xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man9/bufferio.9 (revision 88fd7a1b6c2674ac2473a701e55ac2e48a544ca1)

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.Dd September 12, 2019
.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 "buf_t *bp"
.Ft int
.Fn biowait "buf_t *bp"
.Ft buf_t *
.Fn getiobuf "struct vnode *vp" "bool waitok"
.Ft void
.Fn putiobuf "buf_t *bp"
.Ft void
.Fn nestiobuf_setup "buf_t *mbp" "buf_t *bp" "int offset" \
        "size_t size"
.Ft void
.Fn nestiobuf_done "buf_t *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 -width 6n -offset abcd
.It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags"
Flags specifying the type of transfer.
.Bl -tag -width 6n -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 -width 6n -offset abcd
.It Fa bp Ns Li "->b_flags"
Flags specifying the type of transfer.
.Bl -tag -width 6n -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 -width 6n -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.