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+Introduction
+============
+
+dm-era is a target that behaves similar to the linear target.  In
+addition it keeps track of which blocks were written within a user
+defined period of time called an 'era'.  Each era target instance
+maintains the current era as a monotonically increasing 32-bit
+counter.
+
+Use cases include tracking changed blocks for backup software, and
+partially invalidating the contents of a cache to restore cache
+coherency after rolling back a vendor snapshot.
+
+Constructor
+===========
+
+ era <metadata dev> <origin dev> <block size>
+
+ metadata dev    : fast device holding the persistent metadata
+ origin dev	 : device holding data blocks that may change
+ block size      : block size of origin data device, granularity that is
+		     tracked by the target
+
+Messages
+========
+
+None of the dm messages take any arguments.
+
+checkpoint
+----------
+
+Possibly move to a new era.  You shouldn't assume the era has
+incremented.  After sending this message, you should check the
+current era via the status line.
+
+take_metadata_snap
+------------------
+
+Create a clone of the metadata, to allow a userland process to read it.
+
+drop_metadata_snap
+------------------
+
+Drop the metadata snapshot.
+
+Status
+======
+
+<metadata block size> <#used metadata blocks>/<#total metadata blocks>
+<current era> <held metadata root | '-'>
+
+metadata block size	 : Fixed block size for each metadata block in
+			     sectors
+#used metadata blocks	 : Number of metadata blocks used
+#total metadata blocks	 : Total number of metadata blocks
+current era		 : The current era
+held metadata root	 : The location, in blocks, of the metadata root
+			     that has been 'held' for userspace read
+			     access. '-' indicates there is no held root
+
+Detailed use case
+=================
+
+The scenario of invalidating a cache when rolling back a vendor
+snapshot was the primary use case when developing this target:
+
+Taking a vendor snapshot
+------------------------
+
+- Send a checkpoint message to the era target
+- Make a note of the current era in its status line
+- Take vendor snapshot (the era and snapshot should be forever
+  associated now).
+
+Rolling back to an vendor snapshot
+----------------------------------
+
+- Cache enters passthrough mode (see: dm-cache's docs in cache.txt)
+- Rollback vendor storage
+- Take metadata snapshot
+- Ascertain which blocks have been written since the snapshot was taken
+  by checking each block's era
+- Invalidate those blocks in the caching software
+- Cache returns to writeback/writethrough mode
+
+Memory usage
+============
+
+The target uses a bitset to record writes in the current era.  It also
+has a spare bitset ready for switching over to a new era.  Other than
+that it uses a few 4k blocks for updating metadata.
+
+   (4 * nr_blocks) bytes + buffers
+
+Resilience
+==========
+
+Metadata is updated on disk before a write to a previously unwritten
+block is performed.  As such dm-era should not be effected by a hard
+crash such as power failure.
+
+Userland tools
+==============
+
+Userland tools are found in the increasingly poorly named
+thin-provisioning-tools project:
+
+    https://github.com/jthornber/thin-provisioning-tools