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			21 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			ReStructuredText
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			438 lines
		
	
	
		
			21 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			ReStructuredText
		
	
	
	
	
	
| .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
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| 
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| ================================================
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| ZoneFS - Zone filesystem for Zoned block devices
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| ================================================
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| 
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| Introduction
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| ============
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| 
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| zonefs is a very simple file system exposing each zone of a zoned block device
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| as a file. Unlike a regular POSIX-compliant file system with native zoned block
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| device support (e.g. f2fs), zonefs does not hide the sequential write
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| constraint of zoned block devices to the user. Files representing sequential
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| write zones of the device must be written sequentially starting from the end
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| of the file (append only writes).
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| 
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| As such, zonefs is in essence closer to a raw block device access interface
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| than to a full-featured POSIX file system. The goal of zonefs is to simplify
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| the implementation of zoned block device support in applications by replacing
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| raw block device file accesses with a richer file API, avoiding relying on
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| direct block device file ioctls which may be more obscure to developers. One
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| example of this approach is the implementation of LSM (log-structured merge)
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| tree structures (such as used in RocksDB and LevelDB) on zoned block devices
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| by allowing SSTables to be stored in a zone file similarly to a regular file
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| system rather than as a range of sectors of the entire disk. The introduction
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| of the higher level construct "one file is one zone" can help reducing the
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| amount of changes needed in the application as well as introducing support for
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| different application programming languages.
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| 
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| Zoned block devices
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| -------------------
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| 
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| Zoned storage devices belong to a class of storage devices with an address
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| space that is divided into zones. A zone is a group of consecutive LBAs and all
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| zones are contiguous (there are no LBA gaps). Zones may have different types.
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| 
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| * Conventional zones: there are no access constraints to LBAs belonging to
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|   conventional zones. Any read or write access can be executed, similarly to a
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|   regular block device.
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| * Sequential zones: these zones accept random reads but must be written
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|   sequentially. Each sequential zone has a write pointer maintained by the
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|   device that keeps track of the mandatory start LBA position of the next write
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|   to the device. As a result of this write constraint, LBAs in a sequential zone
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|   cannot be overwritten. Sequential zones must first be erased using a special
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|   command (zone reset) before rewriting.
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| 
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| Zoned storage devices can be implemented using various recording and media
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| technologies. The most common form of zoned storage today uses the SCSI Zoned
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| Block Commands (ZBC) and Zoned ATA Commands (ZAC) interfaces on Shingled
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| Magnetic Recording (SMR) HDDs.
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| 
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| Solid State Disks (SSD) storage devices can also implement a zoned interface
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| to, for instance, reduce internal write amplification due to garbage collection.
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| The NVMe Zoned NameSpace (ZNS) is a technical proposal of the NVMe standard
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| committee aiming at adding a zoned storage interface to the NVMe protocol.
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| 
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| Zonefs Overview
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| ===============
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| 
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| Zonefs exposes the zones of a zoned block device as files. The files
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| representing zones are grouped by zone type, which are themselves represented
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| by sub-directories. This file structure is built entirely using zone information
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| provided by the device and so does not require any complex on-disk metadata
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| structure.
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| 
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| On-disk metadata
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| ----------------
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| 
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| zonefs on-disk metadata is reduced to an immutable super block which
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| persistently stores a magic number and optional feature flags and values. On
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| mount, zonefs uses blkdev_report_zones() to obtain the device zone configuration
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| and populates the mount point with a static file tree solely based on this
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| information. File sizes come from the device zone type and write pointer
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| position managed by the device itself.
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| 
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| The super block is always written on disk at sector 0. The first zone of the
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| device storing the super block is never exposed as a zone file by zonefs. If
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| the zone containing the super block is a sequential zone, the mkzonefs format
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| tool always "finishes" the zone, that is, it transitions the zone to a full
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| state to make it read-only, preventing any data write.
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| 
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| Zone type sub-directories
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| -------------------------
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| 
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| Files representing zones of the same type are grouped together under the same
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| sub-directory automatically created on mount.
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| 
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| For conventional zones, the sub-directory "cnv" is used. This directory is
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| however created if and only if the device has usable conventional zones. If
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| the device only has a single conventional zone at sector 0, the zone will not
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| be exposed as a file as it will be used to store the zonefs super block. For
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| such devices, the "cnv" sub-directory will not be created.
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| 
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| For sequential write zones, the sub-directory "seq" is used.
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| 
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| These two directories are the only directories that exist in zonefs. Users
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| cannot create other directories and cannot rename nor delete the "cnv" and
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| "seq" sub-directories.
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| 
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| The size of the directories indicated by the st_size field of struct stat,
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| obtained with the stat() or fstat() system calls, indicates the number of files
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| existing under the directory.
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| 
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| Zone files
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| ----------
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| 
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| Zone files are named using the number of the zone they represent within the set
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| of zones of a particular type. That is, both the "cnv" and "seq" directories
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| contain files named "0", "1", "2", ... The file numbers also represent
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| increasing zone start sector on the device.
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| 
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| All read and write operations to zone files are not allowed beyond the file
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| maximum size, that is, beyond the zone capacity. Any access exceeding the zone
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| capacity is failed with the -EFBIG error.
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| 
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| Creating, deleting, renaming or modifying any attribute of files and
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| sub-directories is not allowed.
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| 
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| The number of blocks of a file as reported by stat() and fstat() indicates the
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| capacity of the zone file, or in other words, the maximum file size.
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| 
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| Conventional zone files
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| -----------------------
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| 
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| The size of conventional zone files is fixed to the size of the zone they
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| represent. Conventional zone files cannot be truncated.
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| 
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| These files can be randomly read and written using any type of I/O operation:
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| buffered I/Os, direct I/Os, memory mapped I/Os (mmap), etc. There are no I/O
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| constraint for these files beyond the file size limit mentioned above.
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| 
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| Sequential zone files
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| ---------------------
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| 
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| The size of sequential zone files grouped in the "seq" sub-directory represents
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| the file's zone write pointer position relative to the zone start sector.
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| 
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| Sequential zone files can only be written sequentially, starting from the file
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| end, that is, write operations can only be append writes. Zonefs makes no
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| attempt at accepting random writes and will fail any write request that has a
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| start offset not corresponding to the end of the file, or to the end of the last
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| write issued and still in-flight (for asynchronous I/O operations).
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| 
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| Since dirty page writeback by the page cache does not guarantee a sequential
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| write pattern, zonefs prevents buffered writes and writeable shared mappings
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| on sequential files. Only direct I/O writes are accepted for these files.
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| zonefs relies on the sequential delivery of write I/O requests to the device
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| implemented by the block layer elevator. An elevator implementing the sequential
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| write feature for zoned block device (ELEVATOR_F_ZBD_SEQ_WRITE elevator feature)
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| must be used. This type of elevator (e.g. mq-deadline) is set by default
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| for zoned block devices on device initialization.
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| 
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| There are no restrictions on the type of I/O used for read operations in
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| sequential zone files. Buffered I/Os, direct I/Os and shared read mappings are
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| all accepted.
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| 
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| Truncating sequential zone files is allowed only down to 0, in which case, the
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| zone is reset to rewind the file zone write pointer position to the start of
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| the zone, or up to the zone capacity, in which case the file's zone is
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| transitioned to the FULL state (finish zone operation).
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| 
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| Format options
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| --------------
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| 
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| Several optional features of zonefs can be enabled at format time.
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| 
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| * Conventional zone aggregation: ranges of contiguous conventional zones can be
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|   aggregated into a single larger file instead of the default one file per zone.
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| * File ownership: The owner UID and GID of zone files is by default 0 (root)
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|   but can be changed to any valid UID/GID.
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| * File access permissions: the default 640 access permissions can be changed.
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| 
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| IO error handling
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| -----------------
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| 
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| Zoned block devices may fail I/O requests for reasons similar to regular block
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| devices, e.g. due to bad sectors. However, in addition to such known I/O
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| failure pattern, the standards governing zoned block devices behavior define
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| additional conditions that result in I/O errors.
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| 
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| * A zone may transition to the read-only condition (BLK_ZONE_COND_READONLY):
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|   While the data already written in the zone is still readable, the zone can
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|   no longer be written. No user action on the zone (zone management command or
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|   read/write access) can change the zone condition back to a normal read/write
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|   state. While the reasons for the device to transition a zone to read-only
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|   state are not defined by the standards, a typical cause for such transition
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|   would be a defective write head on an HDD (all zones under this head are
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|   changed to read-only).
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| 
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| * A zone may transition to the offline condition (BLK_ZONE_COND_OFFLINE):
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|   An offline zone cannot be read nor written. No user action can transition an
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|   offline zone back to an operational good state. Similarly to zone read-only
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|   transitions, the reasons for a drive to transition a zone to the offline
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|   condition are undefined. A typical cause would be a defective read-write head
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|   on an HDD causing all zones on the platter under the broken head to be
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|   inaccessible.
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| 
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| * Unaligned write errors: These errors result from the host issuing write
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|   requests with a start sector that does not correspond to a zone write pointer
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|   position when the write request is executed by the device. Even though zonefs
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|   enforces sequential file write for sequential zones, unaligned write errors
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|   may still happen in the case of a partial failure of a very large direct I/O
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|   operation split into multiple BIOs/requests or asynchronous I/O operations.
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|   If one of the write request within the set of sequential write requests
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|   issued to the device fails, all write requests queued after it will
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|   become unaligned and fail.
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| 
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| * Delayed write errors: similarly to regular block devices, if the device side
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|   write cache is enabled, write errors may occur in ranges of previously
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|   completed writes when the device write cache is flushed, e.g. on fsync().
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|   Similarly to the previous immediate unaligned write error case, delayed write
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|   errors can propagate through a stream of cached sequential data for a zone
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|   causing all data to be dropped after the sector that caused the error.
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| 
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| All I/O errors detected by zonefs are notified to the user with an error code
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| return for the system call that triggered or detected the error. The recovery
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| actions taken by zonefs in response to I/O errors depend on the I/O type (read
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| vs write) and on the reason for the error (bad sector, unaligned writes or zone
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| condition change).
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| 
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| * For read I/O errors, zonefs does not execute any particular recovery action,
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|   but only if the file zone is still in a good condition and there is no
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|   inconsistency between the file inode size and its zone write pointer position.
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|   If a problem is detected, I/O error recovery is executed (see below table).
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| 
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| * For write I/O errors, zonefs I/O error recovery is always executed.
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| 
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| * A zone condition change to read-only or offline also always triggers zonefs
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|   I/O error recovery.
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| 
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| Zonefs minimal I/O error recovery may change a file size and file access
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| permissions.
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| 
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| * File size changes:
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|   Immediate or delayed write errors in a sequential zone file may cause the file
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|   inode size to be inconsistent with the amount of data successfully written in
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|   the file zone. For instance, the partial failure of a multi-BIO large write
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|   operation will cause the zone write pointer to advance partially, even though
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|   the entire write operation will be reported as failed to the user. In such
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|   case, the file inode size must be advanced to reflect the zone write pointer
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|   change and eventually allow the user to restart writing at the end of the
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|   file.
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|   A file size may also be reduced to reflect a delayed write error detected on
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|   fsync(): in this case, the amount of data effectively written in the zone may
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|   be less than originally indicated by the file inode size. After such I/O
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|   error, zonefs always fixes the file inode size to reflect the amount of data
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|   persistently stored in the file zone.
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| 
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| * Access permission changes:
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|   A zone condition change to read-only is indicated with a change in the file
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|   access permissions to render the file read-only. This disables changes to the
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|   file attributes and data modification. For offline zones, all permissions
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|   (read and write) to the file are disabled.
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| 
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| Further action taken by zonefs I/O error recovery can be controlled by the user
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| with the "errors=xxx" mount option. The table below summarizes the result of
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| zonefs I/O error processing depending on the mount option and on the zone
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| conditions::
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| 
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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|     |              |           |            Post error state             |
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|     | "errors=xxx" |  device   |                 access permissions      |
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|     |    mount     |   zone    | file         file          device zone  |
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|     |    option    | condition | size     read    write    read    write |
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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|     |              | good      | fixed    yes     no       yes     yes   |
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|     | remount-ro   | read-only | as is    yes     no       yes     no    |
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|     | (default)    | offline   |   0      no      no       no      no    |
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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|     |              | good      | fixed    yes     no       yes     yes   |
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|     | zone-ro      | read-only | as is    yes     no       yes     no    |
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|     |              | offline   |   0      no      no       no      no    |
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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|     |              | good      |   0      no      no       yes     yes   |
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|     | zone-offline | read-only |   0      no      no       yes     no    |
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|     |              | offline   |   0      no      no       no      no    |
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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|     |              | good      | fixed    yes     yes      yes     yes   |
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|     | repair       | read-only | as is    yes     no       yes     no    |
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|     |              | offline   |   0      no      no       no      no    |
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|     +--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------+
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| 
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| Further notes:
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| 
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| * The "errors=remount-ro" mount option is the default behavior of zonefs I/O
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|   error processing if no errors mount option is specified.
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| * With the "errors=remount-ro" mount option, the change of the file access
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|   permissions to read-only applies to all files. The file system is remounted
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|   read-only.
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| * Access permission and file size changes due to the device transitioning zones
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|   to the offline condition are permanent. Remounting or reformatting the device
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|   with mkfs.zonefs (mkzonefs) will not change back offline zone files to a good
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|   state.
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| * File access permission changes to read-only due to the device transitioning
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|   zones to the read-only condition are permanent. Remounting or reformatting
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|   the device will not re-enable file write access.
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| * File access permission changes implied by the remount-ro, zone-ro and
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|   zone-offline mount options are temporary for zones in a good condition.
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|   Unmounting and remounting the file system will restore the previous default
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|   (format time values) access rights to the files affected.
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| * The repair mount option triggers only the minimal set of I/O error recovery
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|   actions, that is, file size fixes for zones in a good condition. Zones
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|   indicated as being read-only or offline by the device still imply changes to
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|   the zone file access permissions as noted in the table above.
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| 
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| Mount options
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| -------------
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| 
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| zonefs define the "errors=<behavior>" mount option to allow the user to specify
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| zonefs behavior in response to I/O errors, inode size inconsistencies or zone
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| condition changes. The defined behaviors are as follow:
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| 
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| * remount-ro (default)
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| * zone-ro
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| * zone-offline
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| * repair
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| 
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| The run-time I/O error actions defined for each behavior are detailed in the
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| previous section. Mount time I/O errors will cause the mount operation to fail.
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| The handling of read-only zones also differs between mount-time and run-time.
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| If a read-only zone is found at mount time, the zone is always treated in the
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| same manner as offline zones, that is, all accesses are disabled and the zone
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| file size set to 0. This is necessary as the write pointer of read-only zones
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| is defined as invalib by the ZBC and ZAC standards, making it impossible to
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| discover the amount of data that has been written to the zone. In the case of a
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| read-only zone discovered at run-time, as indicated in the previous section.
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| The size of the zone file is left unchanged from its last updated value.
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| 
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| A zoned block device (e.g. an NVMe Zoned Namespace device) may have limits on
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| the number of zones that can be active, that is, zones that are in the
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| implicit open, explicit open or closed conditions.  This potential limitation
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| translates into a risk for applications to see write IO errors due to this
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| limit being exceeded if the zone of a file is not already active when a write
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| request is issued by the user.
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| 
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| To avoid these potential errors, the "explicit-open" mount option forces zones
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| to be made active using an open zone command when a file is opened for writing
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| for the first time. If the zone open command succeeds, the application is then
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| guaranteed that write requests can be processed. Conversely, the
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| "explicit-open" mount option will result in a zone close command being issued
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| to the device on the last close() of a zone file if the zone is not full nor
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| empty.
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| 
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| Zonefs User Space Tools
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| =======================
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| 
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| The mkzonefs tool is used to format zoned block devices for use with zonefs.
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| This tool is available on Github at:
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| 
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| https://github.com/damien-lemoal/zonefs-tools
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| 
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| zonefs-tools also includes a test suite which can be run against any zoned
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| block device, including null_blk block device created with zoned mode.
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| 
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| Examples
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| --------
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| 
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| The following formats a 15TB host-managed SMR HDD with 256 MB zones
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| with the conventional zones aggregation feature enabled::
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| 
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|     # mkzonefs -o aggr_cnv /dev/sdX
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|     # mount -t zonefs /dev/sdX /mnt
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|     # ls -l /mnt/
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|     total 0
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|     dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root     1 Nov 25 13:23 cnv
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|     dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 55356 Nov 25 13:23 seq
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| 
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| The size of the zone files sub-directories indicate the number of files
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| existing for each type of zones. In this example, there is only one
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| conventional zone file (all conventional zones are aggregated under a single
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| file)::
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| 
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|     # ls -l /mnt/cnv
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|     total 137101312
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 140391743488 Nov 25 13:23 0
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| 
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| This aggregated conventional zone file can be used as a regular file::
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| 
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|     # mkfs.ext4 /mnt/cnv/0
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|     # mount -o loop /mnt/cnv/0 /data
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| 
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| The "seq" sub-directory grouping files for sequential write zones has in this
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| example 55356 zones::
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| 
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|     # ls -lv /mnt/seq
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|     total 14511243264
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:23 0
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:23 1
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:23 2
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|     ...
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:23 55354
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:23 55355
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| 
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| For sequential write zone files, the file size changes as data is appended at
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| the end of the file, similarly to any regular file system::
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| 
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|     # dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/seq/0 bs=4096 count=1 conv=notrunc oflag=direct
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|     1+0 records in
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|     1+0 records out
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|     4096 bytes (4.1 kB, 4.0 KiB) copied, 0.00044121 s, 9.3 MB/s
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| 
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|     # ls -l /mnt/seq/0
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 13:23 /mnt/seq/0
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| 
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| The written file can be truncated to the zone size, preventing any further
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| write operation::
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| 
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|     # truncate -s 268435456 /mnt/seq/0
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|     # ls -l /mnt/seq/0
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 268435456 Nov 25 13:49 /mnt/seq/0
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| 
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| Truncation to 0 size allows freeing the file zone storage space and restart
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| append-writes to the file::
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| 
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|     # truncate -s 0 /mnt/seq/0
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|     # ls -l /mnt/seq/0
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|     -rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Nov 25 13:49 /mnt/seq/0
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| 
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| Since files are statically mapped to zones on the disk, the number of blocks
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| of a file as reported by stat() and fstat() indicates the capacity of the file
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| zone::
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| 
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|     # stat /mnt/seq/0
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|     File: /mnt/seq/0
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|     Size: 0         	Blocks: 524288     IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
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|     Device: 870h/2160d	Inode: 50431       Links: 1
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|     Access: (0640/-rw-r-----)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
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|     Access: 2019-11-25 13:23:57.048971997 +0900
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|     Modify: 2019-11-25 13:52:25.553805765 +0900
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|     Change: 2019-11-25 13:52:25.553805765 +0900
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|     Birth: -
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| 
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| The number of blocks of the file ("Blocks") in units of 512B blocks gives the
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| maximum file size of 524288 * 512 B = 256 MB, corresponding to the device zone
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| capacity in this example. Of note is that the "IO block" field always
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| indicates the minimum I/O size for writes and corresponds to the device
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| physical sector size.
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