.\" $NetBSD: bufferio.9,v 1.17 2017/03/18 19:01:01 riastradh Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2015 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation .\" by Taylor R. Campbell. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE NETBSD FOUNDATION, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS .\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED .\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR .\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS .\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR .\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF .\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS .\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN .\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) .\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE .\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd March 29, 2015 .Dt BUFFERIO 9 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm BUFFERIO , .Nm biodone , .Nm biowait , .Nm getiobuf , .Nm putiobuf , .Nm nestiobuf_setup , .Nm nestiobuf_done .Nd block I/O buffer transfers .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/buf.h .Ft void .Fn biodone "struct buf *bp" .Ft int .Fn biowait "struct buf *bp" .Ft struct buf * .Fn getiobuf "struct vnode *vp" "bool waitok" .Ft void .Fn putiobuf "struct buf *bp" .Ft void .Fn nestiobuf_setup "struct buf *mbp" "struct buf *bp" "int offset" \ "size_t size" .Ft void .Fn nestiobuf_done "struct buf *mbp" "int donebytes" "int error" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm subsystem manages block I/O buffer transfers, described by the .Vt "struct buf" structure, which serves multiple purposes between users in .Nm , users in .Xr buffercache 9 , and users in block device drivers to execute transfers to physical disks. .Sh BLOCK DEVICE USERS Users of .Nm wishing to submit a buffer for block I/O transfer must obtain a .Vt "struct buf" , e.g. via .Fn getiobuf , fill its parameters, and submit it to a block device with .Xr bdev_strategy 9 , usually via .Xr VOP_STRATEGY 9 . .Pp The parameters to an I/O transfer described by .Fa bp are specified by the following .Vt "struct buf" fields: .Bl -tag -offset abcd .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags" Flags specifying the type of transfer. .Bl -tag -compact .It Dv B_READ Transfer is read from device. If not set, transfer is write to device. .It Dv B_ASYNC Asynchronous I/O. Caller must not provide .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" and must not call .Fn biowait bp . .El For legibility, callers should indicate writes by passing the pseudo-flag .Dv B_WRITE , which is zero. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_data" Pointer to kernel virtual address of source/target for transfer. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_bcount" Nonnegative number of bytes requested for transfer. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_blkno" Block number at which to do transfer. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" I/O completion callback. .Dv B_ASYNC must not be set in .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags" . .El .Pp Additionally, if the I/O transfer is a write associated with a .Xr vnode 9 .Fa vp , then before the user submits it to a block device, the user must increment .Fa vp Ns Li "->v_numoutput" . The user must not acquire .Fa vp Ns Ap s vnode lock between incrementing .Fa vp Ns Li "->v_numoutput" and submitting .Fa bp to a block device \(em doing so will likely cause deadlock with the syncer. .Pp Block I/O transfer completion may be notified by the .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" callback, by signalling .Fn biowait waiters, or not at all in the .Dv B_ASYNC case. .Bl -dash .It If the user sets the .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" callback to a .Pf non- Dv NULL function pointer, it will be called in soft interrupt context when the I/O transfer is complete. The user .Em may not call .Fn biowait bp in this case. .It If .Dv B_ASYNC is set, then the I/O transfer is asynchronous and the user will not be notified when it is completed. The user .Em may not call .Fn biowait bp in this case. .It Otherwise, if .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" is .Dv NULL and .Dv B_ASYNC is not specified, the user may wait for the I/O transfer to complete with .Fn biowait bp . .El .Pp Once an I/O transfer has completed, its .Vt "struct buf" may be reused, but the user must first clear the .Dv BO_DONE flag of .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_oflags" before reusing it. .Sh NESTED I/O TRANSFERS Sometimes an I/O transfer from a single buffer in memory cannot go to a single location on a block device: it must be split up into smaller transfers for each segment of the memory buffer. .Pp After initializing the .Li b_flags , .Li b_data , and .Li b_bcount parameters of an I/O transfer for the buffer, called the .Em master buffer, the user can issue smaller transfers for segments of the buffer using .Fn nestiobuf_setup . When nested I/O transfers complete, in any order, they debit from the amount of work left to be done in the master buffer. If any segments of the buffer were skipped, the user can report this with .Fn nestiobuf_done to debit the skipped part of the work. .Pp The master buffer's I/O transfer is completed when all nested buffers' I/O transfers are completed, and if .Fn nestiobuf_done is called in the case of skipped segments. .Pp For writes associated with a vnode .Fa vp , .Fn nestiobuf_setup accounts for .Fa vp Ns Li "->v_numoutput" , so the caller is not allowed to acquire .Fa vp Ns Ap s vnode lock before submitting the nested I/O transfer to a block device. However, the caller is responsible for accounting the master buffer in .Fa vp Ns Li "->v_numoutput" . This must be done very carefully because after incrementing .Fa vp Ns Li "->v_numoutput" , the caller is not allowed to acquire .Fa vp Ns Ap s vnode lock before either calling .Fn nestiobuf_done or submitting the last nested I/O transfer to a block device. .Pp For example: .Bd -literal -offset abcd struct buf *mbp, *bp; size_t skipped = 0; unsigned i; int error = 0; mbp = getiobuf(vp, true); mbp->b_data = data; mbp->b_resid = mbp->b_bcount = datalen; mbp->b_flags = B_WRITE; KASSERT(0 < nsegs); KASSERT(datalen == nsegs*segsz); for (i = 0; i < nsegs; i++) { struct vnode *devvp; daddr_t blkno; vn_lock(vp, LK_EXCLUSIVE | LK_RETRY); error = VOP_BMAP(vp, i*segsz, &devvp, &blkno, NULL); VOP_UNLOCK(vp); if (error == 0 && blkno == -1) error = EIO; if (error) { /* Give up early, don't try to handle holes. */ skipped += datalen - i*segsz; break; } bp = getiobuf(vp, true); nestiobuf_setup(bp, mbp, i*segsz, segsz); bp->b_blkno = blkno; if (i == nsegs - 1) /* Last segment. */ break; VOP_STRATEGY(devvp, bp); } /* * Account v_numoutput for master write. * (Must not vn_lock before last VOP_STRATEGY!) */ mutex_enter(&vp->v_interlock); vp->v_numoutput++; mutex_exit(&vp->v_interlock); if (skipped) nestiobuf_done(mbp, skipped, error); else VOP_STRATEGY(devvp, bp); .Ed .Sh BLOCK DEVICE DRIVERS Block device drivers implement a .Sq strategy method, in the .Li d_strategy member of .Li struct bdevsw .Pq Xr driver 9 , to queue a buffer for disk I/O. The inputs to the strategy method are: .Bl -tag -offset abcd .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags" Flags specifying the type of transfer. .Bl -tag -compact .It Dv B_READ Transfer is read from device. If not set, transfer is write to device. .El .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_data" Pointer to kernel virtual address of source/target for transfer. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_bcount" Nonnegative number of bytes requested for transfer. .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_blkno" Block number at which to do transfer, relative to partition start. .El .Pp If the strategy method uses .Xr bufq 9 , it must additionally initialize the following fields before queueing .Fa bp with .Xr bufq_put 9 : .Bl -tag -offset abcd .It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_rawblkno" Block number relative to volume start. .El .Pp When the I/O transfer is complete, whether it succeeded or failed, the strategy method must: .Bl -dash .It Set .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_error" to zero on success, or to an .Xr errno 2 error code on failure. .It Set .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_resid" to the number of bytes remaining to transfer, whether on success or on failure. If no bytes were transferred, this must be set to .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_bcount" . .It Call .Fn biodone bp . .El .Sh FUNCTIONS .Bl -tag -width abcd .It Fn biodone bp Notify that the I/O transfer described by .Fa bp has completed. .Pp To be called by a block device driver. Caller must first set .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_error" to an error code and .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_resid" to the number of bytes remaining to transfer. .It Fn biowait bp Wait for the synchronous I/O transfer described by .Fa bp to complete. Returns the value of .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_error" . .Pp To be called by a user requesting the I/O transfer. .Pp May not be called if .Fa bp has a callback or is asynchronous \(em that is, if .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_iodone" is set, or if .Dv B_ASYNC is set in .Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags" . .It Fn getiobuf vp waitok Allocate a .Vt "struct buf" for an I/O transfer. If .Fa vp is .Pf non- Dv NULL , the transfer is associated with it. If .Fa waitok is false, returns .Dv NULL if none can be allocated immediately. .Pp The resulting .Vt "struct buf" pointer must eventually be passed to .Fn putiobuf to release it. Do .Em not use .Xr brelse 9 . .Pp The buffer may not be used for an asynchronous I/O transfer, because there is no way to know when it is completed and may be safely passed to .Fn putiobuf . Asynchronous I/O transfers are allowed only for buffers in the .Xr buffercache 9 . .Pp May sleep if .Fa waitok is true. .It Fn putiobuf bp Free .Fa bp , which must have been allocated by .Fn getiobuf . Either .Fa bp must never have been submitted to a block device, or the I/O transfer must have completed. .El .Sh CODE REFERENCES The .Nm subsystem is implemented in .Pa sys/kern/vfs_bio.c . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr buffercache 9 , .Xr bufq 9 .Sh BUGS The .Nm abstraction provides no way to cancel an I/O transfer once it has been submitted to a block device. .Pp The .Nm abstraction provides no way to do I/O transfers with non-kernel pages, e.g. directly to buffers in userland without copying into the kernel first. .Pp The .Vt "struct buf" type is all mixed up with the .Xr buffercache 9 . .Pp The .Nm abstraction is a totally idiotic API design. .Pp The .Li v_numoutput accounting required of .Nm callers is asinine.