libnvdimm: Non-Volatile Devices

Maintainer information and documentation for drivers/nvdimm

Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Boaz Harrosh <boaz@plexistor.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de>
Cc: Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>

1 files changed, 808 insertions, 0 deletions

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+			  LIBNVDIMM: Non-Volatile Devices
+	      libnvdimm - kernel / libndctl - userspace helper library
+			   linux-nvdimm@lists.01.org
+				      v13
+
+
+	Glossary
+	Overview
+	    Supporting Documents
+	    Git Trees
+	LIBNVDIMM PMEM and BLK
+	Why BLK?
+	    PMEM vs BLK
+	        BLK-REGIONs, PMEM-REGIONs, Atomic Sectors, and DAX
+	Example NVDIMM Platform
+	LIBNVDIMM Kernel Device Model and LIBNDCTL Userspace API
+	    LIBNDCTL: Context
+	        libndctl: instantiate a new library context example
+	    LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Bus
+	        libnvdimm: control class device in /sys/class
+	        libnvdimm: bus
+	        libndctl: bus enumeration example
+	    LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: DIMM (NMEM)
+	        libnvdimm: DIMM (NMEM)
+	        libndctl: DIMM enumeration example
+	    LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Region
+	        libnvdimm: region
+	        libndctl: region enumeration example
+	        Why Not Encode the Region Type into the Region Name?
+	        How Do I Determine the Major Type of a Region?
+	    LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Namespace
+	        libnvdimm: namespace
+	        libndctl: namespace enumeration example
+	        libndctl: namespace creation example
+	        Why the Term "namespace"?
+	    LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Block Translation Table "btt"
+	        libnvdimm: btt layout
+	        libndctl: btt creation example
+	Summary LIBNDCTL Diagram
+
+
+Glossary
+--------
+
+PMEM: A system-physical-address range where writes are persistent.  A
+block device composed of PMEM is capable of DAX.  A PMEM address range
+may span an interleave of several DIMMs.
+
+BLK: A set of one or more programmable memory mapped apertures provided
+by a DIMM to access its media.  This indirection precludes the
+performance benefit of interleaving, but enables DIMM-bounded failure
+modes.
+
+DPA: DIMM Physical Address, is a DIMM-relative offset.  With one DIMM in
+the system there would be a 1:1 system-physical-address:DPA association.
+Once more DIMMs are added a memory controller interleave must be
+decoded to determine the DPA associated with a given
+system-physical-address.  BLK capacity always has a 1:1 relationship
+with a single-DIMM's DPA range.
+
+DAX: File system extensions to bypass the page cache and block layer to
+mmap persistent memory, from a PMEM block device, directly into a
+process address space.
+
+BTT: Block Translation Table: Persistent memory is byte addressable.
+Existing software may have an expectation that the power-fail-atomicity
+of writes is at least one sector, 512 bytes.  The BTT is an indirection
+table with atomic update semantics to front a PMEM/BLK block device
+driver and present arbitrary atomic sector sizes.
+
+LABEL: Metadata stored on a DIMM device that partitions and identifies
+(persistently names) storage between PMEM and BLK.  It also partitions
+BLK storage to host BTTs with different parameters per BLK-partition.
+Note that traditional partition tables, GPT/MBR, are layered on top of a
+BLK or PMEM device.
+
+
+Overview
+--------
+
+The LIBNVDIMM subsystem provides support for three types of NVDIMMs, namely,
+PMEM, BLK, and NVDIMM devices that can simultaneously support both PMEM
+and BLK mode access.  These three modes of operation are described by
+the "NVDIMM Firmware Interface Table" (NFIT) in ACPI 6.  While the LIBNVDIMM
+implementation is generic and supports pre-NFIT platforms, it was guided
+by the superset of capabilities need to support this ACPI 6 definition
+for NVDIMM resources.  The bulk of the kernel implementation is in place
+to handle the case where DPA accessible via PMEM is aliased with DPA
+accessible via BLK.  When that occurs a LABEL is needed to reserve DPA
+for exclusive access via one mode a time.
+
+Supporting Documents
+ACPI 6: http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/ACPI_6.0.pdf
+NVDIMM Namespace: http://pmem.io/documents/NVDIMM_Namespace_Spec.pdf
+DSM Interface Example: http://pmem.io/documents/NVDIMM_DSM_Interface_Example.pdf
+Driver Writer's Guide: http://pmem.io/documents/NVDIMM_Driver_Writers_Guide.pdf
+
+Git Trees
+LIBNVDIMM: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/djbw/nvdimm.git
+LIBNDCTL: https://github.com/pmem/ndctl.git
+PMEM: https://github.com/01org/prd
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM PMEM and BLK
+------------------
+
+Prior to the arrival of the NFIT, non-volatile memory was described to a
+system in various ad-hoc ways.  Usually only the bare minimum was
+provided, namely, a single system-physical-address range where writes
+are expected to be durable after a system power loss.  Now, the NFIT
+specification standardizes not only the description of PMEM, but also
+BLK and platform message-passing entry points for control and
+configuration.
+
+For each NVDIMM access method (PMEM, BLK), LIBNVDIMM provides a block
+device driver:
+
+    1. PMEM (nd_pmem.ko): Drives a system-physical-address range.  This
+    range is contiguous in system memory and may be interleaved (hardware
+    memory controller striped) across multiple DIMMs.  When interleaved the
+    platform may optionally provide details of which DIMMs are participating
+    in the interleave.
+
+    Note that while LIBNVDIMM describes system-physical-address ranges that may
+    alias with BLK access as ND_NAMESPACE_PMEM ranges and those without
+    alias as ND_NAMESPACE_IO ranges, to the nd_pmem driver there is no
+    distinction.  The different device-types are an implementation detail
+    that userspace can exploit to implement policies like "only interface
+    with address ranges from certain DIMMs".  It is worth noting that when
+    aliasing is present and a DIMM lacks a label, then no block device can
+    be created by default as userspace needs to do at least one allocation
+    of DPA to the PMEM range.  In contrast ND_NAMESPACE_IO ranges, once
+    registered, can be immediately attached to nd_pmem.
+
+    2. BLK (nd_blk.ko): This driver performs I/O using a set of platform
+    defined apertures.  A set of apertures will all access just one DIMM.
+    Multiple windows allow multiple concurrent accesses, much like
+    tagged-command-queuing, and would likely be used by different threads or
+    different CPUs.
+
+    The NFIT specification defines a standard format for a BLK-aperture, but
+    the spec also allows for vendor specific layouts, and non-NFIT BLK
+    implementations may other designs for BLK I/O.  For this reason "nd_blk"
+    calls back into platform-specific code to perform the I/O.  One such
+    implementation is defined in the "Driver Writer's Guide" and "DSM
+    Interface Example".
+
+
+Why BLK?
+--------
+
+While PMEM provides direct byte-addressable CPU-load/store access to
+NVDIMM storage, it does not provide the best system RAS (recovery,
+availability, and serviceability) model.  An access to a corrupted
+system-physical-address address causes a cpu exception while an access
+to a corrupted address through an BLK-aperture causes that block window
+to raise an error status in a register.  The latter is more aligned with
+the standard error model that host-bus-adapter attached disks present.
+Also, if an administrator ever wants to replace a memory it is easier to
+service a system at DIMM module boundaries.  Compare this to PMEM where
+data could be interleaved in an opaque hardware specific manner across
+several DIMMs.
+
+PMEM vs BLK
+BLK-apertures solve this RAS problem, but their presence is also the
+major contributing factor to the complexity of the ND subsystem.  They
+complicate the implementation because PMEM and BLK alias in DPA space.
+Any given DIMM's DPA-range may contribute to one or more
+system-physical-address sets of interleaved DIMMs, *and* may also be
+accessed in its entirety through its BLK-aperture.  Accessing a DPA
+through a system-physical-address while simultaneously accessing the
+same DPA through a BLK-aperture has undefined results.  For this reason,
+DIMMs with this dual interface configuration include a DSM function to
+store/retrieve a LABEL.  The LABEL effectively partitions the DPA-space
+into exclusive system-physical-address and BLK-aperture accessible
+regions.  For simplicity a DIMM is allowed a PMEM "region" per each
+interleave set in which it is a member.  The remaining DPA space can be
+carved into an arbitrary number of BLK devices with discontiguous
+extents.
+
+BLK-REGIONs, PMEM-REGIONs, Atomic Sectors, and DAX
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+One of the few
+reasons to allow multiple BLK namespaces per REGION is so that each
+BLK-namespace can be configured with a BTT with unique atomic sector
+sizes.  While a PMEM device can host a BTT the LABEL specification does
+not provide for a sector size to be specified for a PMEM namespace.
+This is due to the expectation that the primary usage model for PMEM is
+via DAX, and the BTT is incompatible with DAX.  However, for the cases
+where an application or filesystem still needs atomic sector update
+guarantees it can register a BTT on a PMEM device or partition.  See
+LIBNVDIMM/NDCTL: Block Translation Table "btt"
+
+
+Example NVDIMM Platform
+-----------------------
+
+For the remainder of this document the following diagram will be
+referenced for any example sysfs layouts.
+
+
+                             (a)               (b)           DIMM   BLK-REGION
+          +-------------------+--------+--------+--------+
++------+  |       pm0.0       | blk2.0 | pm1.0  | blk2.1 |    0      region2
+| imc0 +--+- - - region0- - - +--------+        +--------+
++--+---+  |       pm0.0       | blk3.0 | pm1.0  | blk3.1 |    1      region3
+   |      +-------------------+--------v        v--------+
++--+---+                               |                 |
+| cpu0 |                                     region1
++--+---+                               |                 |
+   |      +----------------------------^        ^--------+
++--+---+  |           blk4.0           | pm1.0  | blk4.0 |    2      region4
+| imc1 +--+----------------------------|        +--------+
++------+  |           blk5.0           | pm1.0  | blk5.0 |    3      region5
+          +----------------------------+--------+--------+
+
+In this platform we have four DIMMs and two memory controllers in one
+socket.  Each unique interface (BLK or PMEM) to DPA space is identified
+by a region device with a dynamically assigned id (REGION0 - REGION5).
+
+    1. The first portion of DIMM0 and DIMM1 are interleaved as REGION0. A
+    single PMEM namespace is created in the REGION0-SPA-range that spans
+    DIMM0 and DIMM1 with a user-specified name of "pm0.0". Some of that
+    interleaved system-physical-address range is reclaimed as BLK-aperture
+    accessed space starting at DPA-offset (a) into each DIMM.  In that
+    reclaimed space we create two BLK-aperture "namespaces" from REGION2 and
+    REGION3 where "blk2.0" and "blk3.0" are just human readable names that
+    could be set to any user-desired name in the LABEL.
+
+    2. In the last portion of DIMM0 and DIMM1 we have an interleaved
+    system-physical-address range, REGION1, that spans those two DIMMs as
+    well as DIMM2 and DIMM3.  Some of REGION1 allocated to a PMEM namespace
+    named "pm1.0" the rest is reclaimed in 4 BLK-aperture namespaces (for
+    each DIMM in the interleave set), "blk2.1", "blk3.1", "blk4.0", and
+    "blk5.0".
+
+    3. The portion of DIMM2 and DIMM3 that do not participate in the REGION1
+    interleaved system-physical-address range (i.e. the DPA address below
+    offset (b) are also included in the "blk4.0" and "blk5.0" namespaces.
+    Note, that this example shows that BLK-aperture namespaces don't need to
+    be contiguous in DPA-space.
+
+    This bus is provided by the kernel under the device
+    /sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0 when CONFIG_NFIT_TEST is enabled and
+    the nfit_test.ko module is loaded.  This not only test LIBNVDIMM but the
+    acpi_nfit.ko driver as well.
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM Kernel Device Model and LIBNDCTL Userspace API
+----------------------------------------------------
+
+What follows is a description of the LIBNVDIMM sysfs layout and a
+corresponding object hierarchy diagram as viewed through the LIBNDCTL
+api.  The example sysfs paths and diagrams are relative to the Example
+NVDIMM Platform which is also the LIBNVDIMM bus used in the LIBNDCTL unit
+test.
+
+LIBNDCTL: Context
+Every api call in the LIBNDCTL library requires a context that holds the
+logging parameters and other library instance state.  The library is
+based on the libabc template:
+https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/kay/libabc.git/
+
+LIBNDCTL: instantiate a new library context example
+
+	struct ndctl_ctx *ctx;
+
+	if (ndctl_new(&ctx) == 0)
+		return ctx;
+	else
+		return NULL;
+
+LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Bus
+-------------------
+
+A bus has a 1:1 relationship with an NFIT.  The current expectation for
+ACPI based systems is that there is only ever one platform-global NFIT.
+That said, it is trivial to register multiple NFITs, the specification
+does not preclude it.  The infrastructure supports multiple busses and
+we we use this capability to test multiple NFIT configurations in the
+unit test.
+
+LIBNVDIMM: control class device in /sys/class
+
+This character device accepts DSM messages to be passed to DIMM
+identified by its NFIT handle.
+
+	/sys/class/nd/ndctl0
+	|-- dev
+	|-- device -> ../../../ndbus0
+	|-- subsystem -> ../../../../../../../class/nd
+
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM: bus
+
+	struct nvdimm_bus *nvdimm_bus_register(struct device *parent,
+	       struct nvdimm_bus_descriptor *nfit_desc);
+
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0
+	|-- commands
+	|-- nd
+	|-- nfit
+	|-- nmem0
+	|-- nmem1
+	|-- nmem2
+	|-- nmem3
+	|-- power
+	|-- provider
+	|-- region0
+	|-- region1
+	|-- region2
+	|-- region3
+	|-- region4
+	|-- region5
+	|-- uevent
+	`-- wait_probe
+
+LIBNDCTL: bus enumeration example
+Find the bus handle that describes the bus from Example NVDIMM Platform
+
+	static struct ndctl_bus *get_bus_by_provider(struct ndctl_ctx *ctx,
+			const char *provider)
+	{
+		struct ndctl_bus *bus;
+
+		ndctl_bus_foreach(ctx, bus)
+			if (strcmp(provider, ndctl_bus_get_provider(bus)) == 0)
+				return bus;
+
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	bus = get_bus_by_provider(ctx, "nfit_test.0");
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: DIMM (NMEM)
+---------------------------
+
+The DIMM device provides a character device for sending commands to
+hardware, and it is a container for LABELs.  If the DIMM is defined by
+NFIT then an optional 'nfit' attribute sub-directory is available to add
+NFIT-specifics.
+
+Note that the kernel device name for "DIMMs" is "nmemX".  The NFIT
+describes these devices via "Memory Device to System Physical Address
+Range Mapping Structure", and there is no requirement that they actually
+be physical DIMMs, so we use a more generic name.
+
+LIBNVDIMM: DIMM (NMEM)
+
+	struct nvdimm *nvdimm_create(struct nvdimm_bus *nvdimm_bus, void *provider_data,
+			const struct attribute_group **groups, unsigned long flags,
+			unsigned long *dsm_mask);
+
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0
+	|-- nmem0
+	|   |-- available_slots
+	|   |-- commands
+	|   |-- dev
+	|   |-- devtype
+	|   |-- driver -> ../../../../../bus/nd/drivers/nvdimm
+	|   |-- modalias
+	|   |-- nfit
+	|   |   |-- device
+	|   |   |-- format
+	|   |   |-- handle
+	|   |   |-- phys_id
+	|   |   |-- rev_id
+	|   |   |-- serial
+	|   |   `-- vendor
+	|   |-- state
+	|   |-- subsystem -> ../../../../../bus/nd
+	|   `-- uevent
+	|-- nmem1
+	[..]
+
+
+LIBNDCTL: DIMM enumeration example
+
+Note, in this example we are assuming NFIT-defined DIMMs which are
+identified by an "nfit_handle" a 32-bit value where:
+Bit 3:0 DIMM number within the memory channel
+Bit 7:4 memory channel number
+Bit 11:8 memory controller ID
+Bit 15:12 socket ID (within scope of a Node controller if node controller is present)
+Bit 27:16 Node Controller ID
+Bit 31:28 Reserved
+
+	static struct ndctl_dimm *get_dimm_by_handle(struct ndctl_bus *bus,
+	       unsigned int handle)
+	{
+		struct ndctl_dimm *dimm;
+
+		ndctl_dimm_foreach(bus, dimm)
+			if (ndctl_dimm_get_handle(dimm) == handle)
+				return dimm;
+
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	#define DIMM_HANDLE(n, s, i, c, d) \
+		(((n & 0xfff) << 16) | ((s & 0xf) << 12) | ((i & 0xf) << 8) \
+		 | ((c & 0xf) << 4) | (d & 0xf))
+
+	dimm = get_dimm_by_handle(bus, DIMM_HANDLE(0, 0, 0, 0, 0));
+
+LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Region
+----------------------
+
+A generic REGION device is registered for each PMEM range orBLK-aperture
+set.  Per the example there are 6 regions: 2 PMEM and 4 BLK-aperture
+sets on the "nfit_test.0" bus.  The primary role of regions are to be a
+container of "mappings".  A mapping is a tuple of <DIMM,
+DPA-start-offset, length>.
+
+LIBNVDIMM provides a built-in driver for these REGION devices.  This driver
+is responsible for reconciling the aliased DPA mappings across all
+regions, parsing the LABEL, if present, and then emitting NAMESPACE
+devices with the resolved/exclusive DPA-boundaries for the nd_pmem or
+nd_blk device driver to consume.
+
+In addition to the generic attributes of "mapping"s, "interleave_ways"
+and "size" the REGION device also exports some convenience attributes.
+"nstype" indicates the integer type of namespace-device this region
+emits, "devtype" duplicates the DEVTYPE variable stored by udev at the
+'add' event, "modalias" duplicates the MODALIAS variable stored by udev
+at the 'add' event, and finally, the optional "spa_index" is provided in
+the case where the region is defined by a SPA.
+
+LIBNVDIMM: region
+
+	struct nd_region *nvdimm_pmem_region_create(struct nvdimm_bus *nvdimm_bus,
+			struct nd_region_desc *ndr_desc);
+	struct nd_region *nvdimm_blk_region_create(struct nvdimm_bus *nvdimm_bus,
+			struct nd_region_desc *ndr_desc);
+
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0
+	|-- region0
+	|   |-- available_size
+	|   |-- btt0
+	|   |-- btt_seed
+	|   |-- devtype
+	|   |-- driver -> ../../../../../bus/nd/drivers/nd_region
+	|   |-- init_namespaces
+	|   |-- mapping0
+	|   |-- mapping1
+	|   |-- mappings
+	|   |-- modalias
+	|   |-- namespace0.0
+	|   |-- namespace_seed
+	|   |-- numa_node
+	|   |-- nfit
+	|   |   `-- spa_index
+	|   |-- nstype
+	|   |-- set_cookie
+	|   |-- size
+	|   |-- subsystem -> ../../../../../bus/nd
+	|   `-- uevent
+	|-- region1
+	[..]
+
+LIBNDCTL: region enumeration example
+
+Sample region retrieval routines based on NFIT-unique data like
+"spa_index" (interleave set id) for PMEM and "nfit_handle" (dimm id) for
+BLK.
+
+	static struct ndctl_region *get_pmem_region_by_spa_index(struct ndctl_bus *bus,
+			unsigned int spa_index)
+	{
+		struct ndctl_region *region;
+
+		ndctl_region_foreach(bus, region) {
+			if (ndctl_region_get_type(region) != ND_DEVICE_REGION_PMEM)
+				continue;
+			if (ndctl_region_get_spa_index(region) == spa_index)
+				return region;
+		}
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	static struct ndctl_region *get_blk_region_by_dimm_handle(struct ndctl_bus *bus,
+			unsigned int handle)
+	{
+		struct ndctl_region *region;
+
+		ndctl_region_foreach(bus, region) {
+			struct ndctl_mapping *map;
+
+			if (ndctl_region_get_type(region) != ND_DEVICE_REGION_BLOCK)
+				continue;
+			ndctl_mapping_foreach(region, map) {
+				struct ndctl_dimm *dimm = ndctl_mapping_get_dimm(map);
+
+				if (ndctl_dimm_get_handle(dimm) == handle)
+					return region;
+			}
+		}
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+
+Why Not Encode the Region Type into the Region Name?
+----------------------------------------------------
+
+At first glance it seems since NFIT defines just PMEM and BLK interface
+types that we should simply name REGION devices with something derived
+from those type names.  However, the ND subsystem explicitly keeps the
+REGION name generic and expects userspace to always consider the
+region-attributes for 4 reasons:
+
+    1. There are already more than two REGION and "namespace" types.  For
+    PMEM there are two subtypes.  As mentioned previously we have PMEM where
+    the constituent DIMM devices are known and anonymous PMEM.  For BLK
+    regions the NFIT specification already anticipates vendor specific
+    implementations.  The exact distinction of what a region contains is in
+    the region-attributes not the region-name or the region-devtype.
+
+    2. A region with zero child-namespaces is a possible configuration.  For
+    example, the NFIT allows for a DCR to be published without a
+    corresponding BLK-aperture.  This equates to a DIMM that can only accept
+    control/configuration messages, but no i/o through a descendant block
+    device.  Again, this "type" is advertised in the attributes ('mappings'
+    == 0) and the name does not tell you much.
+
+    3. What if a third major interface type arises in the future?  Outside
+    of vendor specific implementations, it's not difficult to envision a
+    third class of interface type beyond BLK and PMEM.  With a generic name
+    for the REGION level of the device-hierarchy old userspace
+    implementations can still make sense of new kernel advertised
+    region-types.  Userspace can always rely on the generic region
+    attributes like "mappings", "size", etc and the expected child devices
+    named "namespace".  This generic format of the device-model hierarchy
+    allows the LIBNVDIMM and LIBNDCTL implementations to be more uniform and
+    future-proof.
+
+    4. There are more robust mechanisms for determining the major type of a
+    region than a device name.  See the next section, How Do I Determine the
+    Major Type of a Region?
+
+How Do I Determine the Major Type of a Region?
+----------------------------------------------
+
+Outside of the blanket recommendation of "use libndctl", or simply
+looking at the kernel header (/usr/include/linux/ndctl.h) to decode the
+"nstype" integer attribute, here are some other options.
+
+    1. module alias lookup:
+
+    The whole point of region/namespace device type differentiation is to
+    decide which block-device driver will attach to a given LIBNVDIMM namespace.
+    One can simply use the modalias to lookup the resulting module.  It's
+    important to note that this method is robust in the presence of a
+    vendor-specific driver down the road.  If a vendor-specific
+    implementation wants to supplant the standard nd_blk driver it can with
+    minimal impact to the rest of LIBNVDIMM.
+
+    In fact, a vendor may also want to have a vendor-specific region-driver
+    (outside of nd_region).  For example, if a vendor defined its own LABEL
+    format it would need its own region driver to parse that LABEL and emit
+    the resulting namespaces.  The output from module resolution is more
+    accurate than a region-name or region-devtype.
+
+    2. udev:
+
+    The kernel "devtype" is registered in the udev database
+    # udevadm info --path=/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region0
+    P: /devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region0
+    E: DEVPATH=/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region0
+    E: DEVTYPE=nd_pmem
+    E: MODALIAS=nd:t2
+    E: SUBSYSTEM=nd
+
+    # udevadm info --path=/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region4
+    P: /devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region4
+    E: DEVPATH=/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region4
+    E: DEVTYPE=nd_blk
+    E: MODALIAS=nd:t3
+    E: SUBSYSTEM=nd
+
+    ...and is available as a region attribute, but keep in mind that the
+    "devtype" does not indicate sub-type variations and scripts should
+    really be understanding the other attributes.
+
+    3. type specific attributes:
+
+    As it currently stands a BLK-aperture region will never have a
+    "nfit/spa_index" attribute, but neither will a non-NFIT PMEM region.  A
+    BLK region with a "mappings" value of 0 is, as mentioned above, a DIMM
+    that does not allow I/O.  A PMEM region with a "mappings" value of zero
+    is a simple system-physical-address range.
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Namespace
+-------------------------
+
+A REGION, after resolving DPA aliasing and LABEL specified boundaries,
+surfaces one or more "namespace" devices.  The arrival of a "namespace"
+device currently triggers either the nd_blk or nd_pmem driver to load
+and register a disk/block device.
+
+LIBNVDIMM: namespace
+Here is a sample layout from the three major types of NAMESPACE where
+namespace0.0 represents DIMM-info-backed PMEM (note that it has a 'uuid'
+attribute), namespace2.0 represents a BLK namespace (note it has a
+'sector_size' attribute) that, and namespace6.0 represents an anonymous
+PMEM namespace (note that has no 'uuid' attribute due to not support a
+LABEL).
+
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region0/namespace0.0
+	|-- alt_name
+	|-- devtype
+	|-- dpa_extents
+	|-- force_raw
+	|-- modalias
+	|-- numa_node
+	|-- resource
+	|-- size
+	|-- subsystem -> ../../../../../../bus/nd
+	|-- type
+	|-- uevent
+	`-- uuid
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.0/ndbus0/region2/namespace2.0
+	|-- alt_name
+	|-- devtype
+	|-- dpa_extents
+	|-- force_raw
+	|-- modalias
+	|-- numa_node
+	|-- sector_size
+	|-- size
+	|-- subsystem -> ../../../../../../bus/nd
+	|-- type
+	|-- uevent
+	`-- uuid
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.1/ndbus1/region6/namespace6.0
+	|-- block
+	|   `-- pmem0
+	|-- devtype
+	|-- driver -> ../../../../../../bus/nd/drivers/pmem
+	|-- force_raw
+	|-- modalias
+	|-- numa_node
+	|-- resource
+	|-- size
+	|-- subsystem -> ../../../../../../bus/nd
+	|-- type
+	`-- uevent
+
+LIBNDCTL: namespace enumeration example
+Namespaces are indexed relative to their parent region, example below.
+These indexes are mostly static from boot to boot, but subsystem makes
+no guarantees in this regard.  For a static namespace identifier use its
+'uuid' attribute.
+
+static struct ndctl_namespace *get_namespace_by_id(struct ndctl_region *region,
+                unsigned int id)
+{
+        struct ndctl_namespace *ndns;
+
+        ndctl_namespace_foreach(region, ndns)
+                if (ndctl_namespace_get_id(ndns) == id)
+                        return ndns;
+
+        return NULL;
+}
+
+LIBNDCTL: namespace creation example
+Idle namespaces are automatically created by the kernel if a given
+region has enough available capacity to create a new namespace.
+Namespace instantiation involves finding an idle namespace and
+configuring it.  For the most part the setting of namespace attributes
+can occur in any order, the only constraint is that 'uuid' must be set
+before 'size'.  This enables the kernel to track DPA allocations
+internally with a static identifier.
+
+static int configure_namespace(struct ndctl_region *region,
+                struct ndctl_namespace *ndns,
+                struct namespace_parameters *parameters)
+{
+        char devname[50];
+
+        snprintf(devname, sizeof(devname), "namespace%d.%d",
+                        ndctl_region_get_id(region), paramaters->id);
+
+        ndctl_namespace_set_alt_name(ndns, devname);
+        /* 'uuid' must be set prior to setting size! */
+        ndctl_namespace_set_uuid(ndns, paramaters->uuid);
+        ndctl_namespace_set_size(ndns, paramaters->size);
+        /* unlike pmem namespaces, blk namespaces have a sector size */
+        if (parameters->lbasize)
+                ndctl_namespace_set_sector_size(ndns, parameters->lbasize);
+        ndctl_namespace_enable(ndns);
+}
+
+
+Why the Term "namespace"?
+
+    1. Why not "volume" for instance?  "volume" ran the risk of confusing ND
+    as a volume manager like device-mapper.
+
+    2. The term originated to describe the sub-devices that can be created
+    within a NVME controller (see the nvme specification:
+    http://www.nvmexpress.org/specifications/), and NFIT namespaces are
+    meant to parallel the capabilities and configurability of
+    NVME-namespaces.
+
+
+LIBNVDIMM/LIBNDCTL: Block Translation Table "btt"
+---------------------------------------------
+
+A BTT (design document: http://pmem.io/2014/09/23/btt.html) is a stacked
+block device driver that fronts either the whole block device or a
+partition of a block device emitted by either a PMEM or BLK NAMESPACE.
+
+LIBNVDIMM: btt layout
+Every region will start out with at least one BTT device which is the
+seed device.  To activate it set the "namespace", "uuid", and
+"sector_size" attributes and then bind the device to the nd_pmem or
+nd_blk driver depending on the region type.
+
+	/sys/devices/platform/nfit_test.1/ndbus0/region0/btt0/
+	|-- namespace
+	|-- delete
+	|-- devtype
+	|-- modalias
+	|-- numa_node
+	|-- sector_size
+	|-- subsystem -> ../../../../../bus/nd
+	|-- uevent
+	`-- uuid
+
+LIBNDCTL: btt creation example
+Similar to namespaces an idle BTT device is automatically created per
+region.  Each time this "seed" btt device is configured and enabled a new
+seed is created.  Creating a BTT configuration involves two steps of
+finding and idle BTT and assigning it to consume a PMEM or BLK namespace.
+
+	static struct ndctl_btt *get_idle_btt(struct ndctl_region *region)
+	{
+		struct ndctl_btt *btt;
+
+		ndctl_btt_foreach(region, btt)
+			if (!ndctl_btt_is_enabled(btt)
+					&& !ndctl_btt_is_configured(btt))
+				return btt;
+
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	static int configure_btt(struct ndctl_region *region,
+			struct btt_parameters *parameters)
+	{
+		btt = get_idle_btt(region);
+
+		ndctl_btt_set_uuid(btt, parameters->uuid);
+		ndctl_btt_set_sector_size(btt, parameters->sector_size);
+		ndctl_btt_set_namespace(btt, parameters->ndns);
+		/* turn off raw mode device */
+		ndctl_namespace_disable(parameters->ndns);
+		/* turn on btt access */
+		ndctl_btt_enable(btt);
+	}
+
+Once instantiated a new inactive btt seed device will appear underneath
+the region.
+
+Once a "namespace" is removed from a BTT that instance of the BTT device
+will be deleted or otherwise reset to default values.  This deletion is
+only at the device model level.  In order to destroy a BTT the "info
+block" needs to be destroyed.  Note, that to destroy a BTT the media
+needs to be written in raw mode.  By default, the kernel will autodetect
+the presence of a BTT and disable raw mode.  This autodetect behavior
+can be suppressed by enabling raw mode for the namespace via the
+ndctl_namespace_set_raw_mode() api.
+
+
+Summary LIBNDCTL Diagram
+------------------------
+
+For the given example above, here is the view of the objects as seen by the LIBNDCTL api:
+            +---+
+            |CTX|    +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+            +-+-+  +-> REGION0 +---> NAMESPACE0.0 +--> PMEM8 "pm0.0" |
+              |    | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
++-------+     |    | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+| DIMM0 <-+   |    +-> REGION1 +---> NAMESPACE1.0 +--> PMEM6 "pm1.0" |
++-------+ |   |    | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+| DIMM1 <-+ +-v--+ | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
++-------+ +-+BUS0+---> REGION2 +-+-> NAMESPACE2.0 +--> ND6  "blk2.0" |
+| DIMM2 <-+ +----+ | +---------+ | +--------------+  +----------------------+
++-------+ |        |             +-> NAMESPACE2.1 +--> ND5  "blk2.1" | BTT2 |
+| DIMM3 <-+        |               +--------------+  +----------------------+
++-------+          | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+                   +-> REGION3 +-+-> NAMESPACE3.0 +--> ND4  "blk3.0" |
+                   | +---------+ | +--------------+  +----------------------+
+                   |             +-> NAMESPACE3.1 +--> ND3  "blk3.1" | BTT1 |
+                   |               +--------------+  +----------------------+
+                   | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+                   +-> REGION4 +---> NAMESPACE4.0 +--> ND2  "blk4.0" |
+                   | +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+
+                   | +---------+   +--------------+  +----------------------+
+                   +-> REGION5 +---> NAMESPACE5.0 +--> ND1  "blk5.0" | BTT0 |
+                     +---------+   +--------------+  +---------------+------+
+
+