Documentation/filesystems/ext4/mmp.rst
Source file repositories/reference/linux-study-clean/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/mmp.rst
File Facts
- System
- Linux kernel
- Corpus path
Documentation/filesystems/ext4/mmp.rst- Extension
.rst- Size
- 2561 bytes
- Lines
- 78
- Domain
- Support Tooling And Documentation
- Bucket
- Documentation
- Inferred role
- Support Tooling And Documentation: documentation
- Status
- atlas-only
Why This File Exists
Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
- Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
- Defines or uses C structs; map object ownership, embedded links, reference counts, and lock ownership.
Dependency Surface
- No C-style include directives detected by the generator.
Detected Declarations
- No top-level syscall, struct, function, initcall, or export declaration detected by the generator.
Annotated Snippet
.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
Multiple Mount Protection
-------------------------
Multiple mount protection (MMP) is a feature that protects the
filesystem against multiple hosts trying to use the filesystem
simultaneously. When a filesystem is opened (for mounting, or fsck,
etc.), the MMP code running on the node (call it node A) checks a
sequence number. If the sequence number is EXT4_MMP_SEQ_CLEAN, the
open continues. If the sequence number is EXT4_MMP_SEQ_FSCK, then
fsck is (hopefully) running, and open fails immediately. Otherwise, the
open code will wait for twice the specified MMP check interval and check
the sequence number again. If the sequence number has changed, then the
filesystem is active on another machine and the open fails. If the MMP
code passes all of those checks, a new MMP sequence number is generated
and written to the MMP block, and the mount proceeds.
While the filesystem is live, the kernel sets up a timer to re-check the
MMP block at the specified MMP check interval. To perform the re-check,
the MMP sequence number is re-read; if it does not match the in-memory
MMP sequence number, then another node (node B) has mounted the
filesystem, and node A remounts the filesystem read-only. If the
sequence numbers match, the sequence number is incremented both in
memory and on disk, and the re-check is complete.
The hostname and device filename are written into the MMP block whenever
an open operation succeeds. The MMP code does not use these values; they
are provided purely for informational purposes.
The checksum is calculated against the FS UUID and the MMP structure.
The MMP structure (``struct mmp_struct``) is as follows:
.. list-table::
:widths: 8 12 20 40
:header-rows: 1
* - Offset
- Type
- Name
- Description
* - 0x0
- __le32
- mmp_magic
- Magic number for MMP, 0x004D4D50 (“MMP”).
* - 0x4
- __le32
- mmp_seq
- Sequence number, updated periodically.
* - 0x8
- __le64
- mmp_time
- Time that the MMP block was last updated.
* - 0x10
- char[64]
- mmp_nodename
- Hostname of the node that opened the filesystem.
* - 0x50
- char[32]
- mmp_bdevname
- Block device name of the filesystem.
* - 0x70
- __le16
- mmp_check_interval
- The MMP re-check interval, in seconds.
* - 0x72
- __le16
- mmp_pad1
- Zero.
* - 0x74
Annotation
- Atlas domain: Support Tooling And Documentation / Documentation.
- Implementation status: atlas-only.
Implementation Notes
- This generated page is the file-by-file coverage layer; curated subsystem chapters should link here when they synthesize a multi-file control flow.
- Core OS pages should be promoted from atlas-only to deep-reviewed when they explain data structures, invariants, locking, lifecycle, and C implementation snippets.
- Driver-family pages are intentionally pattern-oriented unless they are part of the selected PCIe/NVMe representative device path.