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+Device-mapper snapshot support
+==============================
+
+Device-mapper allows you, without massive data copying:
+
+*) To create snapshots of any block device i.e. mountable, saved states of
+the block device which are also writable without interfering with the
+original content;
+*) To create device "forks", i.e. multiple different versions of the
+same data stream.
+*) To merge a snapshot of a block device back into the snapshot's origin
+device.
+
+In the first two cases, dm copies only the chunks of data that get
+changed and uses a separate copy-on-write (COW) block device for
+storage.
+
+For snapshot merge the contents of the COW storage are merged back into
+the origin device.
+
+
+There are three dm targets available:
+snapshot, snapshot-origin, and snapshot-merge.
+
+*) snapshot-origin <origin>
+
+which will normally have one or more snapshots based on it.
+Reads will be mapped directly to the backing device. For each write, the
+original data will be saved in the <COW device> of each snapshot to keep
+its visible content unchanged, at least until the <COW device> fills up.
+
+
+*) snapshot <origin> <COW device> <persistent?> <chunksize>
+
+A snapshot of the <origin> block device is created. Changed chunks of
+<chunksize> sectors will be stored on the <COW device>.  Writes will
+only go to the <COW device>.  Reads will come from the <COW device> or
+from <origin> for unchanged data.  <COW device> will often be
+smaller than the origin and if it fills up the snapshot will become
+useless and be disabled, returning errors.  So it is important to monitor
+the amount of free space and expand the <COW device> before it fills up.
+
+<persistent?> is P (Persistent) or N (Not persistent - will not survive
+after reboot).
+The difference is that for transient snapshots less metadata must be
+saved on disk - they can be kept in memory by the kernel.
+
+
+* snapshot-merge <origin> <COW device> <persistent> <chunksize>
+
+takes the same table arguments as the snapshot target except it only
+works with persistent snapshots.  This target assumes the role of the
+"snapshot-origin" target and must not be loaded if the "snapshot-origin"
+is still present for <origin>.
+
+Creates a merging snapshot that takes control of the changed chunks
+stored in the <COW device> of an existing snapshot, through a handover
+procedure, and merges these chunks back into the <origin>.  Once merging
+has started (in the background) the <origin> may be opened and the merge
+will continue while I/O is flowing to it.  Changes to the <origin> are
+deferred until the merging snapshot's corresponding chunk(s) have been
+merged.  Once merging has started the snapshot device, associated with
+the "snapshot" target, will return -EIO when accessed.
+
+
+How snapshot is used by LVM2
+============================
+When you create the first LVM2 snapshot of a volume, four dm devices are used:
+
+1) a device containing the original mapping table of the source volume;
+2) a device used as the <COW device>;
+3) a "snapshot" device, combining #1 and #2, which is the visible snapshot
+   volume;
+4) the "original" volume (which uses the device number used by the original
+   source volume), whose table is replaced by a "snapshot-origin" mapping
+   from device #1.
+
+A fixed naming scheme is used, so with the following commands:
+
+lvcreate -L 1G -n base volumeGroup
+lvcreate -L 100M --snapshot -n snap volumeGroup/base
+
+we'll have this situation (with volumes in above order):
+
+# dmsetup table|grep volumeGroup
+
+volumeGroup-base-real: 0 2097152 linear 8:19 384
+volumeGroup-snap-cow: 0 204800 linear 8:19 2097536
+volumeGroup-snap: 0 2097152 snapshot 254:11 254:12 P 16
+volumeGroup-base: 0 2097152 snapshot-origin 254:11
+
+# ls -lL /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-*
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 11 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-real
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 12 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-snap-cow
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 13 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-snap
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 10 29 ago 18:14 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base
+
+
+How snapshot-merge is used by LVM2
+==================================
+A merging snapshot assumes the role of the "snapshot-origin" while
+merging.  As such the "snapshot-origin" is replaced with
+"snapshot-merge".  The "-real" device is not changed and the "-cow"
+device is renamed to <origin name>-cow to aid LVM2's cleanup of the
+merging snapshot after it completes.  The "snapshot" that hands over its
+COW device to the "snapshot-merge" is deactivated (unless using lvchange
+--refresh); but if it is left active it will simply return I/O errors.
+
+A snapshot will merge into its origin with the following command:
+
+lvconvert --merge volumeGroup/snap
+
+we'll now have this situation:
+
+# dmsetup table|grep volumeGroup
+
+volumeGroup-base-real: 0 2097152 linear 8:19 384
+volumeGroup-base-cow: 0 204800 linear 8:19 2097536
+volumeGroup-base: 0 2097152 snapshot-merge 254:11 254:12 P 16
+
+# ls -lL /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-*
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 11 29 ago 18:15 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-real
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 12 29 ago 18:16 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base-cow
+brw-------  1 root root 254, 10 29 ago 18:16 /dev/mapper/volumeGroup-base
+
+
+How to determine when a merging is complete
+===========================================
+The snapshot-merge and snapshot status lines end with:
+  <sectors_allocated>/<total_sectors> <metadata_sectors>
+
+Both <sectors_allocated> and <total_sectors> include both data and metadata.
+During merging, the number of sectors allocated gets smaller and
+smaller.  Merging has finished when the number of sectors holding data
+is zero, in other words <sectors_allocated> == <metadata_sectors>.
+
+Here is a practical example (using a hybrid of lvm and dmsetup commands):
+
+# lvs
+  LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+  base    volumeGroup owi-a- 4.00g
+  snap    volumeGroup swi-a- 1.00g base  18.97
+
+# dmsetup status volumeGroup-snap
+0 8388608 snapshot 397896/2097152 1560
+                                  ^^^^ metadata sectors
+
+# lvconvert --merge -b volumeGroup/snap
+  Merging of volume snap started.
+
+# lvs volumeGroup/snap
+  LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+  base    volumeGroup Owi-a- 4.00g          17.23
+
+# dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+0 8388608 snapshot-merge 281688/2097152 1104
+
+# dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+0 8388608 snapshot-merge 180480/2097152 712
+
+# dmsetup status volumeGroup-base
+0 8388608 snapshot-merge 16/2097152 16
+
+Merging has finished.
+
+# lvs
+  LV      VG          Attr   LSize Origin  Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
+  base    volumeGroup owi-a- 4.00g