1NDCTL-CREATE-NAMES(1) ndctl Manual NDCTL-CREATE-NAMES(1)
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6 ndctl-create-namespace - provision or reconfigure a namespace
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9 ndctl create-namespace [<options>]
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12 The capacity of an NVDIMM REGION (contiguous span of persistent memory)
13 is accessed via one or more NAMESPACE devices. REGION is the Linux term
14 for what ACPI and UEFI call a DIMM-interleave-set, or a
15 system-physical-address-range that is striped (by the memory
16 controller) across one or more memory modules.
17 The UEFI specification defines the NVDIMM Label Protocol as the
19 combination of label area access methods and a data format for
20 provisioning one or more NAMESPACE objects from a REGION. Note that
21 label support is optional and if Linux does not detect the label
22 capability it will automatically instantiate a "label-less" namespace
23 per region. Examples of label-less namespaces are the ones created by
24 the kernel’s memmap=ss!nn command line option (see the nvdimm wiki on
25 kernel.org), or NVDIMMs without a valid namespace index in their label
26 area.
27 Note
29 Label-less namespaces lack many of the features of their label-rich
30 cousins. For example, their size cannot be modified, or they cannot
31 be fully destroyed (i.e. the space reclaimed). A destroy operation
32 will zero any mode-specific metadata. Finally, for create-namespace
33 operations on label-less namespaces, ndctl bypasses the region
34 capacity availability checks, and always satisfies the request
35 using the full region capacity. The only reconfiguration operation
36 supported on a label-less namespace is changing its mode.
37 A namespace can be provisioned to operate in one of 4 modes, fsdax,
39 devdax, sector, and raw. Here are the expected usage models for these
40 modes:
41 · fsdax: Filesystem-DAX mode is the default mode of a namespace when
43 specifying ndctl create-namespace with no options. It creates a
44 block device (/dev/pmemX[.Y]) that supports the DAX capabilities of
45 Linux filesystems (xfs and ext4 to date). DAX removes the page
46 cache from the I/O path and allows mmap(2) to establish direct
47 mappings to persistent memory media. The DAX capability enables
48 workloads / working-sets that would exceed the capacity of the page
49 cache to scale up to the capacity of persistent memory. Workloads
50 that fit in page cache or perform bulk data transfers may not see
51 benefit from DAX. When in doubt, pick this mode.
52 · devdax: Device-DAX mode enables similar mmap(2) DAX mapping
54 capabilities as Filesystem-DAX. However, instead of a block-device
55 that can support a DAX-enabled filesystem, this mode emits a single
56 character device file (/dev/daxX.Y). Use this mode to assign
57 persistent memory to a virtual-machine, register persistent memory
58 for RDMA, or when gigantic mappings are needed.
59 · sector: Use this mode to host legacy filesystems that do not
61 checksum metadata or applications that are not prepared for torn
62 sectors after a crash. Expected usage for this mode is for small
63 boot volumes. This mode is compatible with other operating systems.
64 · raw: Raw mode is effectively just a memory disk that does not
66 support DAX. Typically this indicates a namespace that was created
67 by tooling or another operating system that did not know how to
68 create a Linux fsdax or devdax mode namespace. This mode is
69 compatible with other operating systems, but again, does not
70 support DAX operation.
71
73 Create a maximally sized pmem namespace in fsdax mode (the default)
74 ndctl create-namespace
76 Convert namespace0.0 to sector mode
78 ndctl create-namespace -f -e namespace0.0 --mode=sector
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82 -t, --type=
83 Create a pmem or blk namespace (subject to available capacity). A
84 pmem namespace supports the dax (direct access) capability to
85 mmap(2) persistent memory directly into a process address space. A
86 blk namespace access persistent memory through a
87 block-window-aperture. Compared to pmem it supports a traditional
88 storage error model (EIO on error rather than a cpu exception on a
89 bad memory access), but it does not support dax.
90 -m, --mode=
92 · "raw": expose the namespace capacity directly with limitations.
94 Neither a raw pmem namepace nor raw blk namespace support
95 sector atomicity by default (see "sector" mode below). A raw
96 pmem namespace may have limited to no dax support depending the
97 kernel. In other words operations like direct-I/O targeting a
98 dax buffer may fail for a pmem namespace in raw mode or
99 indirect through a page-cache buffer. See "fsdax" and "devdax"
100 mode for dax operation.
101 · "sector": persistent memory, given that it is byte addressable,
103 does not support sector atomicity. The problematic aspect of
104 sector tearing is that most applications do not know they have
105 a atomic sector update dependency. At least a disk rarely ever
106 tears sectors and if it does it almost certainly returns a
107 checksum error on access. Persistent memory devices will always
108 tear and always silently. Until an application is audited to be
109 robust in the presence of sector-tearing "safe" mode is
110 recommended. This imposes some performance overhead and
111 disables the dax capability. (also known as "safe" or "btt"
112 mode)
113 · "fsdax": A pmem namespace in this mode supports dax operation
115 with a block-device based filesystem (in previous ndctl
116 releases this mode was named "memory" mode). This mode comes at
117 the cost of allocating per-page metadata. The capacity can be
118 allocated from "System RAM", or from a reserved portion of
119 "Persistent Memory" (see the --map= option). NOTE: A filesystem
120 that supports DAX is required for dax operation. If the raw
121 block device (/dev/pmemX) is used directly without a
122 filesystem, it will use the page cache. See "devdax" mode for
123 raw device access that supports dax.
124 · "devdax": The device-dax character device interface is a
126 statically allocated / raw access analogue of filesystem-dax
127 (in previous ndctl releases this mode was named "dax" mode). It
128 allows memory ranges to be mapped without need of an
129 intervening filesystem. The device-dax is interface strict,
130 precise and predictable. Specifically the interface:
131 · Guarantees fault granularity with respect to a given page
133 size (4K, 2M, or 1G on x86) set at configuration time.
134 · Enforces deterministic behavior by being strict about what
136 fault scenarios are supported. I.e. if a device is
137 configured with a 2M alignment an attempt to fault a 4K
138 aligned offset will result in SIGBUS. :: Note both fsdax
139 and devdax mode require 16MiB physical alignment to be
140 cross-arch compatible. By default ndctl will block attempts
141 to create namespaces in these modes when the physical
142 starting address of the namespace is not 16MiB aligned. The
143 --force option tries to override this constraint if the
144 platform supports a smaller alignment, but this is not
145 recommended.
146 -s, --size=
148 For NVDIMM devices that support namespace labels, set the namespace
149 size in bytes. Otherwise it defaults to the maximum size specified
150 by platform firmware. This option supports the suffixes "k" or "K"
151 for KiB, "m" or "M" for MiB, "g" or "G" for GiB and "t" or "T" for
152 TiB.
153 For pmem namepsaces the size must be a multiple of the
155 interleave-width and the namespace alignment (see
156 below).
157 -a, --align
159 Applications that want to establish dax memory mappings with page
160 table entries greater than system base page size (4K on x86) need a
161 persistent memory namespace that is sufficiently aligned. For
162 "fsdax" and "devdax" mode this defaults to 2M. Note that "devdax"
163 mode enforces all mappings to be aligned to this value, i.e. it
164 fails unaligned mapping attempts. The "fsdax" alignment setting
165 determines the starting alignment of filesystem extents and may
166 limit the possible granularities, if a large mapping is not
167 possible it will silently fall back to a smaller page size.
168 -e, --reconfig=
170 Reconfigure an existing namespace. This option is a shortcut for
171 the following sequence:
172 · Read all parameters from @victim_namespace
174 · Destroy @victim_namespace
176 · Create @new_namespace merging old parameters with new ones ::
178 Note that the major implication of a destroy-create cycle is
179 that data from @victim_namespace is not preserved in
180 @new_namespace. The attributes transferred from
181 @victim_namespace are the geometry, mode, and name (not uuid
182 without --uuid=). No attempt is made to preserve the data and
183 any old data that is visible in @new_namespace is by
184 coincidence not convention. "Backup and restore" is the only
185 reliable method to populate @new_namespace with data from
186 @victim_namespace.
187 -u, --uuid=
189 This option is not recommended as a new uuid should be generated
190 every time a namespace is (re-)created. For recovery scenarios
191 however the uuid may be specified.
192 -n, --name=
194 For NVDIMM devices that support namespace labels, specify a human
195 friendly name for a namespace. This name is available as a device
196 attribute for use in udev rules.
197 -l, --sector-size
199 Specify the logical sector size (LBA size) of the Linux block
200 device associated with an namespace.
201 -M, --map=
203 A pmem namespace in "fsdax" or "devdax" mode requires allocation of
204 per-page metadata. The allocation can be drawn from either:
205 · "mem": typical system memory
207 · "dev": persistent memory reserved from the namespace :: Given
209 relative capacities of "Persistent Memory" to "System RAM" the
210 allocation defaults to reserving space out of the namespace
211 directly ("--map=dev"). The overhead is 64-bytes per 4K (16GB
212 per 1TB) on x86.
213 -c, --continue
215 Do not stop after creating one namespace. Instead, greedily create
216 as many namespaces as possible within the given --bus and --region
217 filter restrictions. This will abort if any creation attempt
218 results in an error unless --force is also supplied.
219 -f, --force
221 Unless this option is specified the reconfigure namespace operation
222 will fail if the namespace is presently active. Specifying --force
223 causes the namespace to be disabled before the operation is
224 attempted. However, if the namespace is mounted then the disable
225 namespace and reconfigure namespace operations will be aborted. The
226 namespace must be unmounted before being reconfigured. When used in
227 conjunction with --continue, continue the namespace creation loop
228 even if an error is encountered for intermediate namespaces.
229 -L, --autolabel, --no-autolabel
231 Legacy NVDIMM devices do not support namespace labels. In that case
232 the kernel creates region-sized namespaces that can not be deleted.
233 Their mode can be changed, but they can not be resized smaller than
234 their parent region. This is termed a "label-less namespace". In
235 contrast, NVDIMMs and hypervisors that support the ACPI 6.2 label
236 area definition (ACPI 6.2 Section 6.5.10 NVDIMM Label Methods)
237 support "labelled namespace" operation.
238 · There are two cases where the kernel will default to label-less
240 operation:
241 · NVDIMM does not support labels
243 · The NVDIMM supports labels, but the Label Index Block (see
245 UEFI 2.7) is not present and there is no capacity aliasing
246 between blk and pmem regions.
247 · In the latter case the configuration can be upgraded to
249 labelled operation by writing an index block on all DIMMs in a
250 region and re-enabling that region. The autolabel capability of
251 ndctl create-namespace --reconfig tries to do this by default
252 if it can determine that all DIMM capacity is referenced by the
253 namespace being reconfigured. It will otherwise fail to
254 autolabel and remain in label-less mode if it finds a DIMM
255 contributes capacity to more than one region. This check
256 prevents inadvertent data loss of that other region is in
257 active use. The --autolabel option is implied by default, the
258 --no-autolabel option can be used to disable this behavior.
259 When automatic labeling fails and labelled operation is still
260 desired the safety policy can be bypassed by the following
261 commands, note that all data on all regions is forfeited by
262 running these commands:
263 ndctl disable-region all
265 ndctl init-labels all
266 ndctl enable-region all
267 -R, --autorecover, --no-autorecover
269 By default, if a namespace creation attempt fails, ndctl will
270 cleanup the partially initialized namespace. Use --no-autorecover
271 to disable this behavior for debug and development scenarios where
272 it useful to have the label and info-block state preserved after a
273 failure.
274 -v, --verbose
276 Emit debug messages for the namespace creation process
277 -r, --region=
279 A regionX device name, or a region id number. Restrict the
280 operation to the specified region(s). The keyword all can be
281 specified to indicate the lack of any restriction, however this is
282 the same as not supplying a --region option at all.
283 -b, --bus=
285 A bus id number, or a provider string (e.g. "ACPI.NFIT"). Restrict
286 the operation to the specified bus(es). The keyword all can be
287 specified to indicate the lack of any restriction, however this is
288 the same as not supplying a --bus option at all.
289
291 Copyright © 2016 - 2020, Intel Corporation. License GPLv2: GNU GPL
292 version 2 http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. This is free software: you
293 are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the
294 extent permitted by law.
295
297 ndctl-zero-labels(1), ndctl-init-labels(1), ndctl-disable-namespace(1),
298 ndctl-enable-namespace(1), UEFI NVDIMM Label Protocol[1] Linux
299 Persistent Memory Wiki[2]
300
302 1. UEFI NVDIMM Label Protocol
303 http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/UEFI_Spec_2_7.pdf
304 2. Linux Persistent Memory Wiki
306 https://nvdimm.wiki.kernel.org
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