BLKSNAP - Block Devices Snapshots Module

• Extended description and features
• Repository structure
• Licensing
• Kernel module
• Upstream kernel integration
• Tools
• Library
• Tests
  • Details:
    • Boundary
    • Corrupt
    • Diff storage
• Compatibility notes
• Contributing

Repository structure

• doc/ - Documentation
• include/ - Libraries public headers
• lib/ - Libraries sources
• module/ - Sources of kernel module
• patches/ - Patches for the upstream linux kernel
• pkg/ - Scripts for building deb and rpm packages
• tests/ - Test scripts and tests source code
• tools/ - Source files of tools for working with blksnap

Licensing

Kernel module is GPL-2 only, tools and tests are GPL-2+, library and include are LGPL-3+.

Copyright (C) 2022 Veeam Software Group GmbH

This project use SPDX License Identifier in source files header.

Kernel module

This kernel module implements snapshot and changed block tracking functionality. The module is developed with the condition of simply adding it to the upstream. Therefore, the module is divided into two parts: bdevfilter and blksnap. bdevfilter provides the ability to intercept I/O units (bio). The main logic is concentrated in blksnap. The upstream variant does not contain a bdevfilter, but accesses the kernel to attach and detach the block device filter.

Relating the work in progress for integration in upstream kernel see the specific README

How to build

Installing the necessary deb packages.

sudo apt install gcc linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Or installing the necessary rpm packages.

sudo yum install gcc kernel-devel

cd ./module
mk.sh build

In directory current directory you can found bdevfilter.ko and blksnap.ko.

How to install

cd ./module
mk.sh install-flt
mk.sh install

How to create deb package

sudo apt install debhelper dkms
# on debian >=12 and ubuntu >= 23.04 is needed dh-dkms, not installed anymore as dkms dep.
sudo apt install dh-dkms
cd ./pkg/deb
./build-blksnap-dkms.sh ${VERSION}

How to create rpm package

There are several variants, look in the ./pkg/rpm directory.

Tools

The blksnap tools allows you to manage the module from the command line. The program allows for execution of individual ioctls of the blksnap module. The interface of the program may seem inconvenient to the user, since it is assumed that it will be called by other applications.

How to build

See how to build library, tools and tests

Library

The dynamic C library is not needed to work with blksnap. File ./include/blksnap/blksnap.h contains everything you need to work with blksnap. But to demonstrate how to call the ioctl, a static c++ library was created. The library can also help you quickly create a working prototype. In the project, the library is used for tests.

How to build

See how to build library, tools and tests

Tests

The test scripts are written in bash and use the blksnap tool to control the blksnap module. The test scripts allow to check the main functions of the module. To implement complex test algorithms, С++ tests are implemented. C++ tests use the static library libblksnap.a and it must be compiled to build С++ tests.

How to build

See how to build library, tools and tests

How to run all usage tests

# change working directory to the tests one, for example for debian package is /opt/blksnap/tests
cd /opt/blksnap/tests
# execute all tests script
sudo ./all.sh
# or for logging the output to a file
sudo ./all.sh 2>&1 | tee -a /tmp/blksnap_test_$(date -u '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').log

How to build library, tools and tests

Installing the necessary deb packages.

sudo apt install g++ cmake uuid-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libssl-dev

Or installing the necessary rpm packages.

sudo yum install g++ cmake libuuid-devel boost-static libstdc++-static openssl-static

Build.

cmake .
make

Install (but it is recommended to use packages instead, for example the debian ones)

sudo make install

Uninstall (if needed)

sudo make uninstall

How to create dev, tools and tests deb packages

sudo apt install g++ cmake uuid-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libssl-dev debhelper
cd ./pkg/deb
./build-blksnap.sh ${VERSION}

Compatibility notes

• blksnap kernel module support kernel versions >= 5.10, support only X86 archs, blksnap for upstream instead can support any arch (other archs need to be tested)
• all supported debian and ubuntu supported versions are supported but with some notes:
  • not all have debian/ubuntu versions have official packages of kernel >= 5.10, so an unofficial or custom ones more updated are needed, with blksnap-dkms should be still possible easy/fast build/install blksnap module on them (is also possible build/install it manually without dkms)
  • debian 8 and ubuntu 14.04 needs to install cmake 3 from backports to build