freebsd-dev/sbin/mdconfig/mdconfig.8
Poul-Henning Kamp 7a6b2b6429 Fix a long-standing deadlock issue with vnode backed md(4) devices:
On vnode backed md(4) devices over a certain, currently undetermined
size relative to the buffer cache our "lemming-syncer" can provoke
a buffer starvation which puts the md thread to sleep on wdrain.

This generally tends to grind the entire system to a stop because the
event that is supposed to wake up the thread will not happen until a fair
bit of the piled up I/O requests in the system finish, and since a lot
of those are on a md(4) vnode backed device which is currently waiting
on wdrain until a fair amount of the piled up ... you get the picture.

The cure is to issue all VOP_WRITES on the vnode backing the device
with IO_SYNC.

In addition to more closely emulating a real disk device with a
non-lying write-cache, this makes the writes exempt from rate-limited
(there to avoid starving the buffer cache) and consequently prevents
the deadlock.

Unfortunately performance takes a hit.

Add "async" option to give people who know what they are doing the
old behaviour.
2004-03-10 20:41:09 +00:00

225 lines
6.1 KiB
Groff

.\" Copyright (c) 1993 University of Utah.
.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1989, 1991, 1993
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\" Copyright (c) 2000
.\" Poul-Henning Kamp All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" the Systems Programming Group of the University of Utah Computer
.\" Science Department.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
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.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\" @(#)vnconfig.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" from: src/usr.sbin/vnconfig/vnconfig.8,v 1.19 2000/12/27 15:30:29
.\"
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd December 31, 2000
.Dt MDCONFIG 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mdconfig
.Nd configure and enable memory disks
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Fl a
.Fl t Ar type
.Op Fl n
.Oo
.Fl o
.Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar option
.Oc
.Op Fl s Ar size
.Op Fl f Ar file
.Op Fl S Ar sectorsize
.Op Fl u Ar unit
.Op Fl x Ar sectors/track
.Op Fl y Ar heads/cyl
.Nm
.Fl d
.Fl u Ar unit
.Nm
.Fl l
.Op Fl n
.Op Fl u Ar unit
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility configures and enables
.Xr md 4
devices.
.Pp
Options indicate an action to be performed:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl a
Attach a memory disk.
This will configure and attach a memory disk with the
parameters specified and attach it to the system.
.It Fl d
Detach a memory disk from the system and release all resources.
.It Fl t Ar type
Select the type of the memory disk.
.Bl -tag -width "preload"
.It Cm malloc
Storage for this type of memory disk is allocated with
.Xr malloc 9 .
This limits the size to the malloc bucket limit in the kernel.
If the
.Fl o Cm reserve
option is not set, creating and filling a large
malloc-backed memory disk is a very easy way to
panic a system.
.It Cm vnode
A file specified with
.Fl f Ar file
becomes the backingstore for this memory disk.
.It Cm swap
swapspace is used to back this memory disk.
.El
.It Fl f Ar file
Filename to use for the vnode type memory disk.
.It Fl l
List information about configured
.Xr md 4
devices. If the
.Fl u
option is used in conjuction with this, the output is limited to
information on the specified device.
.It Fl n
When printing md device names, print only the unit number without the
md prefix.
.It Fl s Ar size
Size of the memory disk.
.Ar Size
is the number of 512 byte sectors unless suffixed with a
.Cm k , m ,
or
.Cm g
which
denotes kilobyte, megabyte and gigabyte respectively.
.It Fl S Ar sectorsize
Sectorsize to use for malloc backed device.
.It Fl x Ar sectors/track
See description of
.Fl y
below.
.It Fl y Ar heads/cylinder
For malloc or vnode backed devices, the
.Fl x
and
.Fl y
options can be used to specify a synthetic geometry.
This is useful for constructing bootable images for later download to
other devices.
.It Fl o Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar option
Set or reset options.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm async
For vnode backed devices: avoid IO_SYNC for increased performance but
at the risk of deadlocking the entire kernel.
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm reserve
Allocate and reserve all needed storage from the start, rather than as needed.
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm cluster
Enable clustering on this disk.
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm compress
Enable/Disable compression features to reduce memory usage.
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm force
Disable/Enable extra sanity checks to prevent the user from doing something
that might adversely affect the system.
.It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm readonly
Enable/Disable readonly mode.
.El
.It Fl u Ar unit
Request a specific unit number for the
.Xr md 4
device instead of automatic allocation.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
To create a 4 megabyte
.Xr malloc 9
backed memory disk.
The name of the allocated unit will be output on stdout like
.Dq Li md3 :
.Pp
.Dl mdconfig -a -t malloc -s 4m
.Pp
To create a disk named
.Pa /dev/md4
with
.Pa /tmp/boot.flp
as backing:
.Pp
.Dl mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /tmp/boot.flp -u 4
.Pp
To detach and free all resources used by
.Pa /dev/md4 :
.Pp
.Dl mdconfig -d -u 4
.Pp
To create and mount a 128MByte swap backed file system on
.Pa /tmp :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
mdconfig -a -t swap -s 128M -u 10
newfs -U /dev/md10
mount /dev/md10 /tmp
chmod 1777 /tmp
.Ed
.Pp
To create a 5MB file-backed disk:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
dd if=/dev/zero of=somebackingfile bs=1k count=5k
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f somebackingfile -u 0
bsdlabel -w md0 auto
newfs md0c
mount /dev/md0c /mnt
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr md 4 ,
.Xr bsdlabel 8 ,
.Xr fdisk 8 ,
.Xr mdmfs 8 ,
.Xr malloc 9
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Fx 5.0
as a cleaner replacement for the
.Xr vn 4
and
.Xr vnconfig 8
combo.
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
utility was written by
.An Poul-Henning Kamp
.Aq phk@FreeBSD.org .