ioctl EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT checkpoints and flushes the journal. This
includes forcing all the transactions to the log, checkpointing the
transactions, and flushing the log to disk. This ioctl takes u32 "flags"
as an argument. Three flags are supported. EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_DRY_RUN
can be used to verify input to the ioctl. It returns error if there is any
invalid input, otherwise it returns success without performing
any checkpointing. The other two flags, EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_DISCARD
and EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_ZEROOUT, can be used to issue requests to
discard or zeroout the journal logs blocks, respectively. At this
point, EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_ZEROOUT is primarily added to enable
testing of this codepath on devices that don't support discard.
EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_DISCARD and EXT4_IOC_CHECKPOINT_FLAG_ZEROOUT
cannot both be set.

Systems that wish to achieve content deletion SLO can set up a daemon
that calls this ioctl at a regular interval such that it matches with the
SLO requirement. Thus, with this patch, the ext4_dir_entry2 wipeout
patch[1], and the Ext4 "-o discard" mount option set, Ext4 can now
guarantee that all file contents, file metatdata, and filenames will not
be accessible through the filesystem and will have had discard or
zeroout requests issued for corresponding device blocks.

The __jbd2_journal_erase function could also be used to discard or
zero-fill the journal during journal load after recovery. This would
provide a potential solution to a journal replay bug reported earlier this
year[2]. After a successful journal recovery, e2fsck can call this ioctl to
discard the journal as well.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-ext4/YIHknqxngB1sUdie@mit.edu/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-ext4/YDZoaacIYStFQT8g@mit.edu/

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20210518151327.130198-2-leah.rumancik@gmail.comSigned-off-by: Leah Rumancik <leah.rumancik@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>