xref: /linux/Documentation/admin-guide/device-mapper/dm-dust.rst (revision 28336be568bb473d16ba80db0801276fb4f1bbe5)
1dm-dust
2=======
3
4This target emulates the behavior of bad sectors at arbitrary
5locations, and the ability to enable the emulation of the failures
6at an arbitrary time.
7
8This target behaves similarly to a linear target.  At a given time,
9the user can send a message to the target to start failing read
10requests on specific blocks (to emulate the behavior of a hard disk
11drive with bad sectors).
12
13When the failure behavior is enabled (i.e.: when the output of
14"dmsetup status" displays "fail_read_on_bad_block"), reads of blocks
15in the "bad block list" will fail with EIO ("Input/output error").
16
17Writes of blocks in the "bad block list will result in the following:
18
191. Remove the block from the "bad block list".
202. Successfully complete the write.
21
22This emulates the "remapped sector" behavior of a drive with bad
23sectors.
24
25Normally, a drive that is encountering bad sectors will most likely
26encounter more bad sectors, at an unknown time or location.
27With dm-dust, the user can use the "addbadblock" and "removebadblock"
28messages to add arbitrary bad blocks at new locations, and the
29"enable" and "disable" messages to modulate the state of whether the
30configured "bad blocks" will be treated as bad, or bypassed.
31This allows the pre-writing of test data and metadata prior to
32simulating a "failure" event where bad sectors start to appear.
33
34Table parameters
35----------------
36<device_path> <offset> <blksz>
37
38Mandatory parameters:
39    <device_path>:
40        Path to the block device.
41
42    <offset>:
43        Offset to data area from start of device_path
44
45    <blksz>:
46        Block size in bytes
47
48	     (minimum 512, maximum 1073741824, must be a power of 2)
49
50Usage instructions
51------------------
52
53First, find the size (in 512-byte sectors) of the device to be used::
54
55        $ sudo blockdev --getsz /dev/vdb1
56        33552384
57
58Create the dm-dust device:
59(For a device with a block size of 512 bytes)
60
61::
62
63        $ sudo dmsetup create dust1 --table '0 33552384 dust /dev/vdb1 0 512'
64
65(For a device with a block size of 4096 bytes)
66
67::
68
69        $ sudo dmsetup create dust1 --table '0 33552384 dust /dev/vdb1 0 4096'
70
71Check the status of the read behavior ("bypass" indicates that all I/O
72will be passed through to the underlying device)::
73
74        $ sudo dmsetup status dust1
75        0 33552384 dust 252:17 bypass
76
77        $ sudo dd if=/dev/mapper/dust1 of=/dev/null bs=512 count=128 iflag=direct
78        128+0 records in
79        128+0 records out
80
81        $ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/dust1 bs=512 count=128 oflag=direct
82        128+0 records in
83        128+0 records out
84
85Adding and removing bad blocks
86------------------------------
87
88At any time (i.e.: whether the device has the "bad block" emulation
89enabled or disabled), bad blocks may be added or removed from the
90device via the "addbadblock" and "removebadblock" messages::
91
92        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 addbadblock 60
93        kernel: device-mapper: dust: badblock added at block 60
94
95        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 addbadblock 67
96        kernel: device-mapper: dust: badblock added at block 67
97
98        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 addbadblock 72
99        kernel: device-mapper: dust: badblock added at block 72
100
101These bad blocks will be stored in the "bad block list".
102While the device is in "bypass" mode, reads and writes will succeed::
103
104        $ sudo dmsetup status dust1
105        0 33552384 dust 252:17 bypass
106
107Enabling block read failures
108----------------------------
109
110To enable the "fail read on bad block" behavior, send the "enable" message::
111
112        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 enable
113        kernel: device-mapper: dust: enabling read failures on bad sectors
114
115        $ sudo dmsetup status dust1
116        0 33552384 dust 252:17 fail_read_on_bad_block
117
118With the device in "fail read on bad block" mode, attempting to read a
119block will encounter an "Input/output error"::
120
121        $ sudo dd if=/dev/mapper/dust1 of=/dev/null bs=512 count=1 skip=67 iflag=direct
122        dd: error reading '/dev/mapper/dust1': Input/output error
123        0+0 records in
124        0+0 records out
125        0 bytes copied, 0.00040651 s, 0.0 kB/s
126
127...and writing to the bad blocks will remove the blocks from the list,
128therefore emulating the "remap" behavior of hard disk drives::
129
130        $ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/dust1 bs=512 count=128 oflag=direct
131        128+0 records in
132        128+0 records out
133
134        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 60 removed from badblocklist by write
135        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 67 removed from badblocklist by write
136        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 72 removed from badblocklist by write
137        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 87 removed from badblocklist by write
138
139Bad block add/remove error handling
140-----------------------------------
141
142Attempting to add a bad block that already exists in the list will
143result in an "Invalid argument" error, as well as a helpful message::
144
145        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 addbadblock 88
146        device-mapper: message ioctl on dust1  failed: Invalid argument
147        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 88 already in badblocklist
148
149Attempting to remove a bad block that doesn't exist in the list will
150result in an "Invalid argument" error, as well as a helpful message::
151
152        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 removebadblock 87
153        device-mapper: message ioctl on dust1  failed: Invalid argument
154        kernel: device-mapper: dust: block 87 not found in badblocklist
155
156Counting the number of bad blocks in the bad block list
157-------------------------------------------------------
158
159To count the number of bad blocks configured in the device, run the
160following message command::
161
162        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 countbadblocks
163
164A message will print with the number of bad blocks currently
165configured on the device::
166
167        kernel: device-mapper: dust: countbadblocks: 895 badblock(s) found
168
169Querying for specific bad blocks
170--------------------------------
171
172To find out if a specific block is in the bad block list, run the
173following message command::
174
175        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 queryblock 72
176
177The following message will print if the block is in the list::
178
179        device-mapper: dust: queryblock: block 72 found in badblocklist
180
181The following message will print if the block is not in the list::
182
183        device-mapper: dust: queryblock: block 72 not found in badblocklist
184
185The "queryblock" message command will work in both the "enabled"
186and "disabled" modes, allowing the verification of whether a block
187will be treated as "bad" without having to issue I/O to the device,
188or having to "enable" the bad block emulation.
189
190Clearing the bad block list
191---------------------------
192
193To clear the bad block list (without needing to individually run
194a "removebadblock" message command for every block), run the
195following message command::
196
197        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 clearbadblocks
198
199After clearing the bad block list, the following message will appear::
200
201        kernel: device-mapper: dust: clearbadblocks: badblocks cleared
202
203If there were no bad blocks to clear, the following message will
204appear::
205
206        kernel: device-mapper: dust: clearbadblocks: no badblocks found
207
208Message commands list
209---------------------
210
211Below is a list of the messages that can be sent to a dust device:
212
213Operations on blocks (requires a <blknum> argument)::
214
215        addbadblock <blknum>
216        queryblock <blknum>
217        removebadblock <blknum>
218
219...where <blknum> is a block number within range of the device
220(corresponding to the block size of the device.)
221
222Single argument message commands::
223
224        countbadblocks
225        clearbadblocks
226        disable
227        enable
228        quiet
229
230Device removal
231--------------
232
233When finished, remove the device via the "dmsetup remove" command::
234
235        $ sudo dmsetup remove dust1
236
237Quiet mode
238----------
239
240On test runs with many bad blocks, it may be desirable to avoid
241excessive logging (from bad blocks added, removed, or "remapped").
242This can be done by enabling "quiet mode" via the following message::
243
244        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 quiet
245
246This will suppress log messages from add / remove / removed by write
247operations.  Log messages from "countbadblocks" or "queryblock"
248message commands will still print in quiet mode.
249
250The status of quiet mode can be seen by running "dmsetup status"::
251
252        $ sudo dmsetup status dust1
253        0 33552384 dust 252:17 fail_read_on_bad_block quiet
254
255To disable quiet mode, send the "quiet" message again::
256
257        $ sudo dmsetup message dust1 0 quiet
258
259        $ sudo dmsetup status dust1
260        0 33552384 dust 252:17 fail_read_on_bad_block verbose
261
262(The presence of "verbose" indicates normal logging.)
263
264"Why not...?"
265-------------
266
267scsi_debug has a "medium error" mode that can fail reads on one
268specified sector (sector 0x1234, hardcoded in the source code), but
269it uses RAM for the persistent storage, which drastically decreases
270the potential device size.
271
272dm-flakey fails all I/O from all block locations at a specified time
273frequency, and not a given point in time.
274
275When a bad sector occurs on a hard disk drive, reads to that sector
276are failed by the device, usually resulting in an error code of EIO
277("I/O error") or ENODATA ("No data available").  However, a write to
278the sector may succeed, and result in the sector becoming readable
279after the device controller no longer experiences errors reading the
280sector (or after a reallocation of the sector).  However, there may
281be bad sectors that occur on the device in the future, in a different,
282unpredictable location.
283
284This target seeks to provide a device that can exhibit the behavior
285of a bad sector at a known sector location, at a known time, based
286on a large storage device (at least tens of gigabytes, not occupying
287system memory).
288