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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt | 70 |
1 files changed, 69 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt index 8b8c28b9864c..f336ede58e62 100644 --- a/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt +++ b/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt @@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ Features: - soft limit - moving (recharging) account at moving a task is selectable. - usage threshold notifier + - memory pressure notifier - oom-killer disable knob and oom-notifier - Root cgroup has no limit controls. @@ -65,6 +66,7 @@ Brief summary of control files. memory.stat # show various statistics memory.use_hierarchy # set/show hierarchical account enabled memory.force_empty # trigger forced move charge to parent + memory.pressure_level # set memory pressure notifications memory.swappiness # set/show swappiness parameter of vmscan (See sysctl's vm.swappiness) memory.move_charge_at_immigrate # set/show controls of moving charges @@ -762,7 +764,73 @@ At reading, current status of OOM is shown. under_oom 0 or 1 (if 1, the memory cgroup is under OOM, tasks may be stopped.) -11. TODO +11. Memory Pressure + +The pressure level notifications can be used to monitor the memory +allocation cost; based on the pressure, applications can implement +different strategies of managing their memory resources. The pressure +levels are defined as following: + +The "low" level means that the system is reclaiming memory for new +allocations. Monitoring this reclaiming activity might be useful for +maintaining cache level. Upon notification, the program (typically +"Activity Manager") might analyze vmstat and act in advance (i.e. +prematurely shutdown unimportant services). + +The "medium" level means that the system is experiencing medium memory +pressure, the system might be making swap, paging out active file caches, +etc. Upon this event applications may decide to further analyze +vmstat/zoneinfo/memcg or internal memory usage statistics and free any +resources that can be easily reconstructed or re-read from a disk. + +The "critical" level means that the system is actively thrashing, it is +about to out of memory (OOM) or even the in-kernel OOM killer is on its +way to trigger. Applications should do whatever they can to help the +system. It might be too late to consult with vmstat or any other +statistics, so it's advisable to take an immediate action. + +The events are propagated upward until the event is handled, i.e. the +events are not pass-through. Here is what this means: for example you have +three cgroups: A->B->C. Now you set up an event listener on cgroups A, B +and C, and suppose group C experiences some pressure. In this situation, +only group C will receive the notification, i.e. groups A and B will not +receive it. This is done to avoid excessive "broadcasting" of messages, +which disturbs the system and which is especially bad if we are low on +memory or thrashing. So, organize the cgroups wisely, or propagate the +events manually (or, ask us to implement the pass-through events, +explaining why would you need them.) + +The file memory.pressure_level is only used to setup an eventfd. To +register a notification, an application must: + +- create an eventfd using eventfd(2); +- open memory.pressure_level; +- write string like "<event_fd> <fd of memory.pressure_level> <level>" + to cgroup.event_control. + +Application will be notified through eventfd when memory pressure is at +the specific level (or higher). Read/write operations to +memory.pressure_level are no implemented. + +Test: + + Here is a small script example that makes a new cgroup, sets up a + memory limit, sets up a notification in the cgroup and then makes child + cgroup experience a critical pressure: + + # cd /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/ + # mkdir foo + # cd foo + # cgroup_event_listener memory.pressure_level low & + # echo 8000000 > memory.limit_in_bytes + # echo 8000000 > memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes + # echo $$ > tasks + # dd if=/dev/zero | read x + + (Expect a bunch of notifications, and eventually, the oom-killer will + trigger.) + +12. TODO 1. Add support for accounting huge pages (as a separate controller) 2. Make per-cgroup scanner reclaim not-shared pages first |