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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+================================
+Asynchronous Operations Handling
+================================
+
+By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
+
+.. Contents:
+
+ (*) Overview.
+
+ (*) Operation record initialisation.
+
+ (*) Parameters.
+
+ (*) Procedure.
+
+ (*) Asynchronous callback.
+
+
+Overview
+========
+
+FS-Cache has an asynchronous operations handling facility that it uses for its
+data storage and retrieval routines. Its operations are represented by
+fscache_operation structs, though these are usually embedded into some other
+structure.
+
+This facility is available to and expected to be be used by the cache backends,
+and FS-Cache will create operations and pass them off to the appropriate cache
+backend for completion.
+
+To make use of this facility, <linux/fscache-cache.h> should be #included.
+
+
+Operation Record Initialisation
+===============================
+
+An operation is recorded in an fscache_operation struct::
+
+ struct fscache_operation {
+ union {
+ struct work_struct fast_work;
+ struct slow_work slow_work;
+ };
+ unsigned long flags;
+ fscache_operation_processor_t processor;
+ ...
+ };
+
+Someone wanting to issue an operation should allocate something with this
+struct embedded in it. They should initialise it by calling::
+
+ void fscache_operation_init(struct fscache_operation *op,
+ fscache_operation_release_t release);
+
+with the operation to be initialised and the release function to use.
+
+The op->flags parameter should be set to indicate the CPU time provision and
+the exclusivity (see the Parameters section).
+
+The op->fast_work, op->slow_work and op->processor flags should be set as
+appropriate for the CPU time provision (see the Parameters section).
+
+FSCACHE_OP_WAITING may be set in op->flags prior to each submission of the
+operation and waited for afterwards.
+
+
+Parameters
+==========
+
+There are a number of parameters that can be set in the operation record's flag
+parameter. There are three options for the provision of CPU time in these
+operations:
+
+ (1) The operation may be done synchronously (FSCACHE_OP_MYTHREAD). A thread
+ may decide it wants to handle an operation itself without deferring it to
+ another thread.
+
+ This is, for example, used in read operations for calling readpages() on
+ the backing filesystem in CacheFiles. Although readpages() does an
+ asynchronous data fetch, the determination of whether pages exist is done
+ synchronously - and the netfs does not proceed until this has been
+ determined.
+
+ If this option is to be used, FSCACHE_OP_WAITING must be set in op->flags
+ before submitting the operation, and the operating thread must wait for it
+ to be cleared before proceeding::
+
+ wait_on_bit(&op->flags, FSCACHE_OP_WAITING,
+ TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);
+
+
+ (2) The operation may be fast asynchronous (FSCACHE_OP_FAST), in which case it
+ will be given to keventd to process. Such an operation is not permitted
+ to sleep on I/O.
+
+ This is, for example, used by CacheFiles to copy data from a backing fs
+ page to a netfs page after the backing fs has read the page in.
+
+ If this option is used, op->fast_work and op->processor must be
+ initialised before submitting the operation::
+
+ INIT_WORK(&op->fast_work, do_some_work);
+
+
+ (3) The operation may be slow asynchronous (FSCACHE_OP_SLOW), in which case it
+ will be given to the slow work facility to process. Such an operation is
+ permitted to sleep on I/O.
+
+ This is, for example, used by FS-Cache to handle background writes of
+ pages that have just been fetched from a remote server.
+
+ If this option is used, op->slow_work and op->processor must be
+ initialised before submitting the operation::
+
+ fscache_operation_init_slow(op, processor)
+
+
+Furthermore, operations may be one of two types:
+
+ (1) Exclusive (FSCACHE_OP_EXCLUSIVE). Operations of this type may not run in
+ conjunction with any other operation on the object being operated upon.
+
+ An example of this is the attribute change operation, in which the file
+ being written to may need truncation.
+
+ (2) Shareable. Operations of this type may be running simultaneously. It's
+ up to the operation implementation to prevent interference between other
+ operations running at the same time.
+
+
+Procedure
+=========
+
+Operations are used through the following procedure:
+
+ (1) The submitting thread must allocate the operation and initialise it
+ itself. Normally this would be part of a more specific structure with the
+ generic op embedded within.
+
+ (2) The submitting thread must then submit the operation for processing using
+ one of the following two functions::
+
+ int fscache_submit_op(struct fscache_object *object,
+ struct fscache_operation *op);
+
+ int fscache_submit_exclusive_op(struct fscache_object *object,
+ struct fscache_operation *op);
+
+ The first function should be used to submit non-exclusive ops and the
+ second to submit exclusive ones. The caller must still set the
+ FSCACHE_OP_EXCLUSIVE flag.
+
+ If successful, both functions will assign the operation to the specified
+ object and return 0. -ENOBUFS will be returned if the object specified is
+ permanently unavailable.
+
+ The operation manager will defer operations on an object that is still
+ undergoing lookup or creation. The operation will also be deferred if an
+ operation of conflicting exclusivity is in progress on the object.
+
+ If the operation is asynchronous, the manager will retain a reference to
+ it, so the caller should put their reference to it by passing it to::
+
+ void fscache_put_operation(struct fscache_operation *op);
+
+ (3) If the submitting thread wants to do the work itself, and has marked the
+ operation with FSCACHE_OP_MYTHREAD, then it should monitor
+ FSCACHE_OP_WAITING as described above and check the state of the object if
+ necessary (the object might have died while the thread was waiting).
+
+ When it has finished doing its processing, it should call
+ fscache_op_complete() and fscache_put_operation() on it.
+
+ (4) The operation holds an effective lock upon the object, preventing other
+ exclusive ops conflicting until it is released. The operation can be
+ enqueued for further immediate asynchronous processing by adjusting the
+ CPU time provisioning option if necessary, eg::
+
+ op->flags &= ~FSCACHE_OP_TYPE;
+ op->flags |= ~FSCACHE_OP_FAST;
+
+ and calling::
+
+ void fscache_enqueue_operation(struct fscache_operation *op)
+
+ This can be used to allow other things to have use of the worker thread
+ pools.
+
+
+Asynchronous Callback
+=====================
+
+When used in asynchronous mode, the worker thread pool will invoke the
+processor method with a pointer to the operation. This should then get at the
+container struct by using container_of()::
+
+ static void fscache_write_op(struct fscache_operation *_op)
+ {
+ struct fscache_storage *op =
+ container_of(_op, struct fscache_storage, op);
+ ...
+ }
+
+The caller holds a reference on the operation, and will invoke
+fscache_put_operation() when the processor function returns. The processor
+function is at liberty to call fscache_enqueue_operation() or to take extra
+references.