ublk: document feature UBLK_F_BATCH_IO

Document feature UBLK_F_BATCH_IO.

Reviewed-by: Caleb Sander Mateos <csander@purestorage.com>
Signed-off-by: Ming Lei <ming.lei@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>

diff --git a/Documentation/block/ublk.rst b/Documentation/block/ublk.rst
index 8c4030bcabb6347a0012c66b019f065c7db61fc6..6ad28039663da768440694f28a9123cfdaa783ae 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/block/ublk.rst
+++ b/Documentation/block/ublk.rst
@@ -260,9 +260,12 @@ The following IO commands are communicated via io_uring passthrough command,
 and each command is only for forwarding the IO and committing the result
 with specified IO tag in the command data:
 
-- ``UBLK_IO_FETCH_REQ``
+Traditional Per-I/O Commands
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-  Sent from the server IO pthread for fetching future incoming IO requests
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_FETCH_REQ``
+
+  Sent from the server I/O pthread for fetching future incoming I/O requests
   destined to ``/dev/ublkb*``. This command is sent only once from the server
   IO pthread for ublk driver to setup IO forward environment.
 
@@ -278,7 +281,7 @@ with specified IO tag in the command data:
   supported by the driver, daemons must be per-queue instead - i.e. all I/Os
   associated to a single qid must be handled by the same task.
 
-- ``UBLK_IO_COMMIT_AND_FETCH_REQ``
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_COMMIT_AND_FETCH_REQ``
 
   When an IO request is destined to ``/dev/ublkb*``, the driver stores
   the IO's ``ublksrv_io_desc`` to the specified mapped area; then the
@@ -293,7 +296,7 @@ with specified IO tag in the command data:
   requests with the same IO tag. That is, ``UBLK_IO_COMMIT_AND_FETCH_REQ``
   is reused for both fetching request and committing back IO result.
 
-- ``UBLK_IO_NEED_GET_DATA``
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_NEED_GET_DATA``
 
   With ``UBLK_F_NEED_GET_DATA`` enabled, the WRITE request will be firstly
   issued to ublk server without data copy. Then, IO backend of ublk server
@@ -322,6 +325,59 @@ with specified IO tag in the command data:
   ``UBLK_IO_COMMIT_AND_FETCH_REQ`` to the server, ublkdrv needs to copy
   the server buffer (pages) read to the IO request pages.
 
+Batch I/O Commands (UBLK_F_BATCH_IO)
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The ``UBLK_F_BATCH_IO`` feature provides an alternative high-performance
+I/O handling model that replaces the traditional per-I/O commands with
+per-queue batch commands. This significantly reduces communication overhead
+and enables better load balancing across multiple server tasks.
+
+Key differences from traditional mode:
+
+- **Per-queue vs Per-I/O**: Commands operate on queues rather than individual I/Os
+- **Batch processing**: Multiple I/Os are handled in single operations
+- **Multishot commands**: Use io_uring multishot for reduced submission overhead
+- **Flexible task assignment**: Any task can handle any I/O (no per-I/O daemons)
+- **Better load balancing**: Tasks can adjust their workload dynamically
+
+Batch I/O Commands:
+
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_PREP_IO_CMDS``
+
+  Prepares multiple I/O commands in batch. The server provides a buffer
+  containing multiple I/O descriptors that will be processed together.
+  This reduces the number of individual command submissions required.
+
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_COMMIT_IO_CMDS``
+
+  Commits results for multiple I/O operations in batch, and prepares the
+  I/O descriptors to accept new requests. The server provides a buffer
+  containing the results of multiple completed I/Os, allowing efficient
+  bulk completion of requests.
+
+- ``UBLK_U_IO_FETCH_IO_CMDS``
+
+  **Multishot command** for fetching I/O commands in batch. This is the key
+  command that enables high-performance batch processing:
+
+  * Uses io_uring multishot capability for reduced submission overhead
+  * Single command can fetch multiple I/O requests over time
+  * Buffer size determines maximum batch size per operation
+  * Multiple fetch commands can be submitted for load balancing
+  * Only one fetch command is active at any time per queue
+  * Supports dynamic load balancing across multiple server tasks
+
+  It is one typical multishot io_uring request with provided buffer, and it
+  won't be completed until any failure is triggered.
+
+  Each task can submit ``UBLK_U_IO_FETCH_IO_CMDS`` with different buffer
+  sizes to control how much work it handles. This enables sophisticated
+  load balancing strategies in multi-threaded servers.
+
+Migration: Applications using traditional commands (``UBLK_U_IO_FETCH_REQ``,
+``UBLK_U_IO_COMMIT_AND_FETCH_REQ``) cannot use batch mode simultaneously.
+
 Zero copy
 ---------