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+Introduction
+============
+
+This document descibes a collection of device-mapper targets that
+between them implement thin-provisioning and snapshots.
+
+The main highlight of this implementation, compared to the previous
+implementation of snapshots, is that it allows many virtual devices to
+be stored on the same data volume.  This simplifies administration and
+allows the sharing of data between volumes, thus reducing disk usage.
+
+Another significant feature is support for an arbitrary depth of
+recursive snapshots (snapshots of snapshots of snapshots ...).  The
+previous implementation of snapshots did this by chaining together
+lookup tables, and so performance was O(depth).  This new
+implementation uses a single data structure to avoid this degradation
+with depth.  Fragmentation may still be an issue, however, in some
+scenarios.
+
+Metadata is stored on a separate device from data, giving the
+administrator some freedom, for example to:
+
+- Improve metadata resilience by storing metadata on a mirrored volume
+  but data on a non-mirrored one.
+
+- Improve performance by storing the metadata on SSD.
+
+Status
+======
+
+These targets are very much still in the EXPERIMENTAL state.  Please
+do not yet rely on them in production.  But do experiment and offer us
+feedback.  Different use cases will have different performance
+characteristics, for example due to fragmentation of the data volume.
+
+If you find this software is not performing as expected please mail
+dm-devel@redhat.com with details and we'll try our best to improve
+things for you.
+
+Userspace tools for checking and repairing the metadata are under
+development.
+
+Cookbook
+========
+
+This section describes some quick recipes for using thin provisioning.
+They use the dmsetup program to control the device-mapper driver
+directly.  End users will be advised to use a higher-level volume
+manager such as LVM2 once support has been added.
+
+Pool device
+-----------
+
+The pool device ties together the metadata volume and the data volume.
+It maps I/O linearly to the data volume and updates the metadata via
+two mechanisms:
+
+- Function calls from the thin targets
+
+- Device-mapper 'messages' from userspace which control the creation of new
+  virtual devices amongst other things.
+
+Setting up a fresh pool device
+------------------------------
+
+Setting up a pool device requires a valid metadata device, and a
+data device.  If you do not have an existing metadata device you can
+make one by zeroing the first 4k to indicate empty metadata.
+
+    dd if=/dev/zero of=$metadata_dev bs=4096 count=1
+
+The amount of metadata you need will vary according to how many blocks
+are shared between thin devices (i.e. through snapshots).  If you have
+less sharing than average you'll need a larger-than-average metadata device.
+
+As a guide, we suggest you calculate the number of bytes to use in the
+metadata device as 48 * $data_dev_size / $data_block_size but round it up
+to 2MB if the answer is smaller.  The largest size supported is 16GB.
+
+If you're creating large numbers of snapshots which are recording large
+amounts of change, you may need find you need to increase this.
+
+Reloading a pool table
+----------------------
+
+You may reload a pool's table, indeed this is how the pool is resized
+if it runs out of space.  (N.B. While specifying a different metadata
+device when reloading is not forbidden at the moment, things will go
+wrong if it does not route I/O to exactly the same on-disk location as
+previously.)
+
+Using an existing pool device
+-----------------------------
+
+    dmsetup create pool \
+	--table "0 20971520 thin-pool $metadata_dev $data_dev \
+		 $data_block_size $low_water_mark"
+
+$data_block_size gives the smallest unit of disk space that can be
+allocated at a time expressed in units of 512-byte sectors.  People
+primarily interested in thin provisioning may want to use a value such
+as 1024 (512KB).  People doing lots of snapshotting may want a smaller value
+such as 128 (64KB).  If you are not zeroing newly-allocated data,
+a larger $data_block_size in the region of 256000 (128MB) is suggested.
+$data_block_size must be the same for the lifetime of the
+metadata device.
+
+$low_water_mark is expressed in blocks of size $data_block_size.  If
+free space on the data device drops below this level then a dm event
+will be triggered which a userspace daemon should catch allowing it to
+extend the pool device.  Only one such event will be sent.
+Resuming a device with a new table itself triggers an event so the
+userspace daemon can use this to detect a situation where a new table
+already exceeds the threshold.
+
+Thin provisioning
+-----------------
+
+i) Creating a new thinly-provisioned volume.
+
+  To create a new thinly- provisioned volume you must send a message to an
+  active pool device, /dev/mapper/pool in this example.
+
+    dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_thin 0"
+
+  Here '0' is an identifier for the volume, a 24-bit number.  It's up
+  to the caller to allocate and manage these identifiers.  If the
+  identifier is already in use, the message will fail with -EEXIST.
+
+ii) Using a thinly-provisioned volume.
+
+  Thinly-provisioned volumes are activated using the 'thin' target:
+
+    dmsetup create thin --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 0"
+
+  The last parameter is the identifier for the thinp device.
+
+Internal snapshots
+------------------
+
+i) Creating an internal snapshot.
+
+  Snapshots are created with another message to the pool.
+
+  N.B.  If the origin device that you wish to snapshot is active, you
+  must suspend it before creating the snapshot to avoid corruption.
+  This is NOT enforced at the moment, so please be careful!
+
+    dmsetup suspend /dev/mapper/thin
+    dmsetup message /dev/mapper/pool 0 "create_snap 1 0"
+    dmsetup resume /dev/mapper/thin
+
+  Here '1' is the identifier for the volume, a 24-bit number.  '0' is the
+  identifier for the origin device.
+
+ii) Using an internal snapshot.
+
+  Once created, the user doesn't have to worry about any connection
+  between the origin and the snapshot.  Indeed the snapshot is no
+  different from any other thinly-provisioned device and can be
+  snapshotted itself via the same method.  It's perfectly legal to
+  have only one of them active, and there's no ordering requirement on
+  activating or removing them both.  (This differs from conventional
+  device-mapper snapshots.)
+
+  Activate it exactly the same way as any other thinly-provisioned volume:
+
+    dmsetup create snap --table "0 2097152 thin /dev/mapper/pool 1"
+
+Deactivation
+------------
+
+All devices using a pool must be deactivated before the pool itself
+can be.
+
+    dmsetup remove thin
+    dmsetup remove snap
+    dmsetup remove pool
+
+Reference
+=========
+
+'thin-pool' target
+------------------
+
+i) Constructor
+
+    thin-pool <metadata dev> <data dev> <data block size (sectors)> \
+	      <low water mark (blocks)> [<number of feature args> [<arg>]*]
+
+    Optional feature arguments:
+    - 'skip_block_zeroing': skips the zeroing of newly-provisioned blocks.
+
+    Data block size must be between 64KB (128 sectors) and 1GB
+    (2097152 sectors) inclusive.
+
+
+ii) Status
+
+    <transaction id> <used metadata blocks>/<total metadata blocks>
+    <used data blocks>/<total data blocks> <held metadata root>
+
+
+    transaction id:
+	A 64-bit number used by userspace to help synchronise with metadata
+	from volume managers.
+
+    used data blocks / total data blocks
+	If the number of free blocks drops below the pool's low water mark a
+	dm event will be sent to userspace.  This event is edge-triggered and
+	it will occur only once after each resume so volume manager writers
+	should register for the event and then check the target's status.
+
+    held metadata root:
+	The location, in sectors, of the metadata root that has been
+	'held' for userspace read access.  '-' indicates there is no
+	held root.  This feature is not yet implemented so '-' is
+	always returned.
+
+iii) Messages
+
+    create_thin <dev id>
+
+	Create a new thinly-provisioned device.
+	<dev id> is an arbitrary unique 24-bit identifier chosen by
+	the caller.
+
+    create_snap <dev id> <origin id>
+
+	Create a new snapshot of another thinly-provisioned device.
+	<dev id> is an arbitrary unique 24-bit identifier chosen by
+	the caller.
+	<origin id> is the identifier of the thinly-provisioned device
+	of which the new device will be a snapshot.
+
+    delete <dev id>
+
+	Deletes a thin device.  Irreversible.
+
+    trim <dev id> <new size in sectors>
+
+	Delete mappings from the end of a thin device.  Irreversible.
+	You might want to use this if you're reducing the size of
+	your thinly-provisioned device.  In many cases, due to the
+	sharing of blocks between devices, it is not possible to
+	determine in advance how much space 'trim' will release.  (In
+	future a userspace tool might be able to perform this
+	calculation.)
+
+    set_transaction_id <current id> <new id>
+
+	Userland volume managers, such as LVM, need a way to
+	synchronise their external metadata with the internal metadata of the
+	pool target.  The thin-pool target offers to store an
+	arbitrary 64-bit transaction id and return it on the target's
+	status line.  To avoid races you must provide what you think
+	the current transaction id is when you change it with this
+	compare-and-swap message.
+
+'thin' target
+-------------
+
+i) Constructor
+
+    thin <pool dev> <dev id>
+
+    pool dev:
+	the thin-pool device, e.g. /dev/mapper/my_pool or 253:0
+
+    dev id:
+	the internal device identifier of the device to be
+	activated.
+
+The pool doesn't store any size against the thin devices.  If you
+load a thin target that is smaller than you've been using previously,
+then you'll have no access to blocks mapped beyond the end.  If you
+load a target that is bigger than before, then extra blocks will be
+provisioned as and when needed.
+
+If you wish to reduce the size of your thin device and potentially
+regain some space then send the 'trim' message to the pool.
+
+ii) Status
+
+     <nr mapped sectors> <highest mapped sector>