Veritas™ File System Programmer's Reference Guide - Solaris

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.2)
Platform: Solaris
  1. Veritas File System software developer's kit
    1.  
      About the software developer's kit
    2. File System software developer's kit features
      1.  
        API library interfaces
      2.  
        File Change Log
      3.  
        Multi-volume support
      4.  
        Veritas File System I/O
    3.  
      Software developer's kit packages
    4.  
      Required libraries and header files
    5. Compiling environment
      1.  
        Recompiling with a different compiler
  2. File Change Log
    1. About the File Change Log file
      1.  
        Recorded changes
      2. Using the File Change Log file
        1.  
          Space usage
        2.  
          Full system scan reductions
        3.  
          File history traces
      3.  
        File Change Log logging activation
      4. File Change Log file layout
        1.  
          File Change Log superblock
        2.  
          File Change Log record
    2. Record types
      1.  
        Special records
      2.  
        Typical record sequences
    3. File Change Log tunables
      1.  
        How tunables handle File Change Log growth size
    4. Application programming interface for File Change Log
      1.  
        Ease of use
      2.  
        Backward compatibility
      3. API functions
        1.  
          Functions for accessing File Change Log records
        2.  
          Functions for seeking offsets and time stamps in the File Change Log
        3. vxfs_fcl_open
          1.  
            Return value
        4. vxfs_fcl_close
          1.  
            Parameters
        5. vxfs_fcl_getinfo
          1.  
            Return values
        6. vxfs_fcl_read
          1.  
            Parameters
          2.  
            Input
          3.  
            Output
          4.  
            Return values
        7. vxfs_fcl_getcookie
          1.  
            Parameters
        8. vxfs_fcl_seek
          1.  
            Parameters
          2.  
            Return values
        9. vxfs_fcl_seektime
          1.  
            Parameters
          2.  
            Return values
        10. vxfs_fcl_sync
          1.  
            Parameters
      4. File Change Log record
        1.  
          Defines
        2.  
          fcl_iostats structure
        3.  
          fcl_acsinfo structure
        4.  
          Record structure fields
      5. Copying File Change Log records
        1.  
          Index maintenance application
        2. Computing a usage profile
          1.  
            Initial setup
          2.  
            Sample steps
          3.  
            Off host processing
      6. Veritas File System and File Change Log upgrade and downgrade
        1.  
          Converting File Change Log version 3 files to version 4
        2.  
          Downgrading Veritas File System versions
    5. Reverse path name lookup
      1.  
        Inodes
      2.  
        vxfs_inotopath_gen
  3. Multi-volume support
    1.  
      About multi-volume support
    2.  
      Uses for multi-volume support
    3. Volume application programming interfaces
      1.  
        Administering volume sets
      2.  
        Querying the volume set for a file system
      3.  
        Modifying a volume within a file system
      4.  
        Encapsulationg and de-encapsulating a volume
    4. Allocation policy application programming interfaces
      1.  
        Directing file allocations
      2.  
        Creating and assigning policies
      3.  
        Querying the defined policies
      4.  
        Enforcing a policy
    5.  
      Data structures
    6. Using policies and application programming interfaces
      1.  
        Defining and assigning allocation policies
      2.  
        Using volume application programming interfaces
  4. Named data streams
    1.  
      About named data streams
    2.  
      Uses for named data streams
    3.  
      Named data streams application programming interface
    4.  
      Listing named data streams
    5.  
      Namespace for named data streams
    6.  
      Behavior changes in other system calls
    7.  
      Querying named data streams
    8.  
      Application programming interface
    9.  
      Command reference
  5. Veritas File System I/O
    1.  
      About Veritas File System I/O
    2.  
      Freeze and thaw
    3. Caching advisories
      1.  
        Direct I/O
      2.  
        Concurrent I/O
      3.  
        Unbuffered I/O
      4.  
        Other advisories
    4. Extents
      1. Extent attributes
        1.  
          Attribute specifics
      2.  
        Reservation: preallocating space to a file
      3.  
        Fixed extent size
      4.  
        Application programming interface for extent attributes
      5. Allocation flags
        1.  
          Allocation flags with reservation
        2.  
          Reservation trimming
        3.  
          Non-persistent reservation
        4.  
          No write beyond reservation
        5.  
          Contiguous reservation
        6.  
          Include reservation in the file size
        7.  
          Reading the grown part of the file
      6.  
        Allocation flags with fixed extent size
      7.  
        How to use extent attribute APIs
      8.  
        Setting fixed extent size
  6. Thin Reclamation
    1.  
      About Thin Storage
    2.  
      About Thin Reclamation
    3. Thin Reclamation application programming interface
      1.  
        vxfs_ts_reclaim return values

Direct I/O

Direct I/O is an unbuffered form of I/O for accessing files. If the VX_DIRECT advisory is set, the user requests direct data transfer between the disk and the user-supplied buffer for reads and writes. This bypasses the kernel buffering of data, and reduces the CPU overhead that is associated with I/O by eliminating the data copy between the kernel buffer and the user's buffer. Direct I/O also avoids taking up space in the buffer cache that might be better used for something else, such as an application cache. The direct I/O feature can provide significant performance gains for some applications.

For an I/O operation to be performed as direct I/O, it must meet certain alignment criteria. The disk driver, the disk controller, and the system memory management hardware and software usually determine the alignment constraints. The file offset must be aligned on a sector boundary (DEV_BSIZE). All user buffers must be aligned on a long or sector boundary. If the file offset is not aligned to sector boundaries, VxFS performs a regular read or write instead of a direct read or write.

If a request fails to meet the alignment constraints for direct I/O, the request is performed as data synchronous I/O. If the file is accessed by using memory mapped I/O, any direct I/O accesses are done as data synchronous I/O.

Because direct I/O maintains the same data integrity as synchronous I/O, it can be used in many applications that currently use synchronous I/O. If a direct I/O request does not allocate storage or extend the file, the inode metadata is not immediately written.

The CPU cost of direct I/O is about the same as a raw disk transfer. For sequential I/O to very large files, using direct I/O with large transfer sizes can provide the same speed as buffered I/O with much less CPU overhead.

If the file is extended or storage is allocated, direct I/O must write the inode change before returning to the application. This write eliminates some of the performance advantages of direct I/O.

The direct I/O advisory is maintained on a per-file-descriptor basis.