Merge tag 'docs-5.3' of git://git.lwn.net/linux

Pull Documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
 "It's been a relatively busy cycle for docs:

   - A fair pile of RST conversions, many from Mauro. These create more
     than the usual number of simple but annoying merge conflicts with
     other trees, unfortunately. He has a lot more of these waiting on
     the wings that, I think, will go to you directly later on.

   - A new document on how to use merges and rebases in kernel repos,
     and one on Spectre vulnerabilities.

   - Various improvements to the build system, including automatic
     markup of function() references because some people, for reasons I
     will never understand, were of the opinion that
     :c:func:``function()`` is unattractive and not fun to type.

   - We now recommend using sphinx 1.7, but still support back to 1.4.

   - Lots of smaller improvements, warning fixes, typo fixes, etc"

* tag 'docs-5.3' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (129 commits)
  docs: automarkup.py: ignore exceptions when seeking for xrefs
  docs: Move binderfs to admin-guide
  Disable Sphinx SmartyPants in HTML output
  doc: RCU callback locks need only _bh, not necessarily _irq
  docs: format kernel-parameters -- as code
  Doc : doc-guide : Fix a typo
  platform: x86: get rid of a non-existent document
  Add the RCU docs to the core-api manual
  Documentation: RCU: Add TOC tree hooks
  Documentation: RCU: Rename txt files to rst
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU UP systems to reST
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU linked list to reST
  Documentation: RCU: Convert RCU basic concepts to reST
  docs: filesystems: Remove uneeded .rst extension on toctables
  scripts/sphinx-pre-install: fix out-of-tree build
  docs: zh_CN: submitting-drivers.rst: Remove a duplicated Documentation/
  Documentation: PGP: update for newer HW devices
  Documentation: Add section about CPU vulnerabilities for Spectre
  Documentation: platform: Delete x86-laptop-drivers.txt
  docs: Note that :c:func: should no longer be used
  ...

1 files changed, 57 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.rst b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.rst
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+++ b/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-log.rst
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+=====================
+Device-Mapper Logging
+=====================
+The device-mapper logging code is used by some of the device-mapper
+RAID targets to track regions of the disk that are not consistent.
+A region (or portion of the address space) of the disk may be
+inconsistent because a RAID stripe is currently being operated on or
+a machine died while the region was being altered.  In the case of
+mirrors, a region would be considered dirty/inconsistent while you
+are writing to it because the writes need to be replicated for all
+the legs of the mirror and may not reach the legs at the same time.
+Once all writes are complete, the region is considered clean again.
+
+There is a generic logging interface that the device-mapper RAID
+implementations use to perform logging operations (see
+dm_dirty_log_type in include/linux/dm-dirty-log.h).  Various different
+logging implementations are available and provide different
+capabilities.  The list includes:
+
+==============	==============================================================
+Type		Files
+==============	==============================================================
+disk		drivers/md/dm-log.c
+core		drivers/md/dm-log.c
+userspace	drivers/md/dm-log-userspace* include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h
+==============	==============================================================
+
+The "disk" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation commits the log state to disk.  This way, the
+logging state survives reboots/crashes.
+
+The "core" log type
+-------------------
+This log implementation keeps the log state in memory.  The log state
+will not survive a reboot or crash, but there may be a small boost in
+performance.  This method can also be used if no storage device is
+available for storing log state.
+
+The "userspace" log type
+------------------------
+This log type simply provides a way to export the log API to userspace,
+so log implementations can be done there.  This is done by forwarding most
+logging requests to userspace, where a daemon receives and processes the
+request.
+
+The structure used for communication between kernel and userspace are
+located in include/linux/dm-log-userspace.h.  Due to the frequency,
+diversity, and 2-way communication nature of the exchanges between
+kernel and userspace, 'connector' is used as the interface for
+communication.
+
+There are currently two userspace log implementations that leverage this
+framework - "clustered-disk" and "clustered-core".  These implementations
+provide a cluster-coherent log for shared-storage.  Device-mapper mirroring
+can be used in a shared-storage environment when the cluster log implementations
+are employed.