This patch equips the 'Block::Connection' with a framework API for the
implementation of robust block-session clients that perform block I/O in
an asynchronous fashion.
An application-defined 'JOB' type, inherited from 'Connection::Job',
encapsulates the application's context information associated with a
block operation.
The lifecycle of the jobs is implemented by the 'Connection' and driven
by the application's invokation of 'Connection::update_jobs'. The
'update_jobs' mechanism takes three hook functions as arguments, which
implement the applications-defined policy for producing and consuming
data, and for the completion of jobs.
Issue #3283
This patch removes the blocking Block::Session::sync RPC function and
adds the asynchronous operations SYNC and TRIM to the block session's
packet-stream interface.
Even though the patch adjusts all block components to the interface
change, the components keep the former blocking handling of sync
internally for now because of the design of the 'Block::Driver'
interface. This old interface is not worth changing. We should instead
migrate the block servers step by step to the new
'Block::Request_stream' API.
Fixes#3274
This patch replaces the formerly fixed 2 KiB data alignment within the
packet-stream buffer by a server-defined alignment. This has two
benefits.
First, when using block servers that provide small block sizes like 512
bytes, we avoid fragmenting the packet-stream buffer, which occurs when
aligning 512-byte requests at 2 KiB boundaries. This reduces meta data
costs for the packet-stream allocator and also allows fitting more
requests into the buffer.
Second, block drivers with alignment constraints dictated by the
hardware can now pass those constraints to the client, thereby easing
the use of zero-copy DMA directly into the packet stream.
The alignment is determined by the Block::Session_client at construction
time and applied by the Block::Session_client::alloc_packet method.
Block-session clients should always use this method, not the 'alloc_packet'
method of the packet stream (tx source) directly. The latter merely
applies a default alignment of 2 KiB.
At the server side, the alignment is automatically checked by
block/component.h (old API) and block/request_stream.h (new API).
Issue #3274
This patch modernizes the 'Block::Session::info' interface. Instead of
using out parameters, the 'init' RPC function returns a compound 'Info'
object now. The rather complicated 'Operations' struct is replaced by
a 'writeable' attribute in the 'Info' object.
Fixes#3275
The 'tx_cap' RPC function is only used at session-creation time. For
this reason, it was not listed in the "official" RPC interface in
'block_session.h'. However, this makes the interface more obscure than
it needs to be. So this patch promotes it to a regular RPC function.
Issue #3092
This patch changes the top-level directory layout as a preparatory
step for improving the tools for managing 3rd-party source codes.
The rationale is described in the issue referenced below.
Issue #1082
Norman Feske
Emery Hemingway