dm: allow active and inactive tables to share dm_devs
Until this change, when loading a new DM table, DM core would re-open
all of the devices in the DM table. Now, DM core will avoid redundant
device opens (and closes when destroying the old table) if the old
table already has a device open using the same mode. This is achieved
by managing reference counts on the table_devices that DM core now
stores in the mapped_device structure (rather than in the dm_table
structure). So a mapped_device's active and inactive dm_tables' dm_dev
lists now just point to the dm_devs stored in the mapped_device's
table_devices list.
This improvement in DM core's device reference counting has the
side-effect of fixing a long-standing limitation of the multipath
target: a DM multipath table couldn't include any paths that were unusable
(failed). For example: if all paths have failed and you add a new,
working, path to the table; you can't use it since the table load would
fail due to it still containing failed paths. Now a re-load of a
multipath table can include failed devices and when those devices become
active again they can be used instantly.
The device list code in dm.c isn't a straight copy/paste from the code in
dm-table.c, but it's very close (aside from some variable renames). One
subtle difference is that find_table_device for the tables_devices list
will only match devices with the same name and mode. This is because we
don't want to upgrade a device's mode in the active table when an
inactive table is loaded.
Access to the mapped_device structure's tables_devices list requires a
mutex (tables_devices_lock), so that tables cannot be created and
destroyed concurrently.
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Marzinski <bmarzins@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
5 files changed