linux/Documentation/filesystems
Mel Gorman 62c230bc17 mm: add support for a filesystem to activate swap files and use direct_IO for writing swap pages
Currently swapfiles are managed entirely by the core VM by using ->bmap to
allocate space and write to the blocks directly.  This effectively ensures
that the underlying blocks are allocated and avoids the need for the swap
subsystem to locate what physical blocks store offsets within a file.

If the swap subsystem is to use the filesystem information to locate the
blocks, it is critical that information such as block groups, block
bitmaps and the block descriptor table that map the swap file were
resident in memory.  This patch adds address_space_operations that the VM
can call when activating or deactivating swap backed by a file.

  int swap_activate(struct file *);
  int swap_deactivate(struct file *);

The ->swap_activate() method is used to communicate to the file that the
VM relies on it, and the address_space should take adequate measures such
as reserving space in the underlying device, reserving memory for mempools
and pinning information such as the block descriptor table in memory.  The
->swap_deactivate() method is called on sys_swapoff() if ->swap_activate()
returned success.

After a successful swapfile ->swap_activate, the swapfile is marked
SWP_FILE and swapper_space.a_ops will proxy to
sis->swap_file->f_mappings->a_ops using ->direct_io to write swapcache
pages and ->readpage to read.

It is perfectly possible that direct_IO be used to read the swap pages but
it is an unnecessary complication.  Similarly, it is possible that
->writepage be used instead of direct_io to write the pages but filesystem
developers have stated that calling writepage from the VM is undesirable
for a variety of reasons and using direct_IO opens up the possibility of
writing back batches of swap pages in the future.

[a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl: Original patch]
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Eric B Munson <emunson@mgebm.net>
Cc: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Mike Christie <michaelc@cs.wisc.edu>
Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Cc: Xiaotian Feng <dfeng@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-31 18:42:47 -07:00
..
caching doc: fix broken references 2011-09-27 18:08:04 +02:00
configfs configfs: convert to umode_t 2012-01-03 22:54:57 -05:00
nfs Documentation: Fix typo in multiple files in Documentation 2012-04-16 14:37:13 +02:00
pohmelfs Documentation: Fix multiple typo in Documentation 2012-03-07 16:08:24 +01:00
9p.txt 9p: fix 9p.txt to advertise msize instead of maxdata 2011-10-24 11:13:12 -05:00
00-INDEX smbfs: move to drivers/staging 2010-10-05 09:08:21 -07:00
adfs.txt adfs: add hexadecimal filetype suffix option 2011-03-22 17:44:17 -07:00
affs.txt Documentation: update broken web addresses. 2010-08-04 15:21:40 +02:00
afs.txt AFS: Documentation updates 2009-08-19 10:40:13 -07:00
autofs4-mount-control.txt Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
automount-support.txt
befs.txt Documentation: befs.txt: no maintainer, orphaned 2011-08-13 18:34:03 -07:00
bfs.txt
btrfs.txt Fix URL of btrfs-progs git repository in docs 2011-11-30 18:46:02 +01:00
ceph.txt ceph: enable/disable dentry complete flags via mount option 2012-01-12 11:00:40 -08:00
cifs.txt
coda.txt
cramfs.txt
debugfs.txt Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-03-21 13:36:41 -07:00
devpts.txt Document usage of multiple-instances of devpts 2009-01-02 10:19:36 -08:00
directory-locking
dlmfs.txt Documentation/: it's -> its where appropriate 2010-04-23 02:09:52 +02:00
dnotify_test.c Documentation/fs/: split txt and source files 2010-03-12 15:52:35 -08:00
dnotify.txt Documentation/fs/: split txt and source files 2010-03-12 15:52:35 -08:00
ecryptfs.txt
exofs.txt exofs: Add option to mount by osdname 2011-03-15 15:02:51 +02:00
ext2.txt Doc fix: ext2 can only have 32,000 subdirs, not 32,768 2009-06-18 13:03:44 -07:00
ext3.txt ext3: update documentation with barrier=1 default 2012-04-11 11:12:45 +02:00
ext4.txt Ext4 commits for 3.3 merge window; mostly cleanups and bug fixes 2012-03-28 10:02:55 -07:00
fiemap.txt Documentation/: it's -> its where appropriate 2010-04-23 02:09:52 +02:00
files.txt Wrap accesses to the fd_sets in struct fdtable 2012-02-19 10:30:52 -08:00
fuse.txt Documentation/: it's -> its where appropriate 2010-04-23 02:09:52 +02:00
gfs2-glocks.txt GFS2: Update glock doc to add new stats info 2012-05-10 12:41:40 +01:00
gfs2-uevents.txt Documentation: Fix multiple typo in Documentation 2012-03-07 16:08:24 +01:00
gfs2.txt GFS2: Update main gfs2 doc 2012-05-10 11:45:31 +01:00
hfs.txt Documentation: HFS is orphaned 2011-11-04 12:01:48 -07:00
hfsplus.txt
hpfs.txt Documentation/: it's -> its where appropriate 2010-04-23 02:09:52 +02:00
inotify.txt Documentation: fix inotify source file paths 2011-11-04 12:01:47 -07:00
isofs.txt Documentation: update broken web addresses. 2010-08-04 15:21:40 +02:00
jfs.txt
Locking mm: add support for a filesystem to activate swap files and use direct_IO for writing swap pages 2012-07-31 18:42:47 -07:00
locks.txt doc: fix broken references 2011-09-27 18:08:04 +02:00
logfs.txt fix "seperate" typos in comments 2010-05-10 11:56:30 +02:00
Makefile Documentation/fs/: split txt and source files 2010-03-12 15:52:35 -08:00
mandatory-locking.txt
ncpfs.txt ncpfs: remove dead URL from documentation 2009-09-23 07:39:42 -07:00
nilfs2.txt nilfs2: remove resize from unsupported features list 2011-07-13 16:08:59 +09:00
ntfs.txt Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
ocfs2.txt ocfs2: clean up mount option about atime in ocfs2.txt 2011-05-23 23:37:12 -07:00
omfs.txt
path-lookup.txt Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
porting don't pass nameidata to ->create() 2012-07-14 16:34:47 +04:00
proc.txt c/r: procfs: add arg_start/end, env_start/end and exit_code members to /proc/$pid/stat 2012-05-31 17:49:32 -07:00
qnx6.txt Documentation: Fix typo in multiple files in Documentation 2012-04-16 14:37:13 +02:00
quota.txt
ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt Documentation: Fix Broken URL "freshmeat" 2012-02-21 11:43:45 +01:00
relay.txt
romfs.txt Documentation/filesystems/romfs.txt: fixing link to genromfs 2011-02-17 22:04:46 +01:00
seq_file.txt seq_file: use proc_create() in documentation 2009-12-16 07:20:07 -08:00
sharedsubtree.txt Documentation: Fix trivial typo in filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt 2010-10-25 21:18:21 -04:00
spufs.txt
squashfs.txt Squashfs: Update documentation to include xattrs 2011-12-30 01:20:24 +00:00
sysfs-pci.txt PCI: Allow read/write access to sysfs I/O port resources 2010-07-30 09:32:08 -07:00
sysfs-tagging.txt sysfs-namespaces: add a high-level Documentation file 2010-05-21 09:37:31 -07:00
sysfs.txt sysfs: propagate umode_t 2012-01-03 22:55:03 -05:00
sysv-fs.txt
tmpfs.txt mempolicy: document cpuset interaction with tmpfs mpol mount option 2010-05-25 08:06:57 -07:00
ubifs.txt UBIFS: switch self-check knobs to debugfs 2011-07-04 10:54:28 +03:00
udf.txt udf: implement mode and dmode mounting options 2009-04-02 12:29:50 +02:00
ufs.txt
vfat.txt Documentation: update broken web addresses. 2010-08-04 15:21:40 +02:00
vfs.txt mm: add support for a filesystem to activate swap files and use direct_IO for writing swap pages 2012-07-31 18:42:47 -07:00
xfs-delayed-logging-design.txt Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
xfs.txt xfs: add online discard support 2011-05-24 11:17:13 -05:00
xip.txt DOC: update xip method info 2008-11-12 17:17:17 -08:00