Overview of the Linux Virtual File System

        Original author: Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au>

                  Last updated on June 24, 2007.

  Copyright (C) 1999 Richard Gooch
  Copyright (C) 2005 Pekka Enberg

  This file is released under the GPLv2.


Introduction
============

The Virtual File System (also known as the Virtual Filesystem Switch)
is the software layer in the kernel that provides the filesystem
interface to userspace programs. It also provides an abstraction
within the kernel which allows different filesystem implementations to
coexist.

VFS system calls open(2), stat(2), read(2), write(2), chmod(2) and so
on are called from a process context. Filesystem locking is described
in the document Documentation/filesystems/Locking.


Directory Entry Cache (dcache)
------------------------------

The VFS implements the open(2), stat(2), chmod(2), and similar system
calls. The pathname argument that is passed to them is used by the VFS
to search through the directory entry cache (also known as the dentry
cache or dcache). This provides a very fast look-up mechanism to
translate a pathname (filename) into a specific dentry. Dentries live
in RAM and are never saved to disc: they exist only for performance.

The dentry cache is meant to be a view into your entire filespace. As
most computers cannot fit all dentries in the RAM at the same time,
some bits of the cache are missing. In order to resolve your pathname
into a dentry, the VFS may have to resort to creating dentries along
the way, and then loading the inode. This is done by looking up the
inode.


The Inode Object
----------------

An individual dentry usually has a pointer to an inode. Inodes are
filesystem objects such as regular files, directories, FIFOs and other
beasts.  They live either on the disc (for block device filesystems)
or in the memory (for pseudo filesystems). Inodes that live on the
disc are copied into the memory when required and changes to the inode
are written back to disc. A single inode can be pointed to by multiple
dentries (hard links, for example, do this).

To look up an inode requires that the VFS calls the lookup() method of
the parent directory inode. This method is installed by the specific
filesystem implementation that the inode lives in. Once the VFS has
the required dentry (and hence the inode), we can do all those boring
things like open(2) the file, or stat(2) it to peek at the inode
data. The stat(2) operation is fairly simple: once the VFS has the
dentry, it peeks at the inode data and passes some of it back to
userspace.


The File Object
---------------

Opening a file requires another operation: allocation of a file
structure (this is the kernel-side implementation of file
descriptors). The freshly allocated file structure is initialized with
a pointer to the dentry and a set of file operation member functions.
These are taken from the inode data. The open() file method is then
called so the specific filesystem implementation can do its work. You
can see that this is another switch performed by the VFS. The file
structure is placed into the file descriptor table for the process.

Reading, writing and closing files (and other assorted VFS operations)
is done by using the userspace file descriptor to grab the appropriate
file structure, and then calling the required file structure method to
do whatever is required. For as long as the file is open, it keeps the
dentry in use, which in turn means that the VFS inode is still in use.


Registering and Mounting a Filesystem
=====================================

To register and unregister a filesystem, use the following API
functions:

   #include <linux/fs.h>

   extern int register_filesystem(struct file_system_type *);
   extern int unregister_filesystem(struct file_system_type *);

The passed struct file_system_type describes your filesystem. When a
request is made to mount a filesystem onto a directory in your namespace,
the VFS will call the appropriate mount() method for the specific
filesystem.  New vfsmount referring to the tree returned by ->mount()
will be attached to the mountpoint, so that when pathname resolution
reaches the mountpoint it will jump into the root of that vfsmount.

You can see all filesystems that are registered to the kernel in the
file /proc/filesystems.


struct file_system_type
-----------------------

This describes the filesystem. As of kernel 2.6.39, the following
members are defined:

struct file_system_type {
        const char *name;
        int fs_flags;
        struct dentry *(*mount) (struct file_system_type *, int,
                       const char *, void *);
        void (*kill_sb) (struct super_block *);
        struct module *owner;
        struct file_system_type * next;
        struct list_head fs_supers;
        struct lock_class_key s_lock_key;
        struct lock_class_key s_umount_key;
};

  name: the name of the filesystem type, such as "ext2", "iso9660",
        "msdos" and so on

  fs_flags: various flags (i.e. FS_REQUIRES_DEV, FS_NO_DCACHE, etc.)

  mount: the method to call when a new instance of this
        filesystem should be mounted

  kill_sb: the method to call when an instance of this filesystem
        should be shut down

  owner: for internal VFS use: you should initialize this to THIS_MODULE in
        most cases.

  next: for internal VFS use: you should initialize this to NULL

  s_lock_key, s_umount_key: lockdep-specific

The mount() method has the following arguments:

  struct file_system_type *fs_type: describes the filesystem, partly initialized
        by the specific filesystem code

  int flags: mount flags

  const char *dev_name: the device name we are mounting.

  void *data: arbitrary mount options, usually comes as an ASCII
        string (see "Mount Options" section)

The mount() method must return the root dentry of the tree requested by
caller.  An active reference to its superblock must be grabbed and the
superblock must be locked.  On failure it should return ERR_PTR(error).

The arguments match those of mount(2) and their interpretation
depends on filesystem type.  E.g. for block filesystems, dev_name is
interpreted as block device name, that device is opened and if it
contains a suitable filesystem image the method creates and initializes
struct super_block accordingly, returning its root dentry to caller.

->mount() may choose to return a subtree of existing filesystem - it
doesn't have to create a new one.  The main result from the caller's
point of view is a reference to dentry at the root of (sub)tree to
be attached; creation of new superblock is a common side effect.

The most interesting member of the superblock structure that the
mount() method fills in is the "s_op" field. This is a pointer to
a "struct super_operations" which describes the next level of the
filesystem implementation.

Usually, a filesystem uses one of the generic mount() implementations
and provides a fill_super() callback instead. The generic variants are:

  mount_bdev: mount a filesystem residing on a block device

  mount_nodev: mount a filesystem that is not backed by a device

  mount_single: mount a filesystem which shares the instance between
        all mounts

A fill_super() callback implementation has the following arguments:

  struct super_block *sb: the superblock structure. The callback
        must initialize this properly.

  void *data: arbitrary mount options, usually comes as an ASCII
        string (see "Mount Options" section)

  int silent: whether or not to be silent on error


The Superblock Object
=====================

A superblock object represents a mounted filesystem.


struct super_operations
-----------------------

This describes how the VFS can manipulate the superblock of your
filesystem. As of kernel 2.6.22, the following members are defined:

struct super_operations {
        struct inode *(*alloc_inode)(struct super_block *sb);
        void (*destroy_inode)(struct inode *);

        void (*dirty_inode) (struct inode *, int flags);
        int (*write_inode) (struct inode *, int);
        void (*drop_inode) (struct inode *);
        void (*delete_inode) (struct inode *);
        void (*put_super) (struct super_block *);
        int (*sync_fs)(struct super_block *sb, int wait);
        int (*freeze_fs) (struct super_block *);
        int (*unfreeze_fs) (struct super_block *);
        int (*statfs) (struct dentry *, struct kstatfs *);
        int (*remount_fs) (struct super_block *, int *, char *);
        void (*clear_inode) (struct inode *);
        void (*umount_begin) (struct super_block *);

        int (*show_options)(struct seq_file *, struct dentry *);

        ssize_t (*quota_read)(struct super_block *, int, char *, size_t, loff_t);
        ssize_t (*quota_write)(struct super_block *, int, const char *, size_t, loff_t);
        int (*nr_cached_objects)(struct super_block *);
        void (*free_cached_objects)(struct super_block *, int);
};

All methods are called without any locks being held, unless otherwise
noted. This means that most methods can block safely. All methods are
only called from a process context (i.e. not from an interrupt handler
or bottom half).

  alloc_inode: this method is called by alloc_inode() to allocate memory
        for struct inode and initialize it.  If this function is not
        defined, a simple 'struct inode' is allocated.  Normally
        alloc_inode will be used to allocate a larger structure which
        contains a 'struct inode' embedded within it.

  destroy_inode: this method is called by destroy_inode() to release
        resources allocated for struct inode.  It is only required if
        ->alloc_inode was defined and simply undoes anything done by
        ->alloc_inode.

  dirty_inode: this method is called by the VFS to mark an inode dirty.

  write_inode: this method is called when the VFS needs to write an
        inode to disc.  The second parameter indicates whether the write
        should be synchronous or not, not all filesystems check this flag.

  drop_inode: called when the last access to the inode is dropped,
        with the inode->i_lock spinlock held.

        This method should be either NULL (normal UNIX filesystem
        semantics) or "generic_delete_inode" (for filesystems that do not
        want to cache inodes - causing "delete_inode" to always be
        called regardless of the value of i_nlink)

        The "generic_delete_inode()" behavior is equivalent to the
        old practice of using "force_delete" in the put_inode() case,
        but does not have the races that the "force_delete()" approach
        had. 

  delete_inode: called when the VFS wants to delete an inode

  put_super: called when the VFS wishes to free the superblock
        (i.e. unmount). This is called with the superblock lock held

  sync_fs: called when VFS is writing out all dirty data associated with
        a superblock. The second parameter indicates whether the method
        should wait until the write out has been completed. Optional.

  freeze_fs: called when VFS is locking a filesystem and
        forcing it into a consistent state.  This method is currently
        used by the Logical Volume Manager (LVM).

  unfreeze_fs: called when VFS is unlocking a filesystem and making it writable
        again.

  statfs: called when the VFS needs to get filesystem statistics.

  remount_fs: called when the filesystem is remounted. This is called
        with the kernel lock held

  clear_inode: called then the VFS clears the inode. Optional

  umount_begin: called when the VFS is unmounting a filesystem.

  show_options: called by the VFS to show mount options for
        /proc/<pid>/mounts.  (see "Mount Options" section)

  quota_read: called by the VFS to read from filesystem quota file.

  quota_write: called by the VFS to write to filesystem quota file.

  nr_cached_objects: called by the sb cache shrinking function for the
        filesystem to return the number of freeable cached objects it contains.
        Optional.

  free_cache_objects: called by the sb cache shrinking function for the
        filesystem to scan the number of objects indicated to try to free them.
        Optional, but any filesystem implementing this method needs to also
        implement ->nr_cached_objects for it to be called correctly.

        We can't do anything with any errors that the filesystem might
        encountered, hence the void return type. This will never be called if
        the VM is trying to reclaim under GFP_NOFS conditions, hence this
        method does not need to handle that situation itself.

        Implementations must include conditional reschedule calls inside any
        scanning loop that is done. This allows the VFS to determine
        appropriate scan batch sizes without having to worry about whether
        implementations will cause holdoff problems due to large scan batch
        sizes.

Whoever sets up the inode is responsible for filling in the "i_op" field. This
is a pointer to a "struct inode_operations" which describes the methods that
can be performed on individual inodes.


The Inode Object
================

An inode object represents an object within the filesystem.


struct inode_operations
-----------------------

This describes how the VFS can manipulate an inode in your
filesystem. As of kernel 2.6.22, the following members are defined:

struct inode_operations {
        int (*create) (struct inode *,struct dentry *, umode_t, bool);
        struct dentry * (*lookup) (struct inode *,struct dentry *, unsigned int);
        int (*link) (struct dentry *,struct inode *,struct dentry *);
        int (*unlink) (struct inode *,struct dentry *);
        int (*symlink) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,const char *);
        int (*mkdir) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,umode_t);
        int (*rmdir) (struct inode *,struct dentry *);
        int (*mknod) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,umode_t,dev_t);
        int (*rename) (struct inode *, struct dentry *,
                        struct inode *, struct dentry *);
        int (*rename2) (struct inode *, struct dentry *,
                        struct inode *, struct dentry *, unsigned int);
        int (*readlink) (struct dentry *, char __user *,int);
        const char *(*follow_link) (struct dentry *, void **);
        void (*put_link) (struct inode *, void *);
        int (*permission) (struct inode *, int);
        int (*get_acl)(struct inode *, int);
        int (*setattr) (struct dentry *, struct iattr *);
        int (*getattr) (struct vfsmount *mnt, struct dentry *, struct kstat *);
        int (*setxattr) (struct dentry *, const char *,const void *,size_t,int);
        ssize_t (*getxattr) (struct dentry *, const char *, void *, size_t);
        ssize_t (*listxattr) (struct dentry *, char *, size_t);
        int (*removexattr) (struct dentry *, const char *);
        void (*update_time)(struct inode *, struct timespec *, int);
        int (*atomic_open)(struct inode *, struct dentry *, struct file *,
                        unsigned open_flag, umode_t create_mode, int *opened);
        int (*tmpfile) (struct inode *, struct dentry *, umode_t);
        int (*dentry_open)(struct dentry *, struct file *, const struct cred *);
};

Again, all methods are called without any locks being held, unless
otherwise noted.

  create: called by the open(2) and creat(2) system calls. Only
        required if you want to support regular files. The dentry you
        get should not have an inode (i.e. it should be a negative
        dentry). Here you will probably call d_instantiate() with the
        dentry and the newly created inode

  lookup: called when the VFS needs to look up an inode in a parent
        directory. The name to look for is found in the dentry. This
        method must call d_add() to insert the found inode into the
        dentry. The "i_count" field in the inode structure should be
        incremented. If the named inode does not exist a NULL inode
        should be inserted into the dentry (this is called a negative
        dentry). Returning an error code from this routine must only
        be done on a real error, otherwise creating inodes with system
        calls like create(2), mknod(2), mkdir(2) and so on will fail.
        If you wish to overload the dentry methods then you should
        initialise the "d_dop" field in the dentry; this is a pointer
        to a struct "dentry_operations".
        This method is called with the directory inode semaphore held

  link: called by the link(2) system call. Only required if you want
        to support hard links. You will probably need to call
        d_instantiate() just as you would in the create() method

  unlink: called by the unlink(2) system call. Only required if you
        want to support deleting inodes

  symlink: called by the symlink(2) system call. Only required if you
        want to support symlinks. You will probably need to call
        d_instantiate() just as you would in the create() method

  mkdir: called by the mkdir(2) system call. Only required if you want
        to support creating subdirectories. You will probably need to
        call d_instantiate() just as you would in the create() method

  rmdir: called by the rmdir(2) system call. Only required if you want
        to support deleting subdirectories

  mknod: called by the mknod(2) system call to create a device (char,
        block) inode or a named pipe (FIFO) or socket. Only required
        if you want to support creating these types of inodes. You
        will probably need to call d_instantiate() just as you would
        in the create() method

  rename: called by the rename(2) system call to rename the object to
        have the parent and name given by the second inode and dentry.

  rename2: this has an additional flags argument compared to rename.
        If no flags are supported by the filesystem then this method
        need not be implemented.  If some flags are supported then the
        filesystem must return -EINVAL for any unsupported or unknown
        flags.  Currently the following flags are implemented:
        (1) RENAME_NOREPLACE: this flag indicates that if the target
        of the rename exists the rename should fail with -EEXIST
        instead of replacing the target.  The VFS already checks for
        existence, so for local filesystems the RENAME_NOREPLACE
        implementation is equivalent to plain rename.
        (2) RENAME_EXCHANGE: exchange source and target.  Both must
        exist; this is checked by the VFS.  Unlike plain rename,
        source and target may be of different type.

  readlink: called by the readlink(2) system call. Only required if
        you want to support reading symbolic links

  follow_link: called by the VFS to follow a symbolic link to the
        inode it points to.  Only required if you want to support
        symbolic links.  This method returns the symlink body
        to traverse (and possibly resets the current position with
        nd_jump_link()).  If the body won't go away until the inode
        is gone, nothing else is needed; if it needs to be otherwise
        pinned, the data needed to release whatever we'd grabbed
        is to be stored in void * variable passed by address to
        follow_link() instance.

  put_link: called by the VFS to release resources allocated by
        follow_link().  The cookie stored by follow_link() is passed
        to this method as the last parameter; only called when
        cookie isn't NULL.

  permission: called by the VFS to check for access rights on a POSIX-like
        filesystem.

        May be called in rcu-walk mode (mask & MAY_NOT_BLOCK). If in rcu-walk
        mode, the filesystem must check the permission without blocking or
        storing to the inode.

        If a situation is encountered that rcu-walk cannot handle, return
        -ECHILD and it will be called again in ref-walk mode.

  setattr: called by the VFS to set attributes for a file. This method
        is called by chmod(2) and related system calls.

  getattr: called by the VFS to get attributes of a file. This method
        is called by stat(2) and related system calls.

  setxattr: called by the VFS to set an extended attribute for a file.
        Extended attribute is a name:value pair associated with an
        inode. This method is called by setxattr(2) system call.

  getxattr: called by the VFS to retrieve the value of an extended
        attribute name. This method is called by getxattr(2) function
        call.

  listxattr: called by the VFS to list all extended attributes for a
        given file. This method is called by listxattr(2) system call.

  removexattr: called by the VFS to remove an extended attribute from
        a file. This method is called by removexattr(2) system call.

  update_time: called by the VFS to update a specific time or the i_version of
        an inode.  If this is not defined the VFS will update the inode itself
        and call mark_inode_dirty_sync.

  atomic_open: called on the last component of an open.  Using this optional
        method the filesystem can look up, possibly create and open the file in
        one atomic operation.  If it cannot perform this (e.g. the file type
        turned out to be wrong) it may signal this by returning 1 instead of
        usual 0 or -ve .  This method is only called if the last component is
        negative or needs lookup.  Cached positive dentries are still handled by
        f_op->open().  If the file was created, the FILE_CREATED flag should be
        set in "opened".  In case of O_EXCL the method must only succeed if the
        file didn't exist and hence FILE_CREATED shall always be set on success.

  tmpfile: called in the end of O_TMPFILE open().  Optional, equivalent to
        atomically creating, opening and unlinking a file in given directory.

The Address Space Object
========================

The address space object is used to group and manage pages in the page
cache.  It can be used to keep track of the pages in a file (or
anything else) and also track the mapping of sections of the file into
process address spaces.

There are a number of distinct yet related services that an
address-space can provide.  These include communicating memory
pressure, page lookup by address, and keeping track of pages tagged as
Dirty or Writeback.

The first can be used independently to the others.  The VM can try to
either write dirty pages in order to clean them, or release clean
pages in order to reuse them.  To do this it can call the ->writepage
method on dirty pages, and ->releasepage on clean pages with
PagePrivate set. Clean pages without PagePrivate and with no external
references will be released without notice being given to the
address_space.

To achieve this functionality, pages need to be placed on an LRU with
lru_cache_add and mark_page_active needs to be called whenever the
page is used.

Pages are normally kept in a radix tree index by ->index. This tree
maintains information about the PG_Dirty and PG_Writeback status of
each page, so that pages with either of these flags can be found
quickly.

The Dirty tag is primarily used by mpage_writepages - the default
->writepages method.  It uses the tag to find dirty pages to call
->writepage on.  If mpage_writepages is not used (i.e. the address
provides its own ->writepages) , the PAGECACHE_TAG_DIRTY tag is
almost unused.  write_inode_now and sync_inode do use it (through
__sync_single_inode) to check if ->writepages has been successful in
writing out the whole address_space.

The Writeback tag is used by filemap*wait* and sync_page* functions,
via filemap_fdatawait_range, to wait for all writeback to
complete.  While waiting ->sync_page (if defined) will be called on
each page that is found to require writeback.

An address_space handler may attach extra information to a page,
typically using the 'private' field in the 'struct page'.  If such
information is attached, the PG_Private flag should be set.  This will
cause various VM routines to make extra calls into the address_space
handler to deal with that data.

An address space acts as an intermediate between storage and
application.  Data is read into the address space a whole page at a
time, and provided to the application either by copying of the page,
or by memory-mapping the page.
Data is written into the address space by the application, and then
written-back to storage typically in whole pages, however the
address_space has finer control of write sizes.

The read process essentially only requires 'readpage'.  The write
process is more complicated and uses write_begin/write_end or
set_page_dirty to write data into the address_space, and writepage,
sync_page, and writepages to writeback data to storage.

Adding and removing pages to/from an address_space is protected by the
inode's i_mutex.

When data is written to a page, the PG_Dirty flag should be set.  It
typically remains set until writepage asks for it to be written.  This
should clear PG_Dirty and set PG_Writeback.  It can be actually
written at any point after PG_Dirty is clear.  Once it is known to be
safe, PG_Writeback is cleared.

Writeback makes use of a writeback_control structure...

struct address_space_operations
-------------------------------

This describes how the VFS can manipulate mapping of a file to page cache in
your filesystem. The following members are defined:

struct address_space_operations {
        int (*writepage)(struct page *page, struct writeback_control *wbc);
        int (*readpage)(struct file *, struct page *);
        int (*writepages)(struct address_space *, struct writeback_control *);
        int (*set_page_dirty)(struct page *page);
        int (*readpages)(struct file *filp, struct address_space *mapping,
                        struct list_head *pages, unsigned nr_pages);
        int (*write_begin)(struct file *, struct address_space *mapping,
                                loff_t pos, unsigned len, unsigned flags,
                                struct page **pagep, void **fsdata);
        int (*write_end)(struct file *, struct address_space *mapping,
                                loff_t pos, unsigned len, unsigned copied,
                                struct page *page, void *fsdata);
        sector_t (*bmap)(struct address_space *, sector_t);
        void (*invalidatepage) (struct page *, unsigned int, unsigned int);
        int (*releasepage) (struct page *, int);
        void (*freepage)(struct page *);
        ssize_t (*direct_IO)(struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *iter, loff_t offset);
        /* migrate the contents of a page to the specified target */
        int (*migratepage) (struct page *, struct page *);
        int (*launder_page) (struct page *);
        int (*is_partially_uptodate) (struct page *, unsigned long,
                                        unsigned long);
        void (*is_dirty_writeback) (struct page *, bool *, bool *);
        int (*error_remove_page) (struct mapping *mapping, struct page *page);
        int (*swap_activate)(struct file *);
        int (*swap_deactivate)(struct file *);
};

  writepage: called by the VM to write a dirty page to backing store.
      This may happen for data integrity reasons (i.e. 'sync'), or
      to free up memory (flush).  The difference can be seen in
      wbc->sync_mode.
      The PG_Dirty flag has been cleared and PageLocked is true.
      writepage should start writeout, should set PG_Writeback,
      and should make sure the page is unlocked, either synchronously
      or asynchronously when the write operation completes.

      If wbc->sync_mode is WB_SYNC_NONE, ->writepage doesn't have to
      try too hard if there are problems, and may choose to write out
      other pages from the mapping if that is easier (e.g. due to
      internal dependencies).  If it chooses not to start writeout, it
      should return AOP_WRITEPAGE_ACTIVATE so that the VM will not keep
      calling ->writepage on that page.

      See the file "Locking" for more details.

  readpage: called by the VM to read a page from backing store.
       The page will be Locked when readpage is called, and should be
       unlocked and marked uptodate once the read completes.
       If ->readpage discovers that it needs to unlock the page for
       some reason, it can do so, and then return AOP_TRUNCATED_PAGE.
       In this case, the page will be relocated, relocked and if
       that all succeeds, ->readpage will be called again.

  writepages: called by the VM to write out pages associated with the
        address_space object.  If wbc->sync_mode is WBC_SYNC_ALL, then
        the writeback_control will specify a range of pages that must be
        written out.  If it is WBC_SYNC_NONE, then a nr_to_write is given
        and that many pages should be written if possible.
        If no ->writepages is given, then mpage_writepages is used
        instead.  This will choose pages from the address space that are
        tagged as DIRTY and will pass them to ->writepage.

  set_page_dirty: called by the VM to set a page dirty.
        This is particularly needed if an address space attaches
        private data to a page, and that data needs to be updated when
        a page is dirtied.  This is called, for example, when a memory
        mapped page gets modified.
        If defined, it should set the PageDirty flag, and the
        PAGECACHE_TAG_DIRTY tag in the radix tree.

  readpages: called by the VM to read pages associated with the address_space
        object. This is essentially just a vector version of
        readpage.  Instead of just one page, several pages are
        requested.
        readpages is only used for read-ahead, so read errors are
        ignored.  If anything goes wrong, feel free to give up.

  write_begin:
        Called by the generic buffered write code to ask the filesystem to
        prepare to write len bytes at the given offset in the file. The
        address_space should check that the write will be able to complete,
        by allocating space if necessary and doing any other internal
        housekeeping.  If the write will update parts of any basic-blocks on
        storage, then those blocks should be pre-read (if they haven't been
        read already) so that the updated blocks can be written out properly.

        The filesystem must return the locked pagecache page for the specified
        offset, in *pagep, for the caller to write into.

        It must be able to cope with short writes (where the length passed to
        write_begin is greater than the number of bytes copied into the page).

        flags is a field for AOP_FLAG_xxx flags, described in
        include/linux/fs.h.

        A void * may be returned in fsdata, which then gets passed into
        write_end.

        Returns 0 on success; < 0 on failure (which is the error code), in
        which case write_end is not called.

  write_end: After a successful write_begin, and data copy, write_end must
        be called. len is the original len passed to write_begin, and copied
        is the amount that was able to be copied (copied == len is always true
        if write_begin was called with the AOP_FLAG_UNINTERRUPTIBLE flag).

        The filesystem must take care of unlocking the page and releasing it
        refcount, and updating i_size.

        Returns < 0 on failure, otherwise the number of bytes (<= 'copied')
        that were able to be copied into pagecache.

  bmap: called by the VFS to map a logical block offset within object to
        physical block number. This method is used by the FIBMAP
        ioctl and for working with swap-files.  To be able to swap to
        a file, the file must have a stable mapping to a block
        device.  The swap system does not go through the filesystem
        but instead uses bmap to find out where the blocks in the file
        are and uses those addresses directly.

  dentry_open: *WARNING: probably going away soon, do not use!* This is an
        alternative to f_op->open(), the difference is that this method may open
        a file not necessarily originating from the same filesystem as the one
        i_op->open() was called on.  It may be useful for stacking filesystems
        which want to allow native I/O directly on underlying files.


  invalidatepage: If a page has PagePrivate set, then invalidatepage
        will be called when part or all of the page is to be removed
        from the address space.  This generally corresponds to either a
        truncation, punch hole  or a complete invalidation of the address
        space (in the latter case 'offset' will always be 0 and 'length'
        will be PAGE_CACHE_SIZE). Any private data associated with the page
        should be updated to reflect this truncation.  If offset is 0 and
        length is PAGE_CACHE_SIZE, then the private data should be released,
        because the page must be able to be completely discarded.  This may
        be done by calling the ->releasepage function, but in this case the
        release MUST succeed.

  releasepage: releasepage is called on PagePrivate pages to indicate
        that the page should be freed if possible.  ->releasepage
        should remove any private data from the page and clear the
        PagePrivate flag. If releasepage() fails for some reason, it must
        indicate failure with a 0 return value.
        releasepage() is used in two distinct though related cases.  The
        first is when the VM finds a clean page with no active users and
        wants to make it a free page.  If ->releasepage succeeds, the
        page will be removed from the address_space and become free.

        The second case is when a request has been made to invalidate
        some or all pages in an address_space.  This can happen
        through the fadvice(POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED) system call or by the
        filesystem explicitly requesting it as nfs and 9fs do (when
        they believe the cache may be out of date with storage) by
        calling invalidate_inode_pages2().
        If the filesystem makes such a call, and needs to be certain
        that all pages are invalidated, then its releasepage will
        need to ensure this.  Possibly it can clear the PageUptodate
        bit if it cannot free private data yet.

  freepage: freepage is called once the page is no longer visible in
        the page cache in order to allow the cleanup of any private
        data. Since it may be called by the memory reclaimer, it
        should not assume that the original address_space mapping still
        exists, and it should not block.

  direct_IO: called by the generic read/write routines to perform
        direct_IO - that is IO requests which bypass the page cache
        and transfer data directly between the storage and the
        application's address space.

  migrate_page:  This is used to compact the physical memory usage.
        If the VM wants to relocate a page (maybe off a memory card
        that is signalling imminent failure) it will pass a new page
        and an old page to this function.  migrate_page should
        transfer any private data across and update any references
        that it has to the page.

  launder_page: Called before freeing a page - it writes back the dirty page. To
        prevent redirtying the page, it is kept locked during the whole
        operation.

  is_partially_uptodate: Called by the VM when reading a file through the
        pagecache when the underlying blocksize != pagesize. If the required
        block is up to date then the read can complete without needing the IO
        to bring the whole page up to date.

  is_dirty_writeback: Called by the VM when attempting to reclaim a page.
        The VM uses dirty and writeback information to determine if it needs
        to stall to allow flushers a chance to complete some IO. Ordinarily
        it can use PageDirty and PageWriteback but some filesystems have
        more complex state (unstable pages in NFS prevent reclaim) or
        do not set those flags due to locking problems. This callback
        allows a filesystem to indicate to the VM if a page should be
        treated as dirty or writeback for the purposes of stalling.

  error_remove_page: normally set to generic_error_remove_page if truncation
        is ok for this address space. Used for memory failure handling.
        Setting this implies you deal with pages going away under you,
        unless you have them locked or reference counts increased.

  swap_activate: Called when swapon is used on a file to allocate
        space if necessary and pin the block lookup information in
        memory. A return value of zero indicates success,
        in which case this file can be used to back swapspace. The
        swapspace operations will be proxied to this address space's
        ->swap_{out,in} methods.

  swap_deactivate: Called during swapoff on files where swap_activate
        was successful.


The File Object
===============

A file object represents a file opened by a process.


struct file_operations
----------------------

This describes how the VFS can manipulate an open file. As of kernel
4.1, the following members are defined:

struct file_operations {
        struct module *owner;
        loff_t (*llseek) (struct file *, loff_t, int);
        ssize_t (*read) (struct file *, char __user *, size_t, loff_t *);
        ssize_t (*write) (struct file *, const char __user *, size_t, loff_t *);
        ssize_t (*read_iter) (struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *);
        ssize_t (*write_iter) (struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *);
        int (*iterate) (struct file *, struct dir_context *);
        unsigned int (*poll) (struct file *, struct poll_table_struct *);
        long (*unlocked_ioctl) (struct file *, unsigned int, unsigned long);
        long (*compat_ioctl) (struct file *, unsigned int, unsigned long);
        int (*mmap) (struct file *, struct vm_area_struct *);
        int (*mremap)(struct file *, struct vm_area_struct *);
        int (*open) (struct inode *, struct file *);
        int (*flush) (struct file *, fl_owner_t id);
        int (*release) (struct inode *, struct file *);
        int (*fsync) (struct file *, loff_t, loff_t, int datasync);
        int (*aio_fsync) (struct kiocb *, int datasync);
        int (*fasync) (int, struct file *, int);
        int (*lock) (struct file *, int, struct file_lock *);
        ssize_t (*sendpage) (struct file *, struct page *, int, size_t, loff_t *, int);
        unsigned long (*get_unmapped_area)(struct file *, unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned long);
        int (*check_flags)(int);
        int (*flock) (struct file *, int, struct file_lock *);
        ssize_t (*splice_write)(struct pipe_inode_info *, struct file *, loff_t *, size_t, unsigned int);
        ssize_t (*splice_read)(struct file *, loff_t *, struct pipe_inode_info *, size_t, unsigned int);
        int (*setlease)(struct file *, long, struct file_lock **, void **);
        long (*fallocate)(struct file *file, int mode, loff_t offset,
                          loff_t len);
        void (*show_fdinfo)(struct seq_file *m, struct file *f);
#ifndef CONFIG_MMU
        unsigned (*mmap_capabilities)(struct file *);
#endif
};

Again, all methods are called without any locks being held, unless
otherwise noted.

  llseek: called when the VFS needs to move the file position index

  read: called by read(2) and related system calls

  read_iter: possibly asynchronous read with iov_iter as destination

  write: called by write(2) and related system calls

  write_iter: possibly asynchronous write with iov_iter as source

  iterate: called when the VFS needs to read the directory contents

  poll: called by the VFS when a process wants to check if there is
        activity on this file and (optionally) go to sleep until there
        is activity. Called by the select(2) and poll(2) system calls

  unlocked_ioctl: called by the ioctl(2) system call.

  compat_ioctl: called by the ioctl(2) system call when 32 bit system calls
         are used on 64 bit kernels.

  mmap: called by the mmap(2) system call

  open: called by the VFS when an inode should be opened. When the VFS
        opens a file, it creates a new "struct file". It then calls the
        open method for the newly allocated file structure. You might
        think that the open method really belongs in
        "struct inode_operations", and you may be right. I think it's
        done the way it is because it makes filesystems simpler to
        implement. The open() method is a good place to initialize the
        "private_data" member in the file structure if you want to point
        to a device structure

  flush: called by the close(2) system call to flush a file

  release: called when the last reference to an open file is closed

  fsync: called by the fsync(2) system call

  fasync: called by the fcntl(2) system call when asynchronous
        (non-blocking) mode is enabled for a file

  lock: called by the fcntl(2) system call for F_GETLK, F_SETLK, and F_SETLKW
        commands

  get_unmapped_area: called by the mmap(2) system call

  check_flags: called by the fcntl(2) system call for F_SETFL command

  flock: called by the flock(2) system call

  splice_write: called by the VFS to splice data from a pipe to a file. This
                method is used by the splice(2) system call

  splice_read: called by the VFS to splice data from file to a pipe. This
               method is used by the splice(2) system call

  setlease: called by the VFS to set or release a file lock lease. setlease
            implementations should call generic_setlease to record or remove
            the lease in the inode after setting it.

  fallocate: called by the VFS to preallocate blocks or punch a hole.

Note that the file operations are implemented by the specific
filesystem in which the inode resides. When opening a device node
(character or block special) most filesystems will call special
support routines in the VFS which will locate the required device
driver information. These support routines replace the filesystem file
operations with those for the device driver, and then proceed to call
the new open() method for the file. This is how opening a device file
in the filesystem eventually ends up calling the device driver open()
method.


Directory Entry Cache (dcache)
==============================


struct dentry_operations
------------------------

This describes how a filesystem can overload the standard dentry
operations. Dentries and the dcache are the domain of the VFS and the
individual filesystem implementations. Device drivers have no business
here. These methods may be set to NULL, as they are either optional or
the VFS uses a default. As of kernel 2.6.22, the following members are
defined:

struct dentry_operations {
        int (*d_revalidate)(struct dentry *, unsigned int);
        int (*d_weak_revalidate)(struct dentry *, unsigned int);
        int (*d_hash)(const struct dentry *, struct qstr *);
        int (*d_compare)(const struct dentry *, const struct dentry *,
                        unsigned int, const char *, const struct qstr *);
        int (*d_delete)(const struct dentry *);
        void (*d_release)(struct dentry *);
        void (*d_iput)(struct dentry *, struct inode *);
        char *(*d_dname)(struct dentry *, char *, int);
        struct vfsmount *(*d_automount)(struct path *);
        int (*d_manage)(struct dentry *, bool);
};

  d_revalidate: called when the VFS needs to revalidate a dentry. This
        is called whenever a name look-up finds a dentry in the
        dcache. Most local filesystems leave this as NULL, because all their
        dentries in the dcache are valid. Network filesystems are different
        since things can change on the server without the client necessarily
        being aware of it.

        This function should return a positive value if the dentry is still
        valid, and zero or a negative error code if it isn't.

        d_revalidate may be called in rcu-walk mode (flags & LOOKUP_RCU).
        If in rcu-walk mode, the filesystem must revalidate the dentry without
        blocking or storing to the dentry, d_parent and d_inode should not be
        used without care (because they can change and, in d_inode case, even
        become NULL under us).

        If a situation is encountered that rcu-walk cannot handle, return
        -ECHILD and it will be called again in ref-walk mode.

 d_weak_revalidate: called when the VFS needs to revalidate a "jumped" dentry.
        This is called when a path-walk ends at dentry that was not acquired by
        doing a lookup in the parent directory. This includes "/", "." and "..",
        as well as procfs-style symlinks and mountpoint traversal.

        In this case, we are less concerned with whether the dentry is still
        fully correct, but rather that the inode is still valid. As with
        d_revalidate, most local filesystems will set this to NULL since their
        dcache entries are always valid.

        This function has the same return code semantics as d_revalidate.

        d_weak_revalidate is only called after leaving rcu-walk mode.

  d_hash: called when the VFS adds a dentry to the hash table. The first
        dentry passed to d_hash is the parent directory that the name is
        to be hashed into.

        Same locking and synchronisation rules as d_compare regarding
        what is safe to dereference etc.

  d_compare: called to compare a dentry name with a given name. The first
        dentry is the parent of the dentry to be compared, the second is
        the child dentry. len and name string are properties of the dentry
        to be compared. qstr is the name to compare it with.

        Must be constant and idempotent, and should not take locks if
        possible, and should not or store into the dentry.
        Should not dereference pointers outside the dentry without
        lots of care (eg.  d_parent, d_inode, d_name should not be used).

        However, our vfsmount is pinned, and RCU held, so the dentries and
        inodes won't disappear, neither will our sb or filesystem module.
        ->d_sb may be used.

        It is a tricky calling convention because it needs to be called under
        "rcu-walk", ie. without any locks or references on things.

  d_delete: called when the last reference to a dentry is dropped and the
        dcache is deciding whether or not to cache it. Return 1 to delete
        immediately, or 0 to cache the dentry. Default is NULL which means to
        always cache a reachable dentry. d_delete must be constant and
        idempotent.

  d_release: called when a dentry is really deallocated

  d_iput: called when a dentry loses its inode (just prior to its
        being deallocated). The default when this is NULL is that the
        VFS calls iput(). If you define this method, you must call
        iput() yourself

  d_dname: called when the pathname of a dentry should be generated.
        Useful for some pseudo filesystems (sockfs, pipefs, ...) to delay
        pathname generation. (Instead of doing it when dentry is created,
        it's done only when the path is needed.). Real filesystems probably
        dont want to use it, because their dentries are present in global
        dcache hash, so their hash should be an invariant. As no lock is
        held, d_dname() should not try to modify the dentry itself, unless
        appropriate SMP safety is used. CAUTION : d_path() logic is quite
        tricky. The correct way to return for example "Hello" is to put it
        at the end of the buffer, and returns a pointer to the first char.
        dynamic_dname() helper function is provided to take care of this.

  d_automount: called when an automount dentry is to be traversed (optional).
        This should create a new VFS mount record and return the record to the
        caller.  The caller is supplied with a path parameter giving the
        automount directory to describe the automount target and the parent
        VFS mount record to provide inheritable mount parameters.  NULL should
        be returned if someone else managed to make the automount first.  If
        the vfsmount creation failed, then an error code should be returned.
        If -EISDIR is returned, then the directory will be treated as an
        ordinary directory and returned to pathwalk to continue walking.

        If a vfsmount is returned, the caller will attempt to mount it on the
        mountpoint and will remove the vfsmount from its expiration list in
        the case of failure.  The vfsmount should be returned with 2 refs on
        it to prevent automatic expiration - the caller will clean up the
        additional ref.

        This function is only used if DCACHE_NEED_AUTOMOUNT is set on the
        dentry.  This is set by __d_instantiate() if S_AUTOMOUNT is set on the
        inode being added.

  d_manage: called to allow the filesystem to manage the transition from a
        dentry (optional).  This allows autofs, for example, to hold up clients
        waiting to explore behind a 'mountpoint' whilst letting the daemon go
        past and construct the subtree there.  0 should be returned to let the
        calling process continue.  -EISDIR can be returned to tell pathwalk to
        use this directory as an ordinary directory and to ignore anything
        mounted on it and not to check the automount flag.  Any other error
        code will abort pathwalk completely.

        If the 'rcu_walk' parameter is true, then the caller is doing a
        pathwalk in RCU-walk mode.  Sleeping is not permitted in this mode,
        and the caller can be asked to leave it and call again by returning
        -ECHILD.  -EISDIR may also be returned to tell pathwalk to
        ignore d_automount or any mounts.

        This function is only used if DCACHE_MANAGE_TRANSIT is set on the
        dentry being transited from.

Example :

static char *pipefs_dname(struct dentry *dent, char *buffer, int buflen)
{
        return dynamic_dname(dentry, buffer, buflen, "pipe:[%lu]",
                                dentry->d_inode->i_ino);
}

Each dentry has a pointer to its parent dentry, as well as a hash list
of child dentries. Child dentries are basically like files in a
directory.


Directory Entry Cache API
--------------------------

There are a number of functions defined which permit a filesystem to
manipulate dentries:

  dget: open a new handle for an existing dentry (this just increments
        the usage count)

  dput: close a handle for a dentry (decrements the usage count). If
        the usage count drops to 0, and the dentry is still in its
        parent's hash, the "d_delete" method is called to check whether
        it should be cached. If it should not be cached, or if the dentry
        is not hashed, it is deleted. Otherwise cached dentries are put
        into an LRU list to be reclaimed on memory shortage.

  d_drop: this unhashes a dentry from its parents hash list. A
        subsequent call to dput() will deallocate the dentry if its
        usage count drops to 0

  d_delete: delete a dentry. If there are no other open references to
        the dentry then the dentry is turned into a negative dentry
        (the d_iput() method is called). If there are other
        references, then d_drop() is called instead

  d_add: add a dentry to its parents hash list and then calls
        d_instantiate()

  d_instantiate: add a dentry to the alias hash list for the inode and
        updates the "d_inode" member. The "i_count" member in the
        inode structure should be set/incremented. If the inode
        pointer is NULL, the dentry is called a "negative
        dentry". This function is commonly called when an inode is
        created for an existing negative dentry

  d_lookup: look up a dentry given its parent and path name component
        It looks up the child of that given name from the dcache
        hash table. If it is found, the reference count is incremented
        and the dentry is returned. The caller must use dput()
        to free the dentry when it finishes using it.

Mount Options
=============

Parsing options
---------------

On mount and remount the filesystem is passed a string containing a
comma separated list of mount options.  The options can have either of
these forms:

  option
  option=value

The <linux/parser.h> header defines an API that helps parse these
options.  There are plenty of examples on how to use it in existing
filesystems.

Showing options
---------------

If a filesystem accepts mount options, it must define show_options()
to show all the currently active options.  The rules are:

  - options MUST be shown which are not default or their values differ
    from the default

  - options MAY be shown which are enabled by default or have their
    default value

Options used only internally between a mount helper and the kernel
(such as file descriptors), or which only have an effect during the
mounting (such as ones controlling the creation of a journal) are exempt
from the above rules.

The underlying reason for the above rules is to make sure, that a
mount can be accurately replicated (e.g. umounting and mounting again)
based on the information found in /proc/mounts.

A simple method of saving options at mount/remount time and showing
them is provided with the save_mount_options() and
generic_show_options() helper functions.  Please note, that using
these may have drawbacks.  For more info see header comments for these
functions in fs/namespace.c.

Resources
=========

(Note some of these resources are not up-to-date with the latest kernel
 version.)

Creating Linux virtual filesystems. 2002
    <http://lwn.net/Articles/13325/>

The Linux Virtual File-system Layer by Neil Brown. 1999
    <http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/oss/linux-commentary/vfs.html>

A tour of the Linux VFS by Michael K. Johnson. 1996
    <http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/fs/vfstour.html>

A small trail through the Linux kernel by Andries Brouwer. 2001
    <http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/vfs/trail.html>