[PATCH 01/21] ceph: documentation

Sage Weil
2009-09-22T17:41:12Z

Mount options, syntax.

Signed-off-by: Sage Weil <sage@newdream.net>
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+Ceph Distributed File System
+============================
+
+Ceph is a distributed network file system designed to provide good
+performance, reliability, and scalability.
+
+Basic features include:
+
+ * POSIX semantics
+ * Seamless scaling from 1 to many thousands of nodes
+ * High availability and reliability. No single points of failure.
+ * N-way replication of data across storage nodes
+ * Fast recovery from node failures
+ * Automatic rebalancing of data on node addition/removal
+ * Easy deployment: most FS components are userspace daemons
+
+Also,
+ * Flexible snapshots (on any directory)
+ * Recursive accounting (nested files, directories, bytes)
+
+In contrast to cluster filesystems like GFS, OCFS2, and GPFS that rely
+on symmetric access by all clients to shared block devices, Ceph
+separates data and metadata management into independent server
+clusters, similar to Lustre. Unlike Lustre, however, metadata and
+storage nodes run entirely as user space daemons. Storage nodes
+utilize btrfs to store data objects, leveraging its advanced features
+(checksumming, metadata replication, etc.). File data is striped
+across storage nodes in large chunks to distribute workload and
+facilitate high throughputs. When storage nodes fail, data is
+re-replicated in a distributed fashion by the storage nodes themselves
+(with some minimal coordination from a cluster monitor), making the
+system extremely efficient and scalable.
+
+Metadata servers effectively form a large, consistent, distributed
+in-memory cache above the file namespace that is extremely scalable,
+dynamically redistributes metadata in response to workload changes,
+and can tolerate arbitrary (well, non-Byzantine) node failures. The
+metadata server takes a somewhat unconventional approach to metadata
+storage to significantly improve performance for common workloads. In
+particular, inodes with only a single link are embedded in
+directories, allowing entire directories of dentries and inodes to be
+loaded into its cache with a single I/O operation. The contents of
+extremely large directories can be fragmented and managed by
+independent metadata servers, allowing scalable concurrent access.
+
+The system offers automatic data rebalancing/migration when scaling
+from a small cluster of just a few nodes to many hundreds, without
+requiring an administrator carve the data set into static volumes or
+go through the tedious process of migrating data between servers.
+When the file system approaches full, new nodes can be easily added
+and things will "just work."
+
+Ceph includes flexible snapshot mechanism that allows a user to create
+a snapshot on any subdirectory (and its nested contents) in the
+system. Snapshot creation and deletion are as simple as 'mkdir
+.snap/foo' and 'rmdir .snap/foo'.
+
+Ceph also provides some recursive accounting on directories for nested
+files and bytes. That is, a 'getfattr -d foo' on any directory in the
+system will reveal the total number of nested regular files and
+subdirectories, and a summation of all nested file sizes. This makes
+the identification of large disk space consumers relatively quick, as
+no 'du' or similar recursive scan of the file system is required.
+
+
+Mount Syntax
+============
+
+The basic mount syntax is:
+
+ # mount -t ceph monip[:port][,monip2[:port]...]:/[subdir] mnt
+
+You only need to specify a single monitor, as the client will get the
+full list when it connects. (However, if the monitor you specify
+happens to be down, the mount won't succeed.) The port can be left
+off if the monitor is using the default. So if the monitor is at
+1.2.3.4,
+
+ # mount -t ceph 1.2.3.4:/ /mnt/ceph
+
+is sufficient. If /sbin/mount.ceph is installed, a hostname can be
+used instead of an IP address.
+
+
+
+Mount Options
+=============
+
+ ip=A.B.C.D[:N]
+ port=N
+ Specify the IP and/or port the client should bind to locally.
+ There is normally not much reason to do this. If the IP is not
+ specified, the client's IP address is determined by looking at the
+ address it's connection to the monitor originates from.
+
+ wsize=X
+ Specify the maximum write size in bytes. By default there is no
+ maximu. Ceph will normally size writes based on the file stripe
+ size.
+
+ rsize=X
+ Specify the maximum readahead.
+
+ mount_timeout=X
+ Specify the timeout value for mount (in seconds), in the case
+ of a non-responsive Ceph file system. The default is 30
+ seconds.
+
+ rbytes
+ When stat() is called on a directory, set st_size to 'rbytes',
+ the summation of file sizes over all files nested beneath that
+ directory. This is the default.
+
+ norbytes
+ When stat() is called on a directory, set st_size to the
+ number of entries in that directory.
+
+ nocrc
+ Disable CRC32C calculation for data writes. If set, the OSD
+ must rely on TCP's error correction to detect data corruption
+ in the data payload.
+
+ noasyncreaddir
+ Disable client's use its local cache to satisfy readdir
+ requests. (This does not change correctness; the client uses
+ cached metadata only when a lease or capability ensures it is
+ valid.)
+
+
+More Information
+================
+
+For more information on Ceph, see the home page at
+ http://ceph.newdream.net/
+
+The Linux kernel client source tree is available at
+ git://ceph.newdream.net/linux-ceph-client.git
+
+and the source for the full system is at
+ git://ceph.newdream.net/ceph.git
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1.5.6.5