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-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst44
1 files changed, 44 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
index 68a0885fb5e6..fb7d2ee022bc 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
@@ -943,3 +943,47 @@ NVMe Zoned Namespace devices
can start before the zone-capacity and span across zone-capacity boundary.
Such spanning segments are also considered as usable segments. All blocks
past the zone-capacity are considered unusable in these segments.
+
+Device aliasing feature
+-----------------------
+
+f2fs can utilize a special file called a "device aliasing file." This file allows
+the entire storage device to be mapped with a single, large extent, not using
+the usual f2fs node structures. This mapped area is pinned and primarily intended
+for holding the space.
+
+Essentially, this mechanism allows a portion of the f2fs area to be temporarily
+reserved and used by another filesystem or for different purposes. Once that
+external usage is complete, the device aliasing file can be deleted, releasing
+the reserved space back to F2FS for its own use.
+
+<use-case>
+
+# ls /dev/vd*
+/dev/vdb (32GB) /dev/vdc (32GB)
+# mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdc
+# mkfs.f2fs -c /dev/vdc@vdc.file /dev/vdb
+# mount /dev/vdb /mnt/f2fs
+# ls -l /mnt/f2fs
+vdc.file
+# df -h
+/dev/vdb 64G 33G 32G 52% /mnt/f2fs
+
+# mount -o loop /dev/vdc /mnt/ext4
+# df -h
+/dev/vdb 64G 33G 32G 52% /mnt/f2fs
+/dev/loop7 32G 24K 30G 1% /mnt/ext4
+# umount /mnt/ext4
+
+# f2fs_io getflags /mnt/f2fs/vdc.file
+get a flag on /mnt/f2fs/vdc.file ret=0, flags=nocow(pinned),immutable
+# f2fs_io setflags noimmutable /mnt/f2fs/vdc.file
+get a flag on noimmutable ret=0, flags=800010
+set a flag on /mnt/f2fs/vdc.file ret=0, flags=noimmutable
+# rm /mnt/f2fs/vdc.file
+# df -h
+/dev/vdb 64G 753M 64G 2% /mnt/f2fs
+
+So, the key idea is, user can do any file operations on /dev/vdc, and
+reclaim the space after the use, while the space is counted as /data.
+That doesn't require modifying partition size and filesystem format.