linux-ext4 - [PATCH v7 8/8] fscrypt: update documentation for direct I/O support

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Date:   Tue, 17 Nov 2020 14:07:08 +0000
From:   Satya Tangirala <satyat@...gle.com>
To:     "Theodore Y . Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>,
        Jaegeuk Kim <jaegeuk@...nel.org>,
        Eric Biggers <ebiggers@...nel.org>, Chao Yu <chao@...nel.org>,
        Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        "Darrick J . Wong" <darrick.wong@...cle.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-fscrypt@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-f2fs-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net, linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-block@...r.kernel.org, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
        Satya Tangirala <satyat@...gle.com>,
        Eric Biggers <ebiggers@...gle.com>
Subject: [PATCH v7 8/8] fscrypt: update documentation for direct I/O support

Update fscrypt documentation to reflect the addition of direct I/O support
and document the necessary conditions for direct I/O on encrypted files.

Signed-off-by: Satya Tangirala <satyat@...gle.com>
Reviewed-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@...gle.com>
Reviewed-by: Jaegeuk Kim <jaegeuk@...nel.org>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/fscrypt.rst | 21 +++++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/fscrypt.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/fscrypt.rst
index 44b67ebd6e40..757b8aa2af9b 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/fscrypt.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/fscrypt.rst
@@ -1047,8 +1047,10 @@ astute users may notice some differences in behavior:
   may be used to overwrite the source files but isn't guaranteed to be
   effective on all filesystems and storage devices.
 
-- Direct I/O is not supported on encrypted files.  Attempts to use
-  direct I/O on such files will fall back to buffered I/O.
+- Direct I/O is supported on encrypted files only under some
+  circumstances (see `Direct I/O support`_ for details). When these
+  circumstances are not met, attempts to use direct I/O on encrypted
+  files will fall back to buffered I/O.
 
 - The fallocate operations FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE and
   FALLOC_FL_INSERT_RANGE are not supported on encrypted files and will
@@ -1121,6 +1123,21 @@ It is not currently possible to backup and restore encrypted files
 without the encryption key.  This would require special APIs which
 have not yet been implemented.
 
+Direct I/O support
+==================
+
+Direct I/O on encrypted files is supported through blk-crypto. In
+particular, this means the kernel must have CONFIG_BLK_INLINE_ENCRYPTION
+enabled, the filesystem must have had the 'inlinecrypt' mount option
+specified, and either hardware inline encryption must be present, or
+CONFIG_BLK_INLINE_ENCRYPTION_FALLBACK must have been enabled. Further,
+the length of any I/O must be aligned to the filesystem block size
+(*not* necessarily the same as the block device's block size). If any of
+these conditions isn't met, attempts to do direct I/O on an encrypted file
+will fall back to buffered I/O. However, there aren't any additional
+requirements on user buffer alignment (apart from those already present
+when using direct I/O on unencrypted files).
+
 Encryption policy enforcement
 =============================
 
-- 
2.29.2.299.gdc1121823c-goog