- Stores the TID of the commit, CRC of the fast commit of which this tag
represents the end of
+Fast Commit Replay Idempotence
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Fast commits tags are idempotent in nature provided the recovery code follows
+certain rules. The guiding principle that the commit path follows while
+committing is that it stores the result of a particular operation instead of
+storing the procedure.
+
+Let's consider this rename operation: 'mv /a /b'. Let's assume dirent '/a'
+was associated with inode 10. During fast commit, instead of storing this
+operation as a procedure "rename a to b", we store the resulting file system
+state as a "series" of outcomes:
+
+- Link dirent b to inode 10
+- Unlink dirent a
+- Inode 10 with valid refcount
+
+Now when recovery code runs, it needs "enforce" this state on the file
+system. This is what guarantees idempotence of fast commit replay.
+
+Let's take an example of a procedure that is not idempotent and see how fast
+commits make it idempotent. Consider following sequence of operations:
+
+1) rm A
+2) mv B A
+3) read A
+
+If we store this sequence of operations as is then the replay is not idempotent.
+Let's say while in replay, we crash after (2). During the second replay,
+file A (which was actually created as a result of "mv B A" operation) would get
+deleted. Thus, file named A would be absent when we try to read A. So, this
+sequence of operations is not idempotent. However, as mentioned above, instead
+of storing the procedure fast commits store the outcome of each procedure. Thus
+the fast commit log for above procedure would be as follows:
+
+(Let's assume dirent A was linked to inode 10 and dirent B was linked to
+inode 11 before the replay)
+
+1) Unlink A
+2) Link A to inode 11
+3) Unlink B
+4) Inode 11
+
+If we crash after (3) we will have file A linked to inode 11. During the second
+replay, we will remove file A (inode 11). But we will create it back and make
+it point to inode 11. We won't find B, so we'll just skip that step. At this
+point, the refcount for inode 11 is not reliable, but that gets fixed by the
+replay of last inode 11 tag. Thus, by converting a non-idempotent procedure
+into a series of idempotent outcomes, fast commits ensured idempotence during
+the replay.
*
* Replay code should thus check for all the valid tails in the FC area.
*
+ * Fast Commit Replay Idempotence
+ * ------------------------------
+ *
+ * Fast commits tags are idempotent in nature provided the recovery code follows
+ * certain rules. The guiding principle that the commit path follows while
+ * committing is that it stores the result of a particular operation instead of
+ * storing the procedure.
+ *
+ * Let's consider this rename operation: 'mv /a /b'. Let's assume dirent '/a'
+ * was associated with inode 10. During fast commit, instead of storing this
+ * operation as a procedure "rename a to b", we store the resulting file system
+ * state as a "series" of outcomes:
+ *
+ * - Link dirent b to inode 10
+ * - Unlink dirent a
+ * - Inode <10> with valid refcount
+ *
+ * Now when recovery code runs, it needs "enforce" this state on the file
+ * system. This is what guarantees idempotence of fast commit replay.
+ *
+ * Let's take an example of a procedure that is not idempotent and see how fast
+ * commits make it idempotent. Consider following sequence of operations:
+ *
+ * rm A; mv B A; read A
+ * (x) (y) (z)
+ *
+ * (x), (y) and (z) are the points at which we can crash. If we store this
+ * sequence of operations as is then the replay is not idempotent. Let's say
+ * while in replay, we crash at (z). During the second replay, file A (which was
+ * actually created as a result of "mv B A" operation) would get deleted. Thus,
+ * file named A would be absent when we try to read A. So, this sequence of
+ * operations is not idempotent. However, as mentioned above, instead of storing
+ * the procedure fast commits store the outcome of each procedure. Thus the fast
+ * commit log for above procedure would be as follows:
+ *
+ * (Let's assume dirent A was linked to inode 10 and dirent B was linked to
+ * inode 11 before the replay)
+ *
+ * [Unlink A] [Link A to inode 11] [Unlink B] [Inode 11]
+ * (w) (x) (y) (z)
+ *
+ * If we crash at (z), we will have file A linked to inode 11. During the second
+ * replay, we will remove file A (inode 11). But we will create it back and make
+ * it point to inode 11. We won't find B, so we'll just skip that step. At this
+ * point, the refcount for inode 11 is not reliable, but that gets fixed by the
+ * replay of last inode 11 tag. Crashes at points (w), (x) and (y) get handled
+ * similarly. Thus, by converting a non-idempotent procedure into a series of
+ * idempotent outcomes, fast commits ensured idempotence during the replay.
+ *
* TODOs
* -----
+ *
+ * 0) Fast commit replay path hardening: Fast commit replay code should use
+ * journal handles to make sure all the updates it does during the replay
+ * path are atomic. With that if we crash during fast commit replay, after
+ * trying to do recovery again, we will find a file system where fast commit
+ * area is invalid (because new full commit would be found). In order to deal
+ * with that, fast commit replay code should ensure that the "FC_REPLAY"
+ * superblock state is persisted before starting the replay, so that after
+ * the crash, fast commit recovery code can look at that flag and perform
+ * fast commit recovery even if that area is invalidated by later full
+ * commits.
+ *
* 1) Make fast commit atomic updates more fine grained. Today, a fast commit
* eligible update must be protected within ext4_fc_start_update() and
* ext4_fc_stop_update(). These routines are called at much higher