1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git synced 2025-01-26 18:43:33 -05:00
linux/Documentation
Anton Vorontsov 70ddf637ee memcg: add memory.pressure_level events
With this patch userland applications that want to maintain the
interactivity/memory allocation cost can use the pressure level
notifications.  The levels are defined like this:

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.)

Performance wise, the memory pressure notifications feature itself is
lightweight and does not require much of bookkeeping, in contrast to the
rest of memcg features.  Unfortunately, as of current memcg
implementation, pages accounting is an inseparable part and cannot be
turned off.  The good news is that there are some efforts[1] to improve
the situation; plus, implementing the same, fully API-compatible[2]
interface for CONFIG_MEMCG=n case (e.g.  embedded) is also a viable
option, so it will not require any changes on the userland side.

[1] http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.cgroups/6291
[2] http://lkml.org/lkml/2013/2/21/454

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix CONFIG_CGROPUPS=n warnings]
Signed-off-by: Anton Vorontsov <anton.vorontsov@linaro.org>
Acked-by: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill@shutemov.name>
Acked-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Glauber Costa <glommer@parallels.com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
Cc: Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com>
Cc: Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Cc: Leonid Moiseichuk <leonid.moiseichuk@nokia.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@gmail.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <b.zolnierkie@samsung.com>
Cc: John Stultz <john.stultz@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-04-29 15:54:38 -07:00
..
ABI USB patches for 3.10-rc1 2013-04-29 12:19:23 -07:00
accounting
acpi
aoe
arm
arm64
auxdisplay
backlight
blackfin
block
blockdev
bus-devices
cdrom
cgroups memcg: add memory.pressure_level events 2013-04-29 15:54:38 -07:00
connector
console
cpu-freq
cpuidle
cris
crypto
development-process
device-mapper
devicetree USB patches for 3.10-rc1 2013-04-29 12:19:23 -07:00
DocBook
driver-model
dvb
early-userspace
EDID
extcon
fault-injection
fb
filesystems
firmware_class
frv
hid
hwmon hwmon: (tmp401) Add support for TMP432 2013-04-21 08:56:48 -07:00
i2c
i2o
ia64
ide
infiniband
input
ioctl
isdn
ja_JP
kbuild
kdump
ko_KR
laptops
leds
m68k
make
memory-devices
metag
mips
misc-devices
mmc
mn10300
mtd
namespaces
netlabel
networking
nfc
parisc
PCI
pcmcia
power
powerpc
pps
prctl
pti
ptp
rapidio
RCU
s390
scheduler
scsi
security
serial
sh
sound
spi
sysctl mm: replace hardcoded 3% with admin_reserve_pages knob 2013-04-29 15:54:36 -07:00
target
thermal
timers
trace
usb
vDSO
video4linux
virtual
vm mm: limit growth of 3% hardcoded other user reserve 2013-04-29 15:54:36 -07:00
w1
watchdog
wimax
x86
xtensa
zh_CN
.gitignore
00-INDEX
applying-patches.txt
atomic_ops.txt
bad_memory.txt
basic_profiling.txt
binfmt_misc.txt
braille-console.txt
bt8xxgpio.txt
btmrvl.txt
BUG-HUNTING
bus-virt-phys-mapping.txt
cachetlb.txt
Changes
circular-buffers.txt
clk.txt
coccinelle.txt
CodingStyle
cpu-hotplug.txt
cpu-load.txt
cputopology.txt
crc32.txt
dcdbas.txt
debugging-modules.txt
debugging-via-ohci1394.txt
dell_rbu.txt
devices.txt
digsig.txt
DMA-API-HOWTO.txt
DMA-API.txt
DMA-attributes.txt
dma-buf-sharing.txt
DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
dmaengine.txt
dontdiff
dynamic-debug-howto.txt
edac.txt
eisa.txt
email-clients.txt
flexible-arrays.txt
futex-requeue-pi.txt
gcov.txt
gpio.txt
highuid.txt
HOWTO
hw_random.txt
hwspinlock.txt
init.txt
initrd.txt
Intel-IOMMU.txt
intel_txt.txt
io-mapping.txt
io_ordering.txt
iostats.txt
IPMI.txt
IRQ-affinity.txt
IRQ-domain.txt
IRQ.txt
irqflags-tracing.txt
isapnp.txt
java.txt
kernel-doc-nano-HOWTO.txt
kernel-docs.txt
kernel-parameters.txt Merge branch 'x86-kdump-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2013-04-20 18:40:36 -07:00
kmemcheck.txt
kmemleak.txt
kobject.txt
kprobes.txt
kref.txt
ldm.txt
local_ops.txt
lockdep-design.txt
lockstat.txt
lockup-watchdogs.txt
logo.gif
logo.txt
magic-number.txt
Makefile
ManagementStyle
md.txt
media-framework.txt
memory-barriers.txt
memory-hotplug.txt
mono.txt
mutex-design.txt
nommu-mmap.txt
numastat.txt
oops-tracing.txt
padata.txt
parport-lowlevel.txt
parport.txt
percpu-rw-semaphore.txt
pi-futex.txt
pinctrl.txt
pnp.txt
preempt-locking.txt
printk-formats.txt
pwm.txt
ramoops.txt
rbtree.txt
remoteproc.txt
rfkill.txt
robust-futex-ABI.txt
robust-futexes.txt
rpmsg.txt
rt-mutex-design.txt
rt-mutex.txt
rtc.txt
SAK.txt
SecurityBugs
serial-console.txt
sgi-ioc4.txt
sgi-visws.txt
SM501.txt
smsc_ece1099.txt
sparse.txt
spinlocks.txt
stable_api_nonsense.txt
stable_kernel_rules.txt
static-keys.txt
SubmitChecklist
SubmittingDrivers
SubmittingPatches
svga.txt
sysfs-rules.txt
sysrq.txt
unaligned-memory-access.txt
unicode.txt
unshare.txt
vfio.txt
VGA-softcursor.txt
vgaarbiter.txt
video-output.txt
vme_api.txt
volatile-considered-harmful.txt
workqueue.txt
xz.txt
zorro.txt