read and write paths will still 105 need to be converted. 106 The mapping functions should all work correctly, so all that needs to be 107 done is rewriting all the code that interfaces with bufferheads to 108 interface with iomap and folios. 109 It is much easier first to get regular file I/O (without any fancy 110 features like fscrypt, fsverity, compression, or data=journaling) 111 converted to use iomap. 112 Some of those fancy features (fscrypt and compression) aren't 113 implemented yet in iomap. 114 For unjournalled filesystems that use the pagecache for symbolic links 115 and directories, you might also try converting their handling to iomap. 116 117 The rest is left as an exercise for the reader, as it will be different 118 for every filesystem. 119 If you encounter problems, email the people and lists in 120 ``get_maintainers.pl`` for help.
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