1d57628ff9
This patch introduces dm-pcache, a new DM target that places a DAX-
capable persistent-memory device in front of any slower block device and
uses it as a high-throughput, low-latency cache.
Design highlights
-----------------
- DAX data path – data is copied directly between DRAM and the pmem
mapping, bypassing the block layer’s overhead.
- Segmented, crash-consistent layout
- all layout metadata are dual-replicated CRC-protected.
- atomic kset flushes; key replay on mount guarantees cache integrity
even after power loss.
- Striped multi-tree index
- Multi‑tree indexing for high parallelism.
- overlap-resolution logic ensures non-intersecting cached extents.
- Background services
- write-back worker flushes dirty keys in order, preserving backing-device
crash consistency. This is important for checkpoint in cloud storage.
- garbage collector reclaims clean segments when utilisation exceeds a
tunable threshold.
- Data integrity – optional CRC32 on cached payload; metadata always protected.
Comparison with existing block-level caches
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Feature | pcache (this patch) | bcache | dm-writecache |
|----------------------------------|---------------------------------|------------------------------|---------------------------|
| pmem access method | DAX | bio (block I/O) | DAX |
| Write latency (4 K rand-write) | ~5 µs | ~20 µs | ~5 µs |
| Concurrency | multi subtree index | global index tree | single tree + wc_lock |
| IOPS (4K randwrite, 32 numjobs) | 2.1 M | 352 K | 283 K |
| Read-cache support | YES | YES | NO |
| Deployment | no re-format of backend | backend devices must be | no re-format of backend |
| | | reformatted | |
| Write-back ordering | log-structured; | no ordering guarantee | no ordering guarantee |
| | preserves app-IO-order | | |
| Data integrity checks | metadata + data CRC(optional) | metadata CRC only | none |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Signed-off-by: Dongsheng Yang <dongsheng.yang@linux.dev>
Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@redhat.com>
|
||
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | ||
| LICENSES | ||
| arch | ||
| block | ||
| certs | ||
| crypto | ||
| drivers | ||
| fs | ||
| include | ||
| init | ||
| io_uring | ||
| ipc | ||
| kernel | ||
| lib | ||
| mm | ||
| net | ||
| rust | ||
| samples | ||
| scripts | ||
| security | ||
| sound | ||
| tools | ||
| usr | ||
| virt | ||
| .clang-format | ||
| .clippy.toml | ||
| .cocciconfig | ||
| .editorconfig | ||
| .get_maintainer.ignore | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| .pylintrc | ||
| .rustfmt.toml | ||
| COPYING | ||
| CREDITS | ||
| Kbuild | ||
| Kconfig | ||
| MAINTAINERS | ||
| Makefile | ||
| README | ||
README
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.