1 .\" $NetBSD: puffs.3,v 1.47 2010/01/12 18:42:38 pooka Exp $
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31 .Nd Pass-to-Userspace Framework File System development interface
36 .Ft struct puffs_usermount *
38 .Fa "struct puffs_ops *pops" "const char *mntfromname" "const char *puffsname"
39 .Fa "void *private" "uint32_t flags"
43 .Fa "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "const char *dir" "int mntflags"
44 .Fa "puffs_cookie_t root_cookie"
47 .Fn puffs_getselectable "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
49 .Fn puffs_setblockingmode "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "int mode"
51 .Fn puffs_getstate "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
53 .Fn puffs_setstacksize "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "size_t stacksize"
55 .Fn puffs_setroot "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "struct puffs_node *node"
58 .Fa "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "enum vtype vt" "vsize_t vsize" "dev_t rdev"
60 .Ft struct puffs_node *
61 .Fn puffs_getroot "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
63 .Fn puffs_getspecific "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
65 .Fn puffs_setspecific "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "void *private"
67 .Fn puffs_setmaxreqlen "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "size_t maxreqlen"
69 .Fn puffs_getmaxreqlen "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
71 .Fn puffs_setfhsize "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "size_t fhsize" "int flags"
73 .Fn puffs_setncookiehash "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "int nhashes"
75 .Fn puffs_ml_loop_fn "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
77 .Fn puffs_ml_setloopfn "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "puffs_ml_loop_fn lfn"
79 .Fn puffs_ml_settimeout "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "struct timespec *ts"
81 .Fn puffs_daemon "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "int nochdir" "int noclose"
83 .Fn puffs_mainloop "struct puffs_usermount *pu"
85 .Fn puffs_unmountonsignal "int sig" "bool ignoresig"
87 .Fo puffs_dispatch_create
88 .Fa "struct puffs_usermount *pu" "struct puffs_framebuf *pb"
89 .Fa "struct puffs_cc **pccp"
92 .Fn puffs_dispatch_exec "struct puffs_cc *pcc" "struct puffs_framebuf **pbp"
95 provides a framework for creating file systems as userspace servers.
96 Operations are transported from the kernel virtual file system layer
97 to the concrete implementation behind
99 where they are processed and results are sent back to the kernel.
101 It is possible to use
103 in two different ways.
106 takes execution context away from the caller and automatically handles
107 all requests by using the callbacks.
112 it is possible to handle I/O to and from file descriptors.
113 This is suited e.g. for distributed file servers.
114 .Ss Library operation
115 Operations on the library always require a pointer to the opaque context
117 .Va struct puffs_usermount .
118 It is obtained by calling
122 operates using operation callbacks.
123 They can be initialized using the macro
124 .Fn PUFFSOP_SET pops fsname type opname ,
125 which will initialize the operation
126 .Fn puffs_type_opname
130 .Fn fsname_type_opname .
131 All operations are initialized to a default state with the call
132 .Fn PUFFSOP_INIT pops .
133 All of the VFS routines are mandatory, but all of the node operations
134 with the exception of
135 .Fn puffs_node_lookup
137 However, leaving operations blank will naturally have an effect on the
138 features available from the file system implementation.
140 .It Fn puffs_init pops mntfromname puffsname private flags
141 Initializes the library context.
143 specifies the callback operations vector.
145 is device the file system is mounted from.
146 This can be for example a block device such as
148 or, if the file system is pseudo file system, the
150 device name can be given by
152 This value is used for example in the first column of the output of
157 is the file system type.
158 It will always be prepended with the string "puffs|".
159 If possible, file server binaries should be named using the format
160 "mount_myfsnamehere" and this value should equal "myfsnamehere".
161 A file system specific context pointer can optionally be given in
163 This can be retrieved by
164 .Fn puffs_getspecific .
169 Currently the following flags are supported:
170 .Bl -tag -width "XPUFFS_KFLAG_LOOKUP_FULLPNBUF"
171 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_NOCACHE_NAME
172 Do not enter pathname components into the name cache.
173 This means that every time the kernel does a lookup for a
174 componentname, the file server will be consulted.
175 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_NOCACHE_PAGE
176 Do not use the page cache.
177 This means that all reads and writes to regular file are
178 propagated to the file server for handling.
179 This option makes a difference only for regular files.
180 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_NOCACHE
182 .Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_NOCACHE_NAME
184 .Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_NOCACHE_PAGE .
185 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_ALLOPS
186 This flag requests that all operations are sent to userspace.
187 Normally the kernel shortcircuits unimplemented operations.
188 This flag is mostly useful for debugging purposes.
189 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_WTCACHE
190 Set the file system cache behavior as write-through.
191 This means that all writes are immediately issued to the file server
192 instead of being flushed in file system sync.
193 This is useful especially for distributed file systems.
194 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_IAONDEMAND
195 Issue inactive only on demand.
196 If a file server defines the inactive method, call it only if the file
197 server has explicitly requested that inactive be called for the
199 Once inactive has been called for a node, it will not be called
200 again unless the request to call inactive is reissued by the file server.
205 for more information.
206 .It Dv PUFFS_KFLAG_LOOKUP_FULLPNBUF
207 This flag affects only the parameter
209 .Fn puffs_node_lookup .
210 If this flag is not given, only the next pathname component under
212 .Ar pcn-\*[Gt]pcn_name .
213 If this flag is given, the full path the kernel was
214 asked to resolve can be found from there.
215 .It Dv PUFFS_FLAG_BUILDPATH
216 The framework will build a complete path name, which is supplied
217 with each operation and can be found from the
218 .Va pn_po.po_full_pcn
220 .Vt struct puffs_node .
221 The option assumes that the framework can map a cookie to a
222 .Vt struct puffs_node .
225 for more information on cookie mapping.
228 for more information on library calls involving paths.
229 .It Dv PUFFS_FLAG_HASHPATH
230 Calculate a hash of the path into the path object field
232 This hash value is used by
233 .Fn puffs_path_walkcmp
234 to avoid doing a full comparison for every path equal in length to
235 the one searched for.
236 Especially if the file system uses the abovementioned function, it
237 is a good idea to define this flag.
238 .It Dv PUFFS_FLAG_OPDUMP
239 This option makes the framework dump a textual representation of
240 each operation before executing it.
241 It is useful for debugging purposes.
245 The following functions can be used to query or modify the global
246 state of the file system.
247 Note, that all calls are not available at all times.
249 .It Fn puffs_getselectable "pu"
250 Returns a handle to do I/O multiplexing with:
255 are all examples of acceptable operations.
256 .It Fn puffs_setblockingmode "pu" "mode"
257 Sets the file system upstream access to blocking or non-blocking mode.
258 Acceptable values for the argument are
261 .Dv PUFFSDEV_NONBLOCK .
263 This routine can be called only after calling
265 .It Fn puffs_getstate "pu"
266 Returns the state of the file system.
267 It is maintained by the framework and is mostly useful for the framework
270 .Dv PUFFS_STATE_BEFOREMOUNT ,
271 .Dv PUFFS_STATE_RUNNING ,
272 .Dv PUFFS_STATE_UNMOUNTING
274 .Dv PUFFS_STATE_UNMOUNTED .
275 .It Fn puffs_setstacksize "pu" "stacksize"
276 Sets the stack size used when running callbacks.
278 .Dv PUFFS_STACKSIZE_DEFAULT
279 bytes of stack space per request.
280 The minimum stacksize is architecture-dependent and can be specified
281 by using the opaque constant
282 .Dv PUFFS_STACKSIZE_MIN .
283 .It Fn puffs_setroot "pu" "node"
284 Sets the root node of mount
288 Setting the root node is currently required only if the path
289 framework is used, see
291 .It Fn puffs_setrootinfo pu vt vsize rdev
292 The default root node is a directory.
293 In case the file system wants something different, it can call this
294 function and set the type, size and possible device type to whatever
296 This routine is independent of
298 .It Fn puffs_getroot "pu"
299 Returns the root node set earlier.
300 .It Fn puffs_getspecific "pu"
305 .It Fn puffs_setspecific "pu" "private"
306 Can be used to set the specific data after the call to
308 .It Fn puffs_setmaxreqlen "pu" "maxreqlen"
309 In case the file system desires a maximum buffer length different from
310 the default, the amount
312 will be requested from the kernel when the file system is mounted.
314 It is legal to call this function only between
320 This does not currently work.
321 .It Fn puffs_getmaxreqlen "pu"
322 Returns the maximum request length the kernel will need for a single
326 This does not currently work.
327 .It Fn puffs_setfhsize "pu" "fhsize" "flags"
328 Sets the desired file handle size.
329 This must be called if the file system wishes to support NFS exporting
332 family of function calls.
334 In case all nodes in the file system produce the same length file handle,
335 it must be supplied as
337 In this case, the file system may ignore the length parameters in the
338 file handle callback routines, as the kernel will always pass the
339 correct length buffer.
340 However, if the file handle size varies according to file, the argument
342 defines the maximum size of a file handle for the file system.
343 In this case the file system must take care of the handle lengths by
344 itself in the file handle callbacks, see
346 for more information.
348 .Dv PUFFS_FHFLAG_DYNAMIC
349 must be provided in the argument
352 In case the file system wants to sanity check its file handle lengths
353 for the limits of NFS, it can supply
354 .Dv PUFFS_FHFLAG_NFSV2
356 .Dv PUFFS_FHFLAG_NFSV3
360 It is especially important to note that these are not directly the
361 limits specified by the protocols, as the kernel uses some bytes from
363 In case the file handles are too large, mount will return an error.
365 It is legal to call this function only between
369 .It Fn puffs_setncookiehash "pu" "ncookiehash"
372 controls the amount of hash buckets the kernel has for reverse lookups
373 from cookie to vnode.
374 Technically the default is enough, but a memory/time tradeoff can be
375 made by increasing this for file systems which know they will have
376 very many active files.
378 It is legal to call this function only between
384 After the correct setup for the library has been established and the
385 backend has been initialized the file system is made operational by calling
387 After this function returns the file system should start processing requests.
389 .It Fn puffs_mount pu dir mntflags root_cookie
391 is the library context pointer from
395 signifies the mount point and
397 is the flagset given to
401 will be used as the cookie for the file system root node.
403 .Ss Using the built-in eventloop
405 .It Fn puffs_ml_loop_fn pu
406 Loop function signature.
407 .It Fn puffs_ml_setloopfn pu lfn
410 This function is called once each time the event loop loops.
411 It is not a well-defined interval, but it can be made fairly regular
412 by setting the loop timeout by
413 .Fn puffs_ml_settimeout .
414 .It Fn puffs_ml_settimeout pu ts
415 Sets the loop timeout to
421 This can be used to roughly control how often the loop callback
424 .It Fn puffs_daemon pu nochdir noclose
425 Detach from the console like
427 This call synchronizes with
429 and the foreground process does not exit before the file system mount
430 call has returned from the kernel.
431 Since this routine internally calls fork, it has to be called
434 .It Fn puffs_mainloop pu flags
435 Handle all requests automatically until the file system is unmounted.
436 It returns 0 if the file system was successfully unmounted or \-1 if it
437 was killed in action.
441 has been initialized, I/O from the relevant descriptors is processed
442 automatically by the eventloop.
443 .It Fn puffs_unmountonsignal signum ignoresig
444 Cause all file servers within the process to initiate unmount upon
447 This works only for servers which call
449 and must be called before any server within the process enters the mainloop.
450 The process signal handler is still called before starting the unmount
454 is provided as a convenience and tells if to install a signal handler
457 so that the process will not e.g. terminate based on the default action
458 before the file system unmount can be initiated.
459 .It Fn puffs_dispatch_create pu pb pccp
460 .It Fn puffs_dispatch_exec pcc pbp
463 is not possible, requests may be dispatched manually.
464 However, as this is less efficient than using the mainloop,
465 it should never be the first preference.
468 .Fn puffs_dispatch_create
469 creates a dispatch request.
472 should contains a valid request and upon success
474 will contain a valid request context.
475 This context is passed to
476 .Fn puffs_dispatch_exec
477 to execute the request.
478 If the request yielded before completing, the routine returns 0,
480 When the routine completes,
482 is made invalid and a pointer to the processed buffer is placed in
484 It is the responsibility of the caller to send the response (if
485 necessary) and destroy the buffer.
491 for further information.
494 Every file (regular file, directory, device node, ...) instance is
495 attached to the kernel using a cookie.
496 A cookie should uniquely map to a file during its lifetime.
497 If file instances are kept in memory, a simple strategy is to use
498 the virtual address of the structure describing the file.
499 The cookie can be recycled when
500 .Fn puffs_node_reclaim
501 is called for a node.
503 For some operations (such as building paths) the framework needs to map
504 the cookie to the framework-level structure describing a file,
505 .Vt struct puffs_node .
506 It is advisable to simply use the
507 .Vt struct puffs_node
508 address as a cookie and store file system specific data in the private
510 .Vt struct puffs_node .
511 The library assumes this by default.
512 .\"If it is not desirable, the file system implementation can call
513 .\".Fn puffs_set_cookiemap
514 .\"to provide an alternative cookie-to-node mapping function.
520 .Xr puffs_framebuf 3 ,
524 .\".Xr puffs_suspend 3 ,
530 .%J Proceedings of AsiaBSDCon 2007
532 .%T puffs - Pass-to-Userspace Framework File System
537 .%I Helsinki University of Technology
538 .%R Tech Report TKK-TKO-B157
539 .%T Using puffs for Implementing Client-Server Distributed File Systems
546 .%T ReFUSE: Userspace FUSE Reimplementation Using puffs
551 .%J Proceedings of AsiaBSDCon 2008
553 .%T Send and Receive of File System Protocols: Userspace Approach With puffs
556 An unsupported experimental version of
560 A stable version appeared in
563 .An Antti Kantee Aq Mt pooka@iki.fi