libnvme User Library

libnvme is an open source user library that provides definitions and functions for interacting with nvme devices. nvme-cli provides convenient ways for a user to interact with nvme devices from the shell, and libnvme provides similiar access for other programs.

Overview

libnvme provides functions for discovering and managing all nvme devices in a Linux environment. When the NVMe ZNS specification was ratified, libnvme incorporated definitions for all the types and commands that the NVMe ZNS specification provides.

The library can be used to construct nvme passthrough commands and to dispatch these through the Linux nvme driver. For commands that return data, the library provides structures and enumerations to help decode the payloads.

Library Functions

All of the ZNS functions provided by libnvme are prefixed with the nvme_zns_ name. The following are the admin commands defined from the ZNS specifcation:

Function	Description
nvme_zns_identify_ns()	Retrieves the nvme_zns_id_ns structure
nvme_zns_identify_ctrl()	Retrieves the nvme_zns_id_ctrl structure
nvme_zns_get_log_changed_zones()	Retrieves the nvme_zns_changed_zone_log structure

In addition to admin commands, ZNS also defines new IO commands, and libnvme provides the following APIs to send them:

Function	Description
nvme_zns_append()	Append data to a zone
nvme_zns_mgmt_send()	Requests an action on one or all zones
nvme_zns_mgmt_recv()	Returns data containing information about zones

Here is a list of the types of actions that the nvme_zns_mgmt_send() function can perform:

Action	Description
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_CLOSE	Sets the zone state to Close
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_FINISH	Sets the zone state to Full
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_OPEN	Sets the zone state to Open
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_RESET	Sets the zone state to Empty
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_OFFLINE	Sets the zone state to Offline
NVME_ZNS_ZSA_SET_DESC_EXT	Sets the zone descriptor extention data, if available

Library Types

ZNS created new constant types and structures. The following are the structures provided by libnvme from the ZNS specification:

Structure	Description
nvme_zns_id_ns	ZNS specific Namespace Identification, returned from nvme_zns_identify_ns()
nvme_zns_id_ctrl	ZNS specific Controller Identification, returned from nvme_zns_identify_ctrl()
nvme_zns_changed_zone_log	Log page that indicaties if a zone descriptor has changed for one or more zones, returned from nvme_zns_get_log_changed_zones()
nvme_zone_report	Provides the structure returned from a ZNS Report Zones command, returned from nvme_zns_mgmt_recv()

Additional Documentation

libnvme provides more detailed documentation for all functions and types in html and man pages.