The patch titled cgroups: consolidate cgroup documents has been removed from the -mm tree. Its filename was cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents.patch This patch was dropped because it was merged into mainline or a subsystem tree The current -mm tree may be found at http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/ ------------------------------------------------------ Subject: cgroups: consolidate cgroup documents From: Li Zefan <lizf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Move Documentation/cpusets.txt and Documentation/controllers/* to Documentation/cgroups/ Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Balbir Singh <balbir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Paul Menage <menage@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt | 5 Documentation/cgroups/cpuacct.txt | 32 Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt | 808 +++++++++++++++ Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt | 52 Documentation/cgroups/memcg_test.txt | 342 ++++++ Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt | 399 +++++++ Documentation/cgroups/resource_counter.txt | 181 +++ Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt | 32 Documentation/controllers/devices.txt | 52 Documentation/controllers/memcg_test.txt | 342 ------ Documentation/controllers/memory.txt | 399 ------- Documentation/controllers/resource_counter.txt | 181 --- Documentation/cpusets.txt | 808 --------------- Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt | 2 include/linux/res_counter.h | 2 init/Kconfig | 9 kernel/cpuset.c | 2 17 files changed, 1824 insertions(+), 1824 deletions(-) diff -puN Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt --- a/Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt @@ -1,7 +1,8 @@ CGROUPS ------- -Written by Paul Menage <menage@xxxxxxxxxx> based on Documentation/cpusets.txt +Written by Paul Menage <menage@xxxxxxxxxx> based on +Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt Original copyright statements from cpusets.txt: Portions Copyright (C) 2004 BULL SA. @@ -68,7 +69,7 @@ On their own, the only use for cgroups i tracking. The intention is that other subsystems hook into the generic cgroup support to provide new attributes for cgroups, such as accounting/limiting the resources which processes in a cgroup can -access. For example, cpusets (see Documentation/cpusets.txt) allows +access. For example, cpusets (see Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt) allows you to associate a set of CPUs and a set of memory nodes with the tasks in each cgroup. diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/cpuacct.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/cpuacct.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +CPU Accounting Controller +------------------------- + +The CPU accounting controller is used to group tasks using cgroups and +account the CPU usage of these groups of tasks. + +The CPU accounting controller supports multi-hierarchy groups. An accounting +group accumulates the CPU usage of all of its child groups and the tasks +directly present in its group. + +Accounting groups can be created by first mounting the cgroup filesystem. + +# mkdir /cgroups +# mount -t cgroup -ocpuacct none /cgroups + +With the above step, the initial or the parent accounting group +becomes visible at /cgroups. At bootup, this group includes all the +tasks in the system. /cgroups/tasks lists the tasks in this cgroup. +/cgroups/cpuacct.usage gives the CPU time (in nanoseconds) obtained by +this group which is essentially the CPU time obtained by all the tasks +in the system. + +New accounting groups can be created under the parent group /cgroups. + +# cd /cgroups +# mkdir g1 +# echo $$ > g1 + +The above steps create a new group g1 and move the current shell +process (bash) into it. CPU time consumed by this bash and its children +can be obtained from g1/cpuacct.usage and the same is accumulated in +/cgroups/cpuacct.usage also. diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt @@ -0,0 +1,808 @@ + CPUSETS + ------- + +Copyright (C) 2004 BULL SA. +Written by Simon.Derr@xxxxxxxx + +Portions Copyright (c) 2004-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc. +Modified by Paul Jackson <pj@xxxxxxx> +Modified by Christoph Lameter <clameter@xxxxxxx> +Modified by Paul Menage <menage@xxxxxxxxxx> +Modified by Hidetoshi Seto <seto.hidetoshi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> + +CONTENTS: +========= + +1. Cpusets + 1.1 What are cpusets ? + 1.2 Why are cpusets needed ? + 1.3 How are cpusets implemented ? + 1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ? + 1.5 What is memory_pressure ? + 1.6 What is memory spread ? + 1.7 What is sched_load_balance ? + 1.8 What is sched_relax_domain_level ? + 1.9 How do I use cpusets ? +2. Usage Examples and Syntax + 2.1 Basic Usage + 2.2 Adding/removing cpus + 2.3 Setting flags + 2.4 Attaching processes +3. Questions +4. Contact + +1. Cpusets +========== + +1.1 What are cpusets ? +---------------------- + +Cpusets provide a mechanism for assigning a set of CPUs and Memory +Nodes to a set of tasks. In this document "Memory Node" refers to +an on-line node that contains memory. + +Cpusets constrain the CPU and Memory placement of tasks to only +the resources within a tasks current cpuset. They form a nested +hierarchy visible in a virtual file system. These are the essential +hooks, beyond what is already present, required to manage dynamic +job placement on large systems. + +Cpusets use the generic cgroup subsystem described in +Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt. + +Requests by a task, using the sched_setaffinity(2) system call to +include CPUs in its CPU affinity mask, and using the mbind(2) and +set_mempolicy(2) system calls to include Memory Nodes in its memory +policy, are both filtered through that tasks cpuset, filtering out any +CPUs or Memory Nodes not in that cpuset. The scheduler will not +schedule a task on a CPU that is not allowed in its cpus_allowed +vector, and the kernel page allocator will not allocate a page on a +node that is not allowed in the requesting tasks mems_allowed vector. + +User level code may create and destroy cpusets by name in the cgroup +virtual file system, manage the attributes and permissions of these +cpusets and which CPUs and Memory Nodes are assigned to each cpuset, +specify and query to which cpuset a task is assigned, and list the +task pids assigned to a cpuset. + + +1.2 Why are cpusets needed ? +---------------------------- + +The management of large computer systems, with many processors (CPUs), +complex memory cache hierarchies and multiple Memory Nodes having +non-uniform access times (NUMA) presents additional challenges for +the efficient scheduling and memory placement of processes. + +Frequently more modest sized systems can be operated with adequate +efficiency just by letting the operating system automatically share +the available CPU and Memory resources amongst the requesting tasks. + +But larger systems, which benefit more from careful processor and +memory placement to reduce memory access times and contention, +and which typically represent a larger investment for the customer, +can benefit from explicitly placing jobs on properly sized subsets of +the system. + +This can be especially valuable on: + + * Web Servers running multiple instances of the same web application, + * Servers running different applications (for instance, a web server + and a database), or + * NUMA systems running large HPC applications with demanding + performance characteristics. + +These subsets, or "soft partitions" must be able to be dynamically +adjusted, as the job mix changes, without impacting other concurrently +executing jobs. The location of the running jobs pages may also be moved +when the memory locations are changed. + +The kernel cpuset patch provides the minimum essential kernel +mechanisms required to efficiently implement such subsets. It +leverages existing CPU and Memory Placement facilities in the Linux +kernel to avoid any additional impact on the critical scheduler or +memory allocator code. + + +1.3 How are cpusets implemented ? +--------------------------------- + +Cpusets provide a Linux kernel mechanism to constrain which CPUs and +Memory Nodes are used by a process or set of processes. + +The Linux kernel already has a pair of mechanisms to specify on which +CPUs a task may be scheduled (sched_setaffinity) and on which Memory +Nodes it may obtain memory (mbind, set_mempolicy). + +Cpusets extends these two mechanisms as follows: + + - Cpusets are sets of allowed CPUs and Memory Nodes, known to the + kernel. + - Each task in the system is attached to a cpuset, via a pointer + in the task structure to a reference counted cgroup structure. + - Calls to sched_setaffinity are filtered to just those CPUs + allowed in that tasks cpuset. + - Calls to mbind and set_mempolicy are filtered to just + those Memory Nodes allowed in that tasks cpuset. + - The root cpuset contains all the systems CPUs and Memory + Nodes. + - For any cpuset, one can define child cpusets containing a subset + of the parents CPU and Memory Node resources. + - The hierarchy of cpusets can be mounted at /dev/cpuset, for + browsing and manipulation from user space. + - A cpuset may be marked exclusive, which ensures that no other + cpuset (except direct ancestors and descendents) may contain + any overlapping CPUs or Memory Nodes. + - You can list all the tasks (by pid) attached to any cpuset. + +The implementation of cpusets requires a few, simple hooks +into the rest of the kernel, none in performance critical paths: + + - in init/main.c, to initialize the root cpuset at system boot. + - in fork and exit, to attach and detach a task from its cpuset. + - in sched_setaffinity, to mask the requested CPUs by what's + allowed in that tasks cpuset. + - in sched.c migrate_all_tasks(), to keep migrating tasks within + the CPUs allowed by their cpuset, if possible. + - in the mbind and set_mempolicy system calls, to mask the requested + Memory Nodes by what's allowed in that tasks cpuset. + - in page_alloc.c, to restrict memory to allowed nodes. + - in vmscan.c, to restrict page recovery to the current cpuset. + +You should mount the "cgroup" filesystem type in order to enable +browsing and modifying the cpusets presently known to the kernel. No +new system calls are added for cpusets - all support for querying and +modifying cpusets is via this cpuset file system. + +The /proc/<pid>/status file for each task has four added lines, +displaying the tasks cpus_allowed (on which CPUs it may be scheduled) +and mems_allowed (on which Memory Nodes it may obtain memory), +in the two formats seen in the following example: + + Cpus_allowed: ffffffff,ffffffff,ffffffff,ffffffff + Cpus_allowed_list: 0-127 + Mems_allowed: ffffffff,ffffffff + Mems_allowed_list: 0-63 + +Each cpuset is represented by a directory in the cgroup file system +containing (on top of the standard cgroup files) the following +files describing that cpuset: + + - cpus: list of CPUs in that cpuset + - mems: list of Memory Nodes in that cpuset + - memory_migrate flag: if set, move pages to cpusets nodes + - cpu_exclusive flag: is cpu placement exclusive? + - mem_exclusive flag: is memory placement exclusive? + - mem_hardwall flag: is memory allocation hardwalled + - memory_pressure: measure of how much paging pressure in cpuset + +In addition, the root cpuset only has the following file: + - memory_pressure_enabled flag: compute memory_pressure? + +New cpusets are created using the mkdir system call or shell +command. The properties of a cpuset, such as its flags, allowed +CPUs and Memory Nodes, and attached tasks, are modified by writing +to the appropriate file in that cpusets directory, as listed above. + +The named hierarchical structure of nested cpusets allows partitioning +a large system into nested, dynamically changeable, "soft-partitions". + +The attachment of each task, automatically inherited at fork by any +children of that task, to a cpuset allows organizing the work load +on a system into related sets of tasks such that each set is constrained +to using the CPUs and Memory Nodes of a particular cpuset. A task +may be re-attached to any other cpuset, if allowed by the permissions +on the necessary cpuset file system directories. + +Such management of a system "in the large" integrates smoothly with +the detailed placement done on individual tasks and memory regions +using the sched_setaffinity, mbind and set_mempolicy system calls. + +The following rules apply to each cpuset: + + - Its CPUs and Memory Nodes must be a subset of its parents. + - It can't be marked exclusive unless its parent is. + - If its cpu or memory is exclusive, they may not overlap any sibling. + +These rules, and the natural hierarchy of cpusets, enable efficient +enforcement of the exclusive guarantee, without having to scan all +cpusets every time any of them change to ensure nothing overlaps a +exclusive cpuset. Also, the use of a Linux virtual file system (vfs) +to represent the cpuset hierarchy provides for a familiar permission +and name space for cpusets, with a minimum of additional kernel code. + +The cpus and mems files in the root (top_cpuset) cpuset are +read-only. The cpus file automatically tracks the value of +cpu_online_map using a CPU hotplug notifier, and the mems file +automatically tracks the value of node_states[N_HIGH_MEMORY]--i.e., +nodes with memory--using the cpuset_track_online_nodes() hook. + + +1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ? +-------------------------------- + +If a cpuset is cpu or mem exclusive, no other cpuset, other than +a direct ancestor or descendent, may share any of the same CPUs or +Memory Nodes. + +A cpuset that is mem_exclusive *or* mem_hardwall is "hardwalled", +i.e. it restricts kernel allocations for page, buffer and other data +commonly shared by the kernel across multiple users. All cpusets, +whether hardwalled or not, restrict allocations of memory for user +space. This enables configuring a system so that several independent +jobs can share common kernel data, such as file system pages, while +isolating each job's user allocation in its own cpuset. To do this, +construct a large mem_exclusive cpuset to hold all the jobs, and +construct child, non-mem_exclusive cpusets for each individual job. +Only a small amount of typical kernel memory, such as requests from +interrupt handlers, is allowed to be taken outside even a +mem_exclusive cpuset. + + +1.5 What is memory_pressure ? +----------------------------- +The memory_pressure of a cpuset provides a simple per-cpuset metric +of the rate that the tasks in a cpuset are attempting to free up in +use memory on the nodes of the cpuset to satisfy additional memory +requests. + +This enables batch managers monitoring jobs running in dedicated +cpusets to efficiently detect what level of memory pressure that job +is causing. + +This is useful both on tightly managed systems running a wide mix of +submitted jobs, which may choose to terminate or re-prioritize jobs that +are trying to use more memory than allowed on the nodes assigned them, +and with tightly coupled, long running, massively parallel scientific +computing jobs that will dramatically fail to meet required performance +goals if they start to use more memory than allowed to them. + +This mechanism provides a very economical way for the batch manager +to monitor a cpuset for signs of memory pressure. It's up to the +batch manager or other user code to decide what to do about it and +take action. + +==> Unless this feature is enabled by writing "1" to the special file + /dev/cpuset/memory_pressure_enabled, the hook in the rebalance + code of __alloc_pages() for this metric reduces to simply noticing + that the cpuset_memory_pressure_enabled flag is zero. So only + systems that enable this feature will compute the metric. + +Why a per-cpuset, running average: + + Because this meter is per-cpuset, rather than per-task or mm, + the system load imposed by a batch scheduler monitoring this + metric is sharply reduced on large systems, because a scan of + the tasklist can be avoided on each set of queries. + + Because this meter is a running average, instead of an accumulating + counter, a batch scheduler can detect memory pressure with a + single read, instead of having to read and accumulate results + for a period of time. + + Because this meter is per-cpuset rather than per-task or mm, + the batch scheduler can obtain the key information, memory + pressure in a cpuset, with a single read, rather than having to + query and accumulate results over all the (dynamically changing) + set of tasks in the cpuset. + +A per-cpuset simple digital filter (requires a spinlock and 3 words +of data per-cpuset) is kept, and updated by any task attached to that +cpuset, if it enters the synchronous (direct) page reclaim code. + +A per-cpuset file provides an integer number representing the recent +(half-life of 10 seconds) rate of direct page reclaims caused by +the tasks in the cpuset, in units of reclaims attempted per second, +times 1000. + + +1.6 What is memory spread ? +--------------------------- +There are two boolean flag files per cpuset that control where the +kernel allocates pages for the file system buffers and related in +kernel data structures. They are called 'memory_spread_page' and +'memory_spread_slab'. + +If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_page' is set, then +the kernel will spread the file system buffers (page cache) evenly +over all the nodes that the faulting task is allowed to use, instead +of preferring to put those pages on the node where the task is running. + +If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_slab' is set, +then the kernel will spread some file system related slab caches, +such as for inodes and dentries evenly over all the nodes that the +faulting task is allowed to use, instead of preferring to put those +pages on the node where the task is running. + +The setting of these flags does not affect anonymous data segment or +stack segment pages of a task. + +By default, both kinds of memory spreading are off, and memory +pages are allocated on the node local to where the task is running, +except perhaps as modified by the tasks NUMA mempolicy or cpuset +configuration, so long as sufficient free memory pages are available. + +When new cpusets are created, they inherit the memory spread settings +of their parent. + +Setting memory spreading causes allocations for the affected page +or slab caches to ignore the tasks NUMA mempolicy and be spread +instead. Tasks using mbind() or set_mempolicy() calls to set NUMA +mempolicies will not notice any change in these calls as a result of +their containing tasks memory spread settings. If memory spreading +is turned off, then the currently specified NUMA mempolicy once again +applies to memory page allocations. + +Both 'memory_spread_page' and 'memory_spread_slab' are boolean flag +files. By default they contain "0", meaning that the feature is off +for that cpuset. If a "1" is written to that file, then that turns +the named feature on. + +The implementation is simple. + +Setting the flag 'memory_spread_page' turns on a per-process flag +PF_SPREAD_PAGE for each task that is in that cpuset or subsequently +joins that cpuset. The page allocation calls for the page cache +is modified to perform an inline check for this PF_SPREAD_PAGE task +flag, and if set, a call to a new routine cpuset_mem_spread_node() +returns the node to prefer for the allocation. + +Similarly, setting 'memory_spread_slab' turns on the flag +PF_SPREAD_SLAB, and appropriately marked slab caches will allocate +pages from the node returned by cpuset_mem_spread_node(). + +The cpuset_mem_spread_node() routine is also simple. It uses the +value of a per-task rotor cpuset_mem_spread_rotor to select the next +node in the current tasks mems_allowed to prefer for the allocation. + +This memory placement policy is also known (in other contexts) as +round-robin or interleave. + +This policy can provide substantial improvements for jobs that need +to place thread local data on the corresponding node, but that need +to access large file system data sets that need to be spread across +the several nodes in the jobs cpuset in order to fit. Without this +policy, especially for jobs that might have one thread reading in the +data set, the memory allocation across the nodes in the jobs cpuset +can become very uneven. + +1.7 What is sched_load_balance ? +-------------------------------- + +The kernel scheduler (kernel/sched.c) automatically load balances +tasks. If one CPU is underutilized, kernel code running on that +CPU will look for tasks on other more overloaded CPUs and move those +tasks to itself, within the constraints of such placement mechanisms +as cpusets and sched_setaffinity. + +The algorithmic cost of load balancing and its impact on key shared +kernel data structures such as the task list increases more than +linearly with the number of CPUs being balanced. So the scheduler +has support to partition the systems CPUs into a number of sched +domains such that it only load balances within each sched domain. +Each sched domain covers some subset of the CPUs in the system; +no two sched domains overlap; some CPUs might not be in any sched +domain and hence won't be load balanced. + +Put simply, it costs less to balance between two smaller sched domains +than one big one, but doing so means that overloads in one of the +two domains won't be load balanced to the other one. + +By default, there is one sched domain covering all CPUs, except those +marked isolated using the kernel boot time "isolcpus=" argument. + +This default load balancing across all CPUs is not well suited for +the following two situations: + 1) On large systems, load balancing across many CPUs is expensive. + If the system is managed using cpusets to place independent jobs + on separate sets of CPUs, full load balancing is unnecessary. + 2) Systems supporting realtime on some CPUs need to minimize + system overhead on those CPUs, including avoiding task load + balancing if that is not needed. + +When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is enabled (the default +setting), it requests that all the CPUs in that cpusets allowed 'cpus' +be contained in a single sched domain, ensuring that load balancing +can move a task (not otherwised pinned, as by sched_setaffinity) +from any CPU in that cpuset to any other. + +When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is disabled, then the +scheduler will avoid load balancing across the CPUs in that cpuset, +--except-- in so far as is necessary because some overlapping cpuset +has "sched_load_balance" enabled. + +So, for example, if the top cpuset has the flag "sched_load_balance" +enabled, then the scheduler will have one sched domain covering all +CPUs, and the setting of the "sched_load_balance" flag in any other +cpusets won't matter, as we're already fully load balancing. + +Therefore in the above two situations, the top cpuset flag +"sched_load_balance" should be disabled, and only some of the smaller, +child cpusets have this flag enabled. + +When doing this, you don't usually want to leave any unpinned tasks in +the top cpuset that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU, as such tasks +may be artificially constrained to some subset of CPUs, depending on +the particulars of this flag setting in descendent cpusets. Even if +such a task could use spare CPU cycles in some other CPUs, the kernel +scheduler might not consider the possibility of load balancing that +task to that underused CPU. + +Of course, tasks pinned to a particular CPU can be left in a cpuset +that disables "sched_load_balance" as those tasks aren't going anywhere +else anyway. + +There is an impedance mismatch here, between cpusets and sched domains. +Cpusets are hierarchical and nest. Sched domains are flat; they don't +overlap and each CPU is in at most one sched domain. + +It is necessary for sched domains to be flat because load balancing +across partially overlapping sets of CPUs would risk unstable dynamics +that would be beyond our understanding. So if each of two partially +overlapping cpusets enables the flag 'sched_load_balance', then we +form a single sched domain that is a superset of both. We won't move +a task to a CPU outside it cpuset, but the scheduler load balancing +code might waste some compute cycles considering that possibility. + +This mismatch is why there is not a simple one-to-one relation +between which cpusets have the flag "sched_load_balance" enabled, +and the sched domain configuration. If a cpuset enables the flag, it +will get balancing across all its CPUs, but if it disables the flag, +it will only be assured of no load balancing if no other overlapping +cpuset enables the flag. + +If two cpusets have partially overlapping 'cpus' allowed, and only +one of them has this flag enabled, then the other may find its +tasks only partially load balanced, just on the overlapping CPUs. +This is just the general case of the top_cpuset example given a few +paragraphs above. In the general case, as in the top cpuset case, +don't leave tasks that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU in +such partially load balanced cpusets, as they may be artificially +constrained to some subset of the CPUs allowed to them, for lack of +load balancing to the other CPUs. + +1.7.1 sched_load_balance implementation details. +------------------------------------------------ + +The per-cpuset flag 'sched_load_balance' defaults to enabled (contrary +to most cpuset flags.) When enabled for a cpuset, the kernel will +ensure that it can load balance across all the CPUs in that cpuset +(makes sure that all the CPUs in the cpus_allowed of that cpuset are +in the same sched domain.) + +If two overlapping cpusets both have 'sched_load_balance' enabled, +then they will be (must be) both in the same sched domain. + +If, as is the default, the top cpuset has 'sched_load_balance' enabled, +then by the above that means there is a single sched domain covering +the whole system, regardless of any other cpuset settings. + +The kernel commits to user space that it will avoid load balancing +where it can. It will pick as fine a granularity partition of sched +domains as it can while still providing load balancing for any set +of CPUs allowed to a cpuset having 'sched_load_balance' enabled. + +The internal kernel cpuset to scheduler interface passes from the +cpuset code to the scheduler code a partition of the load balanced +CPUs in the system. This partition is a set of subsets (represented +as an array of cpumask_t) of CPUs, pairwise disjoint, that cover all +the CPUs that must be load balanced. + +Whenever the 'sched_load_balance' flag changes, or CPUs come or go +from a cpuset with this flag enabled, or a cpuset with this flag +enabled is removed, the cpuset code builds a new such partition and +passes it to the scheduler sched domain setup code, to have the sched +domains rebuilt as necessary. + +This partition exactly defines what sched domains the scheduler should +setup - one sched domain for each element (cpumask_t) in the partition. + +The scheduler remembers the currently active sched domain partitions. +When the scheduler routine partition_sched_domains() is invoked from +the cpuset code to update these sched domains, it compares the new +partition requested with the current, and updates its sched domains, +removing the old and adding the new, for each change. + + +1.8 What is sched_relax_domain_level ? +-------------------------------------- + +In sched domain, the scheduler migrates tasks in 2 ways; periodic load +balance on tick, and at time of some schedule events. + +When a task is woken up, scheduler try to move the task on idle CPU. +For example, if a task A running on CPU X activates another task B +on the same CPU X, and if CPU Y is X's sibling and performing idle, +then scheduler migrate task B to CPU Y so that task B can start on +CPU Y without waiting task A on CPU X. + +And if a CPU run out of tasks in its runqueue, the CPU try to pull +extra tasks from other busy CPUs to help them before it is going to +be idle. + +Of course it takes some searching cost to find movable tasks and/or +idle CPUs, the scheduler might not search all CPUs in the domain +everytime. In fact, in some architectures, the searching ranges on +events are limited in the same socket or node where the CPU locates, +while the load balance on tick searchs all. + +For example, assume CPU Z is relatively far from CPU X. Even if CPU Z +is idle while CPU X and the siblings are busy, scheduler can't migrate +woken task B from X to Z since it is out of its searching range. +As the result, task B on CPU X need to wait task A or wait load balance +on the next tick. For some applications in special situation, waiting +1 tick may be too long. + +The 'sched_relax_domain_level' file allows you to request changing +this searching range as you like. This file takes int value which +indicates size of searching range in levels ideally as follows, +otherwise initial value -1 that indicates the cpuset has no request. + + -1 : no request. use system default or follow request of others. + 0 : no search. + 1 : search siblings (hyperthreads in a core). + 2 : search cores in a package. + 3 : search cpus in a node [= system wide on non-NUMA system] + ( 4 : search nodes in a chunk of node [on NUMA system] ) + ( 5 : search system wide [on NUMA system] ) + +The system default is architecture dependent. The system default +can be changed using the relax_domain_level= boot parameter. + +This file is per-cpuset and affect the sched domain where the cpuset +belongs to. Therefore if the flag 'sched_load_balance' of a cpuset +is disabled, then 'sched_relax_domain_level' have no effect since +there is no sched domain belonging the cpuset. + +If multiple cpusets are overlapping and hence they form a single sched +domain, the largest value among those is used. Be careful, if one +requests 0 and others are -1 then 0 is used. + +Note that modifying this file will have both good and bad effects, +and whether it is acceptable or not will be depend on your situation. +Don't modify this file if you are not sure. + +If your situation is: + - The migration costs between each cpu can be assumed considerably + small(for you) due to your special application's behavior or + special hardware support for CPU cache etc. + - The searching cost doesn't have impact(for you) or you can make + the searching cost enough small by managing cpuset to compact etc. + - The latency is required even it sacrifices cache hit rate etc. +then increasing 'sched_relax_domain_level' would benefit you. + + +1.9 How do I use cpusets ? +-------------------------- + +In order to minimize the impact of cpusets on critical kernel +code, such as the scheduler, and due to the fact that the kernel +does not support one task updating the memory placement of another +task directly, the impact on a task of changing its cpuset CPU +or Memory Node placement, or of changing to which cpuset a task +is attached, is subtle. + +If a cpuset has its Memory Nodes modified, then for each task attached +to that cpuset, the next time that the kernel attempts to allocate +a page of memory for that task, the kernel will notice the change +in the tasks cpuset, and update its per-task memory placement to +remain within the new cpusets memory placement. If the task was using +mempolicy MPOL_BIND, and the nodes to which it was bound overlap with +its new cpuset, then the task will continue to use whatever subset +of MPOL_BIND nodes are still allowed in the new cpuset. If the task +was using MPOL_BIND and now none of its MPOL_BIND nodes are allowed +in the new cpuset, then the task will be essentially treated as if it +was MPOL_BIND bound to the new cpuset (even though its numa placement, +as queried by get_mempolicy(), doesn't change). If a task is moved +from one cpuset to another, then the kernel will adjust the tasks +memory placement, as above, the next time that the kernel attempts +to allocate a page of memory for that task. + +If a cpuset has its 'cpus' modified, then each task in that cpuset +will have its allowed CPU placement changed immediately. Similarly, +if a tasks pid is written to a cpusets 'tasks' file, in either its +current cpuset or another cpuset, then its allowed CPU placement is +changed immediately. If such a task had been bound to some subset +of its cpuset using the sched_setaffinity() call, the task will be +allowed to run on any CPU allowed in its new cpuset, negating the +affect of the prior sched_setaffinity() call. + +In summary, the memory placement of a task whose cpuset is changed is +updated by the kernel, on the next allocation of a page for that task, +but the processor placement is not updated, until that tasks pid is +rewritten to the 'tasks' file of its cpuset. This is done to avoid +impacting the scheduler code in the kernel with a check for changes +in a tasks processor placement. + +Normally, once a page is allocated (given a physical page +of main memory) then that page stays on whatever node it +was allocated, so long as it remains allocated, even if the +cpusets memory placement policy 'mems' subsequently changes. +If the cpuset flag file 'memory_migrate' is set true, then when +tasks are attached to that cpuset, any pages that task had +allocated to it on nodes in its previous cpuset are migrated +to the tasks new cpuset. The relative placement of the page within +the cpuset is preserved during these migration operations if possible. +For example if the page was on the second valid node of the prior cpuset +then the page will be placed on the second valid node of the new cpuset. + +Also if 'memory_migrate' is set true, then if that cpusets +'mems' file is modified, pages allocated to tasks in that +cpuset, that were on nodes in the previous setting of 'mems', +will be moved to nodes in the new setting of 'mems.' +Pages that were not in the tasks prior cpuset, or in the cpusets +prior 'mems' setting, will not be moved. + +There is an exception to the above. If hotplug functionality is used +to remove all the CPUs that are currently assigned to a cpuset, +then all the tasks in that cpuset will be moved to the nearest ancestor +with non-empty cpus. But the moving of some (or all) tasks might fail if +cpuset is bound with another cgroup subsystem which has some restrictions +on task attaching. In this failing case, those tasks will stay +in the original cpuset, and the kernel will automatically update +their cpus_allowed to allow all online CPUs. When memory hotplug +functionality for removing Memory Nodes is available, a similar exception +is expected to apply there as well. In general, the kernel prefers to +violate cpuset placement, over starving a task that has had all +its allowed CPUs or Memory Nodes taken offline. + +There is a second exception to the above. GFP_ATOMIC requests are +kernel internal allocations that must be satisfied, immediately. +The kernel may drop some request, in rare cases even panic, if a +GFP_ATOMIC alloc fails. If the request cannot be satisfied within +the current tasks cpuset, then we relax the cpuset, and look for +memory anywhere we can find it. It's better to violate the cpuset +than stress the kernel. + +To start a new job that is to be contained within a cpuset, the steps are: + + 1) mkdir /dev/cpuset + 2) mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset + 3) Create the new cpuset by doing mkdir's and write's (or echo's) in + the /dev/cpuset virtual file system. + 4) Start a task that will be the "founding father" of the new job. + 5) Attach that task to the new cpuset by writing its pid to the + /dev/cpuset tasks file for that cpuset. + 6) fork, exec or clone the job tasks from this founding father task. + +For example, the following sequence of commands will setup a cpuset +named "Charlie", containing just CPUs 2 and 3, and Memory Node 1, +and then start a subshell 'sh' in that cpuset: + + mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset + cd /dev/cpuset + mkdir Charlie + cd Charlie + /bin/echo 2-3 > cpus + /bin/echo 1 > mems + /bin/echo $$ > tasks + sh + # The subshell 'sh' is now running in cpuset Charlie + # The next line should display '/Charlie' + cat /proc/self/cpuset + +In the future, a C library interface to cpusets will likely be +available. For now, the only way to query or modify cpusets is +via the cpuset file system, using the various cd, mkdir, echo, cat, +rmdir commands from the shell, or their equivalent from C. + +The sched_setaffinity calls can also be done at the shell prompt using +SGI's runon or Robert Love's taskset. The mbind and set_mempolicy +calls can be done at the shell prompt using the numactl command +(part of Andi Kleen's numa package). + +2. Usage Examples and Syntax +============================ + +2.1 Basic Usage +--------------- + +Creating, modifying, using the cpusets can be done through the cpuset +virtual filesystem. + +To mount it, type: +# mount -t cgroup -o cpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset + +Then under /dev/cpuset you can find a tree that corresponds to the +tree of the cpusets in the system. For instance, /dev/cpuset +is the cpuset that holds the whole system. + +If you want to create a new cpuset under /dev/cpuset: +# cd /dev/cpuset +# mkdir my_cpuset + +Now you want to do something with this cpuset. +# cd my_cpuset + +In this directory you can find several files: +# ls +cpu_exclusive memory_migrate mems tasks +cpus memory_pressure notify_on_release +mem_exclusive memory_spread_page sched_load_balance +mem_hardwall memory_spread_slab sched_relax_domain_level + +Reading them will give you information about the state of this cpuset: +the CPUs and Memory Nodes it can use, the processes that are using +it, its properties. By writing to these files you can manipulate +the cpuset. + +Set some flags: +# /bin/echo 1 > cpu_exclusive + +Add some cpus: +# /bin/echo 0-7 > cpus + +Add some mems: +# /bin/echo 0-7 > mems + +Now attach your shell to this cpuset: +# /bin/echo $$ > tasks + +You can also create cpusets inside your cpuset by using mkdir in this +directory. +# mkdir my_sub_cs + +To remove a cpuset, just use rmdir: +# rmdir my_sub_cs +This will fail if the cpuset is in use (has cpusets inside, or has +processes attached). + +Note that for legacy reasons, the "cpuset" filesystem exists as a +wrapper around the cgroup filesystem. + +The command + +mount -t cpuset X /dev/cpuset + +is equivalent to + +mount -t cgroup -ocpuset X /dev/cpuset +echo "/sbin/cpuset_release_agent" > /dev/cpuset/release_agent + +2.2 Adding/removing cpus +------------------------ + +This is the syntax to use when writing in the cpus or mems files +in cpuset directories: + +# /bin/echo 1-4 > cpus -> set cpus list to cpus 1,2,3,4 +# /bin/echo 1,2,3,4 > cpus -> set cpus list to cpus 1,2,3,4 + +2.3 Setting flags +----------------- + +The syntax is very simple: + +# /bin/echo 1 > cpu_exclusive -> set flag 'cpu_exclusive' +# /bin/echo 0 > cpu_exclusive -> unset flag 'cpu_exclusive' + +2.4 Attaching processes +----------------------- + +# /bin/echo PID > tasks + +Note that it is PID, not PIDs. You can only attach ONE task at a time. +If you have several tasks to attach, you have to do it one after another: + +# /bin/echo PID1 > tasks +# /bin/echo PID2 > tasks + ... +# /bin/echo PIDn > tasks + + +3. Questions +============ + +Q: what's up with this '/bin/echo' ? +A: bash's builtin 'echo' command does not check calls to write() against + errors. If you use it in the cpuset file system, you won't be + able to tell whether a command succeeded or failed. + +Q: When I attach processes, only the first of the line gets really attached ! +A: We can only return one error code per call to write(). So you should also + put only ONE pid. + +4. Contact +========== + +Web: http://www.bullopensource.org/cpuset diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +Device Whitelist Controller + +1. Description: + +Implement a cgroup to track and enforce open and mknod restrictions +on device files. A device cgroup associates a device access +whitelist with each cgroup. A whitelist entry has 4 fields. +'type' is a (all), c (char), or b (block). 'all' means it applies +to all types and all major and minor numbers. Major and minor are +either an integer or * for all. Access is a composition of r +(read), w (write), and m (mknod). + +The root device cgroup starts with rwm to 'all'. A child device +cgroup gets a copy of the parent. Administrators can then remove +devices from the whitelist or add new entries. A child cgroup can +never receive a device access which is denied by its parent. However +when a device access is removed from a parent it will not also be +removed from the child(ren). + +2. User Interface + +An entry is added using devices.allow, and removed using +devices.deny. For instance + + echo 'c 1:3 mr' > /cgroups/1/devices.allow + +allows cgroup 1 to read and mknod the device usually known as +/dev/null. Doing + + echo a > /cgroups/1/devices.deny + +will remove the default 'a *:* rwm' entry. Doing + + echo a > /cgroups/1/devices.allow + +will add the 'a *:* rwm' entry to the whitelist. + +3. Security + +Any task can move itself between cgroups. This clearly won't +suffice, but we can decide the best way to adequately restrict +movement as people get some experience with this. We may just want +to require CAP_SYS_ADMIN, which at least is a separate bit from +CAP_MKNOD. We may want to just refuse moving to a cgroup which +isn't a descendent of the current one. Or we may want to use +CAP_MAC_ADMIN, since we really are trying to lock down root. + +CAP_SYS_ADMIN is needed to modify the whitelist or move another +task to a new cgroup. (Again we'll probably want to change that). + +A cgroup may not be granted more permissions than the cgroup's +parent has. diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/memcg_test.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/memcg_test.txt @@ -0,0 +1,342 @@ +Memory Resource Controller(Memcg) Implementation Memo. +Last Updated: 2008/12/15 +Base Kernel Version: based on 2.6.28-rc8-mm. + +Because VM is getting complex (one of reasons is memcg...), memcg's behavior +is complex. This is a document for memcg's internal behavior. +Please note that implementation details can be changed. + +(*) Topics on API should be in Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt) + +0. How to record usage ? + 2 objects are used. + + page_cgroup ....an object per page. + Allocated at boot or memory hotplug. Freed at memory hot removal. + + swap_cgroup ... an entry per swp_entry. + Allocated at swapon(). Freed at swapoff(). + + The page_cgroup has USED bit and double count against a page_cgroup never + occurs. swap_cgroup is used only when a charged page is swapped-out. + +1. Charge + + a page/swp_entry may be charged (usage += PAGE_SIZE) at + + mem_cgroup_newpage_charge() + Called at new page fault and Copy-On-Write. + + mem_cgroup_try_charge_swapin() + Called at do_swap_page() (page fault on swap entry) and swapoff. + Followed by charge-commit-cancel protocol. (With swap accounting) + At commit, a charge recorded in swap_cgroup is removed. + + mem_cgroup_cache_charge() + Called at add_to_page_cache() + + mem_cgroup_cache_charge_swapin() + Called at shmem's swapin. + + mem_cgroup_prepare_migration() + Called before migration. "extra" charge is done and followed by + charge-commit-cancel protocol. + At commit, charge against oldpage or newpage will be committed. + +2. Uncharge + a page/swp_entry may be uncharged (usage -= PAGE_SIZE) by + + mem_cgroup_uncharge_page() + Called when an anonymous page is fully unmapped. I.e., mapcount goes + to 0. If the page is SwapCache, uncharge is delayed until + mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache(). + + mem_cgroup_uncharge_cache_page() + Called when a page-cache is deleted from radix-tree. If the page is + SwapCache, uncharge is delayed until mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache(). + + mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache() + Called when SwapCache is removed from radix-tree. The charge itself + is moved to swap_cgroup. (If mem+swap controller is disabled, no + charge to swap occurs.) + + mem_cgroup_uncharge_swap() + Called when swp_entry's refcnt goes down to 0. A charge against swap + disappears. + + mem_cgroup_end_migration(old, new) + At success of migration old is uncharged (if necessary), a charge + to new page is committed. At failure, charge to old page is committed. + +3. charge-commit-cancel + In some case, we can't know this "charge" is valid or not at charging + (because of races). + To handle such case, there are charge-commit-cancel functions. + mem_cgroup_try_charge_XXX + mem_cgroup_commit_charge_XXX + mem_cgroup_cancel_charge_XXX + these are used in swap-in and migration. + + At try_charge(), there are no flags to say "this page is charged". + at this point, usage += PAGE_SIZE. + + At commit(), the function checks the page should be charged or not + and set flags or avoid charging.(usage -= PAGE_SIZE) + + At cancel(), simply usage -= PAGE_SIZE. + +Under below explanation, we assume CONFIG_MEM_RES_CTRL_SWAP=y. + +4. Anonymous + Anonymous page is newly allocated at + - page fault into MAP_ANONYMOUS mapping. + - Copy-On-Write. + It is charged right after it's allocated before doing any page table + related operations. Of course, it's uncharged when another page is used + for the fault address. + + At freeing anonymous page (by exit() or munmap()), zap_pte() is called + and pages for ptes are freed one by one.(see mm/memory.c). Uncharges + are done at page_remove_rmap() when page_mapcount() goes down to 0. + + Another page freeing is by page-reclaim (vmscan.c) and anonymous + pages are swapped out. In this case, the page is marked as + PageSwapCache(). uncharge() routine doesn't uncharge the page marked + as SwapCache(). It's delayed until __delete_from_swap_cache(). + + 4.1 Swap-in. + At swap-in, the page is taken from swap-cache. There are 2 cases. + + (a) If the SwapCache is newly allocated and read, it has no charges. + (b) If the SwapCache has been mapped by processes, it has been + charged already. + + This swap-in is one of the most complicated work. In do_swap_page(), + following events occur when pte is unchanged. + + (1) the page (SwapCache) is looked up. + (2) lock_page() + (3) try_charge_swapin() + (4) reuse_swap_page() (may call delete_swap_cache()) + (5) commit_charge_swapin() + (6) swap_free(). + + Considering following situation for example. + + (A) The page has not been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() + doesn't call delete_from_swap_cache(). + (B) The page has not been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() + calls delete_from_swap_cache(). + (C) The page has been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() doesn't + call delete_from_swap_cache(). + (D) The page has been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() calls + delete_from_swap_cache(). + + memory.usage/memsw.usage changes to this page/swp_entry will be + Case (A) (B) (C) (D) + Event + Before (2) 0/ 1 0/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 + =========================================== + (3) +1/+1 +1/+1 +1/+1 +1/+1 + (4) - 0/ 0 - -1/ 0 + (5) 0/-1 0/ 0 -1/-1 0/ 0 + (6) - 0/-1 - 0/-1 + =========================================== + Result 1/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 + + In any cases, charges to this page should be 1/ 1. + + 4.2 Swap-out. + At swap-out, typical state transition is below. + + (a) add to swap cache. (marked as SwapCache) + swp_entry's refcnt += 1. + (b) fully unmapped. + swp_entry's refcnt += # of ptes. + (c) write back to swap. + (d) delete from swap cache. (remove from SwapCache) + swp_entry's refcnt -= 1. + + + At (b), the page is marked as SwapCache and not uncharged. + At (d), the page is removed from SwapCache and a charge in page_cgroup + is moved to swap_cgroup. + + Finally, at task exit, + (e) zap_pte() is called and swp_entry's refcnt -=1 -> 0. + Here, a charge in swap_cgroup disappears. + +5. Page Cache + Page Cache is charged at + - add_to_page_cache_locked(). + + uncharged at + - __remove_from_page_cache(). + + The logic is very clear. (About migration, see below) + Note: __remove_from_page_cache() is called by remove_from_page_cache() + and __remove_mapping(). + +6. Shmem(tmpfs) Page Cache + Memcg's charge/uncharge have special handlers of shmem. The best way + to understand shmem's page state transition is to read mm/shmem.c. + But brief explanation of the behavior of memcg around shmem will be + helpful to understand the logic. + + Shmem's page (just leaf page, not direct/indirect block) can be on + - radix-tree of shmem's inode. + - SwapCache. + - Both on radix-tree and SwapCache. This happens at swap-in + and swap-out, + + It's charged when... + - A new page is added to shmem's radix-tree. + - A swp page is read. (move a charge from swap_cgroup to page_cgroup) + It's uncharged when + - A page is removed from radix-tree and not SwapCache. + - When SwapCache is removed, a charge is moved to swap_cgroup. + - When swp_entry's refcnt goes down to 0, a charge in swap_cgroup + disappears. + +7. Page Migration + One of the most complicated functions is page-migration-handler. + Memcg has 2 routines. Assume that we are migrating a page's contents + from OLDPAGE to NEWPAGE. + + Usual migration logic is.. + (a) remove the page from LRU. + (b) allocate NEWPAGE (migration target) + (c) lock by lock_page(). + (d) unmap all mappings. + (e-1) If necessary, replace entry in radix-tree. + (e-2) move contents of a page. + (f) map all mappings again. + (g) pushback the page to LRU. + (-) OLDPAGE will be freed. + + Before (g), memcg should complete all necessary charge/uncharge to + NEWPAGE/OLDPAGE. + + The point is.... + - If OLDPAGE is anonymous, all charges will be dropped at (d) because + try_to_unmap() drops all mapcount and the page will not be + SwapCache. + + - If OLDPAGE is SwapCache, charges will be kept at (g) because + __delete_from_swap_cache() isn't called at (e-1) + + - If OLDPAGE is page-cache, charges will be kept at (g) because + remove_from_swap_cache() isn't called at (e-1) + + memcg provides following hooks. + + - mem_cgroup_prepare_migration(OLDPAGE) + Called after (b) to account a charge (usage += PAGE_SIZE) against + memcg which OLDPAGE belongs to. + + - mem_cgroup_end_migration(OLDPAGE, NEWPAGE) + Called after (f) before (g). + If OLDPAGE is used, commit OLDPAGE again. If OLDPAGE is already + charged, a charge by prepare_migration() is automatically canceled. + If NEWPAGE is used, commit NEWPAGE and uncharge OLDPAGE. + + But zap_pte() (by exit or munmap) can be called while migration, + we have to check if OLDPAGE/NEWPAGE is a valid page after commit(). + +8. LRU + Each memcg has its own private LRU. Now, it's handling is under global + VM's control (means that it's handled under global zone->lru_lock). + Almost all routines around memcg's LRU is called by global LRU's + list management functions under zone->lru_lock(). + + A special function is mem_cgroup_isolate_pages(). This scans + memcg's private LRU and call __isolate_lru_page() to extract a page + from LRU. + (By __isolate_lru_page(), the page is removed from both of global and + private LRU.) + + +9. Typical Tests. + + Tests for racy cases. + + 9.1 Small limit to memcg. + When you do test to do racy case, it's good test to set memcg's limit + to be very small rather than GB. Many races found in the test under + xKB or xxMB limits. + (Memory behavior under GB and Memory behavior under MB shows very + different situation.) + + 9.2 Shmem + Historically, memcg's shmem handling was poor and we saw some amount + of troubles here. This is because shmem is page-cache but can be + SwapCache. Test with shmem/tmpfs is always good test. + + 9.3 Migration + For NUMA, migration is an another special case. To do easy test, cpuset + is useful. Following is a sample script to do migration. + + mount -t cgroup -o cpuset none /opt/cpuset + + mkdir /opt/cpuset/01 + echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.cpus + echo 0 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.mems + echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.memory_migrate + mkdir /opt/cpuset/02 + echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.cpus + echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.mems + echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.memory_migrate + + In above set, when you moves a task from 01 to 02, page migration to + node 0 to node 1 will occur. Following is a script to migrate all + under cpuset. + -- + move_task() + { + for pid in $1 + do + /bin/echo $pid >$2/tasks 2>/dev/null + echo -n $pid + echo -n " " + done + echo END + } + + G1_TASK=`cat ${G1}/tasks` + G2_TASK=`cat ${G2}/tasks` + move_task "${G1_TASK}" ${G2} & + -- + 9.4 Memory hotplug. + memory hotplug test is one of good test. + to offline memory, do following. + # echo offline > /sys/devices/system/memory/memoryXXX/state + (XXX is the place of memory) + This is an easy way to test page migration, too. + + 9.5 mkdir/rmdir + When using hierarchy, mkdir/rmdir test should be done. + Use tests like the following. + + echo 1 >/opt/cgroup/01/memory/use_hierarchy + mkdir /opt/cgroup/01/child_a + mkdir /opt/cgroup/01/child_b + + set limit to 01. + add limit to 01/child_b + run jobs under child_a and child_b + + create/delete following groups at random while jobs are running. + /opt/cgroup/01/child_a/child_aa + /opt/cgroup/01/child_b/child_bb + /opt/cgroup/01/child_c + + running new jobs in new group is also good. + + 9.6 Mount with other subsystems. + Mounting with other subsystems is a good test because there is a + race and lock dependency with other cgroup subsystems. + + example) + # mount -t cgroup none /cgroup -t cpuset,memory,cpu,devices + + and do task move, mkdir, rmdir etc...under this. diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt @@ -0,0 +1,399 @@ +Memory Resource Controller + +NOTE: The Memory Resource Controller has been generically been referred +to as the memory controller in this document. Do not confuse memory controller +used here with the memory controller that is used in hardware. + +Salient features + +a. Enable control of both RSS (mapped) and Page Cache (unmapped) pages +b. The infrastructure allows easy addition of other types of memory to control +c. Provides *zero overhead* for non memory controller users +d. Provides a double LRU: global memory pressure causes reclaim from the + global LRU; a cgroup on hitting a limit, reclaims from the per + cgroup LRU + +NOTE: Swap Cache (unmapped) is not accounted now. + +Benefits and Purpose of the memory controller + +The memory controller isolates the memory behaviour of a group of tasks +from the rest of the system. The article on LWN [12] mentions some probable +uses of the memory controller. The memory controller can be used to + +a. Isolate an application or a group of applications + Memory hungry applications can be isolated and limited to a smaller + amount of memory. +b. Create a cgroup with limited amount of memory, this can be used + as a good alternative to booting with mem=XXXX. +c. Virtualization solutions can control the amount of memory they want + to assign to a virtual machine instance. +d. A CD/DVD burner could control the amount of memory used by the + rest of the system to ensure that burning does not fail due to lack + of available memory. +e. There are several other use cases, find one or use the controller just + for fun (to learn and hack on the VM subsystem). + +1. History + +The memory controller has a long history. A request for comments for the memory +controller was posted by Balbir Singh [1]. At the time the RFC was posted +there were several implementations for memory control. The goal of the +RFC was to build consensus and agreement for the minimal features required +for memory control. The first RSS controller was posted by Balbir Singh[2] +in Feb 2007. Pavel Emelianov [3][4][5] has since posted three versions of the +RSS controller. At OLS, at the resource management BoF, everyone suggested +that we handle both page cache and RSS together. Another request was raised +to allow user space handling of OOM. The current memory controller is +at version 6; it combines both mapped (RSS) and unmapped Page +Cache Control [11]. + +2. Memory Control + +Memory is a unique resource in the sense that it is present in a limited +amount. If a task requires a lot of CPU processing, the task can spread +its processing over a period of hours, days, months or years, but with +memory, the same physical memory needs to be reused to accomplish the task. + +The memory controller implementation has been divided into phases. These +are: + +1. Memory controller +2. mlock(2) controller +3. Kernel user memory accounting and slab control +4. user mappings length controller + +The memory controller is the first controller developed. + +2.1. Design + +The core of the design is a counter called the res_counter. The res_counter +tracks the current memory usage and limit of the group of processes associated +with the controller. Each cgroup has a memory controller specific data +structure (mem_cgroup) associated with it. + +2.2. Accounting + + +--------------------+ + | mem_cgroup | + | (res_counter) | + +--------------------+ + / ^ \ + / | \ + +---------------+ | +---------------+ + | mm_struct | |.... | mm_struct | + | | | | | + +---------------+ | +---------------+ + | + + --------------+ + | + +---------------+ +------+--------+ + | page +----------> page_cgroup| + | | | | + +---------------+ +---------------+ + + (Figure 1: Hierarchy of Accounting) + + +Figure 1 shows the important aspects of the controller + +1. Accounting happens per cgroup +2. Each mm_struct knows about which cgroup it belongs to +3. Each page has a pointer to the page_cgroup, which in turn knows the + cgroup it belongs to + +The accounting is done as follows: mem_cgroup_charge() is invoked to setup +the necessary data structures and check if the cgroup that is being charged +is over its limit. If it is then reclaim is invoked on the cgroup. +More details can be found in the reclaim section of this document. +If everything goes well, a page meta-data-structure called page_cgroup is +allocated and associated with the page. This routine also adds the page to +the per cgroup LRU. + +2.2.1 Accounting details + +All mapped anon pages (RSS) and cache pages (Page Cache) are accounted. +(some pages which never be reclaimable and will not be on global LRU + are not accounted. we just accounts pages under usual vm management.) + +RSS pages are accounted at page_fault unless they've already been accounted +for earlier. A file page will be accounted for as Page Cache when it's +inserted into inode (radix-tree). While it's mapped into the page tables of +processes, duplicate accounting is carefully avoided. + +A RSS page is unaccounted when it's fully unmapped. A PageCache page is +unaccounted when it's removed from radix-tree. + +At page migration, accounting information is kept. + +Note: we just account pages-on-lru because our purpose is to control amount +of used pages. not-on-lru pages are tend to be out-of-control from vm view. + +2.3 Shared Page Accounting + +Shared pages are accounted on the basis of the first touch approach. The +cgroup that first touches a page is accounted for the page. The principle +behind this approach is that a cgroup that aggressively uses a shared +page will eventually get charged for it (once it is uncharged from +the cgroup that brought it in -- this will happen on memory pressure). + +Exception: If CONFIG_CGROUP_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP is not used.. +When you do swapoff and make swapped-out pages of shmem(tmpfs) to +be backed into memory in force, charges for pages are accounted against the +caller of swapoff rather than the users of shmem. + + +2.4 Swap Extension (CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP) +Swap Extension allows you to record charge for swap. A swapped-in page is +charged back to original page allocator if possible. + +When swap is accounted, following files are added. + - memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes. + - memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes. + +usage of mem+swap is limited by memsw.limit_in_bytes. + +Note: why 'mem+swap' rather than swap. +The global LRU(kswapd) can swap out arbitrary pages. Swap-out means +to move account from memory to swap...there is no change in usage of +mem+swap. + +In other words, when we want to limit the usage of swap without affecting +global LRU, mem+swap limit is better than just limiting swap from OS point +of view. + +2.5 Reclaim + +Each cgroup maintains a per cgroup LRU that consists of an active +and inactive list. When a cgroup goes over its limit, we first try +to reclaim memory from the cgroup so as to make space for the new +pages that the cgroup has touched. If the reclaim is unsuccessful, +an OOM routine is invoked to select and kill the bulkiest task in the +cgroup. + +The reclaim algorithm has not been modified for cgroups, except that +pages that are selected for reclaiming come from the per cgroup LRU +list. + +2. Locking + +The memory controller uses the following hierarchy + +1. zone->lru_lock is used for selecting pages to be isolated +2. mem->per_zone->lru_lock protects the per cgroup LRU (per zone) +3. lock_page_cgroup() is used to protect page->page_cgroup + +3. User Interface + +0. Configuration + +a. Enable CONFIG_CGROUPS +b. Enable CONFIG_RESOURCE_COUNTERS +c. Enable CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR + +1. Prepare the cgroups +# mkdir -p /cgroups +# mount -t cgroup none /cgroups -o memory + +2. Make the new group and move bash into it +# mkdir /cgroups/0 +# echo $$ > /cgroups/0/tasks + +Since now we're in the 0 cgroup, +We can alter the memory limit: +# echo 4M > /cgroups/0/memory.limit_in_bytes + +NOTE: We can use a suffix (k, K, m, M, g or G) to indicate values in kilo, +mega or gigabytes. + +# cat /cgroups/0/memory.limit_in_bytes +4194304 + +NOTE: The interface has now changed to display the usage in bytes +instead of pages + +We can check the usage: +# cat /cgroups/0/memory.usage_in_bytes +1216512 + +A successful write to this file does not guarantee a successful set of +this limit to the value written into the file. This can be due to a +number of factors, such as rounding up to page boundaries or the total +availability of memory on the system. The user is required to re-read +this file after a write to guarantee the value committed by the kernel. + +# echo 1 > memory.limit_in_bytes +# cat memory.limit_in_bytes +4096 + +The memory.failcnt field gives the number of times that the cgroup limit was +exceeded. + +The memory.stat file gives accounting information. Now, the number of +caches, RSS and Active pages/Inactive pages are shown. + +4. Testing + +Balbir posted lmbench, AIM9, LTP and vmmstress results [10] and [11]. +Apart from that v6 has been tested with several applications and regular +daily use. The controller has also been tested on the PPC64, x86_64 and +UML platforms. + +4.1 Troubleshooting + +Sometimes a user might find that the application under a cgroup is +terminated. There are several causes for this: + +1. The cgroup limit is too low (just too low to do anything useful) +2. The user is using anonymous memory and swap is turned off or too low + +A sync followed by echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches will help get rid of +some of the pages cached in the cgroup (page cache pages). + +4.2 Task migration + +When a task migrates from one cgroup to another, it's charge is not +carried forward. The pages allocated from the original cgroup still +remain charged to it, the charge is dropped when the page is freed or +reclaimed. + +4.3 Removing a cgroup + +A cgroup can be removed by rmdir, but as discussed in sections 4.1 and 4.2, a +cgroup might have some charge associated with it, even though all +tasks have migrated away from it. +Such charges are freed(at default) or moved to its parent. When moved, +both of RSS and CACHES are moved to parent. +If both of them are busy, rmdir() returns -EBUSY. See 5.1 Also. + +Charges recorded in swap information is not updated at removal of cgroup. +Recorded information is discarded and a cgroup which uses swap (swapcache) +will be charged as a new owner of it. + + +5. Misc. interfaces. + +5.1 force_empty + memory.force_empty interface is provided to make cgroup's memory usage empty. + You can use this interface only when the cgroup has no tasks. + When writing anything to this + + # echo 0 > memory.force_empty + + Almost all pages tracked by this memcg will be unmapped and freed. Some of + pages cannot be freed because it's locked or in-use. Such pages are moved + to parent and this cgroup will be empty. But this may return -EBUSY in + some too busy case. + + Typical use case of this interface is that calling this before rmdir(). + Because rmdir() moves all pages to parent, some out-of-use page caches can be + moved to the parent. If you want to avoid that, force_empty will be useful. + +5.2 stat file + memory.stat file includes following statistics (now) + cache - # of pages from page-cache and shmem. + rss - # of pages from anonymous memory. + pgpgin - # of event of charging + pgpgout - # of event of uncharging + active_anon - # of pages on active lru of anon, shmem. + inactive_anon - # of pages on active lru of anon, shmem + active_file - # of pages on active lru of file-cache + inactive_file - # of pages on inactive lru of file cache + unevictable - # of pages cannot be reclaimed.(mlocked etc) + + Below is depend on CONFIG_DEBUG_VM. + inactive_ratio - VM inernal parameter. (see mm/page_alloc.c) + recent_rotated_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) + recent_rotated_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) + recent_scanned_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) + recent_scanned_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) + + Memo: + recent_rotated means recent frequency of lru rotation. + recent_scanned means recent # of scans to lru. + showing for better debug please see the code for meanings. + + +5.3 swappiness + Similar to /proc/sys/vm/swappiness, but affecting a hierarchy of groups only. + + Following cgroup's swapiness can't be changed. + - root cgroup (uses /proc/sys/vm/swappiness). + - a cgroup which uses hierarchy and it has child cgroup. + - a cgroup which uses hierarchy and not the root of hierarchy. + + +6. Hierarchy support + +The memory controller supports a deep hierarchy and hierarchical accounting. +The hierarchy is created by creating the appropriate cgroups in the +cgroup filesystem. Consider for example, the following cgroup filesystem +hierarchy + + root + / | \ + / | \ + a b c + | \ + | \ + d e + +In the diagram above, with hierarchical accounting enabled, all memory +usage of e, is accounted to its ancestors up until the root (i.e, c and root), +that has memory.use_hierarchy enabled. If one of the ancestors goes over its +limit, the reclaim algorithm reclaims from the tasks in the ancestor and the +children of the ancestor. + +6.1 Enabling hierarchical accounting and reclaim + +The memory controller by default disables the hierarchy feature. Support +can be enabled by writing 1 to memory.use_hierarchy file of the root cgroup + +# echo 1 > memory.use_hierarchy + +The feature can be disabled by + +# echo 0 > memory.use_hierarchy + +NOTE1: Enabling/disabling will fail if the cgroup already has other +cgroups created below it. + +NOTE2: This feature can be enabled/disabled per subtree. + +7. TODO + +1. Add support for accounting huge pages (as a separate controller) +2. Make per-cgroup scanner reclaim not-shared pages first +3. Teach controller to account for shared-pages +4. Start reclamation in the background when the limit is + not yet hit but the usage is getting closer + +Summary + +Overall, the memory controller has been a stable controller and has been +commented and discussed quite extensively in the community. + +References + +1. Singh, Balbir. RFC: Memory Controller, http://lwn.net/Articles/206697/ +2. Singh, Balbir. Memory Controller (RSS Control), + http://lwn.net/Articles/222762/ +3. Emelianov, Pavel. Resource controllers based on process cgroups + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/6/198 +4. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v2) + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/4/9/78 +5. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v3) + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/30/244 +6. Menage, Paul. Control Groups v10, http://lwn.net/Articles/236032/ +7. Vaidyanathan, Srinivasan, Control Groups: Pagecache accounting and control + subsystem (v3), http://lwn.net/Articles/235534/ +8. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 test results (lmbench), + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/17/232 +9. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 AIM9 results + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/18/1 +10. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller v6 test results, + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/19/36 +11. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller introduction (v6), + http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/17/69 +12. Corbet, Jonathan, Controlling memory use in cgroups, + http://lwn.net/Articles/243795/ diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/cgroups/resource_counter.txt --- /dev/null +++ a/Documentation/cgroups/resource_counter.txt @@ -0,0 +1,181 @@ + + The Resource Counter + +The resource counter, declared at include/linux/res_counter.h, +is supposed to facilitate the resource management by controllers +by providing common stuff for accounting. + +This "stuff" includes the res_counter structure and routines +to work with it. + + + +1. Crucial parts of the res_counter structure + + a. unsigned long long usage + + The usage value shows the amount of a resource that is consumed + by a group at a given time. The units of measurement should be + determined by the controller that uses this counter. E.g. it can + be bytes, items or any other unit the controller operates on. + + b. unsigned long long max_usage + + The maximal value of the usage over time. + + This value is useful when gathering statistical information about + the particular group, as it shows the actual resource requirements + for a particular group, not just some usage snapshot. + + c. unsigned long long limit + + The maximal allowed amount of resource to consume by the group. In + case the group requests for more resources, so that the usage value + would exceed the limit, the resource allocation is rejected (see + the next section). + + d. unsigned long long failcnt + + The failcnt stands for "failures counter". This is the number of + resource allocation attempts that failed. + + c. spinlock_t lock + + Protects changes of the above values. + + + +2. Basic accounting routines + + a. void res_counter_init(struct res_counter *rc) + + Initializes the resource counter. As usual, should be the first + routine called for a new counter. + + b. int res_counter_charge[_locked] + (struct res_counter *rc, unsigned long val) + + When a resource is about to be allocated it has to be accounted + with the appropriate resource counter (controller should determine + which one to use on its own). This operation is called "charging". + + This is not very important which operation - resource allocation + or charging - is performed first, but + * if the allocation is performed first, this may create a + temporary resource over-usage by the time resource counter is + charged; + * if the charging is performed first, then it should be uncharged + on error path (if the one is called). + + c. void res_counter_uncharge[_locked] + (struct res_counter *rc, unsigned long val) + + When a resource is released (freed) it should be de-accounted + from the resource counter it was accounted to. This is called + "uncharging". + + The _locked routines imply that the res_counter->lock is taken. + + + 2.1 Other accounting routines + + There are more routines that may help you with common needs, like + checking whether the limit is reached or resetting the max_usage + value. They are all declared in include/linux/res_counter.h. + + + +3. Analyzing the resource counter registrations + + a. If the failcnt value constantly grows, this means that the counter's + limit is too tight. Either the group is misbehaving and consumes too + many resources, or the configuration is not suitable for the group + and the limit should be increased. + + b. The max_usage value can be used to quickly tune the group. One may + set the limits to maximal values and either load the container with + a common pattern or leave one for a while. After this the max_usage + value shows the amount of memory the container would require during + its common activity. + + Setting the limit a bit above this value gives a pretty good + configuration that works in most of the cases. + + c. If the max_usage is much less than the limit, but the failcnt value + is growing, then the group tries to allocate a big chunk of resource + at once. + + d. If the max_usage is much less than the limit, but the failcnt value + is 0, then this group is given too high limit, that it does not + require. It is better to lower the limit a bit leaving more resource + for other groups. + + + +4. Communication with the control groups subsystem (cgroups) + +All the resource controllers that are using cgroups and resource counters +should provide files (in the cgroup filesystem) to work with the resource +counter fields. They are recommended to adhere to the following rules: + + a. File names + + Field name File name + --------------------------------------------------- + usage usage_in_<unit_of_measurement> + max_usage max_usage_in_<unit_of_measurement> + limit limit_in_<unit_of_measurement> + failcnt failcnt + lock no file :) + + b. Reading from file should show the corresponding field value in the + appropriate format. + + c. Writing to file + + Field Expected behavior + ---------------------------------- + usage prohibited + max_usage reset to usage + limit set the limit + failcnt reset to zero + + + +5. Usage example + + a. Declare a task group (take a look at cgroups subsystem for this) and + fold a res_counter into it + + struct my_group { + struct res_counter res; + + <other fields> + } + + b. Put hooks in resource allocation/release paths + + int alloc_something(...) + { + if (res_counter_charge(res_counter_ptr, amount) < 0) + return -ENOMEM; + + <allocate the resource and return to the caller> + } + + void release_something(...) + { + res_counter_uncharge(res_counter_ptr, amount); + + <release the resource> + } + + In order to keep the usage value self-consistent, both the + "res_counter_ptr" and the "amount" in release_something() should be + the same as they were in the alloc_something() when the releasing + resource was allocated. + + c. Provide the way to read res_counter values and set them (the cgroups + still can help with it). + + c. Compile and run :) diff -puN Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ -CPU Accounting Controller -------------------------- - -The CPU accounting controller is used to group tasks using cgroups and -account the CPU usage of these groups of tasks. - -The CPU accounting controller supports multi-hierarchy groups. An accounting -group accumulates the CPU usage of all of its child groups and the tasks -directly present in its group. - -Accounting groups can be created by first mounting the cgroup filesystem. - -# mkdir /cgroups -# mount -t cgroup -ocpuacct none /cgroups - -With the above step, the initial or the parent accounting group -becomes visible at /cgroups. At bootup, this group includes all the -tasks in the system. /cgroups/tasks lists the tasks in this cgroup. -/cgroups/cpuacct.usage gives the CPU time (in nanoseconds) obtained by -this group which is essentially the CPU time obtained by all the tasks -in the system. - -New accounting groups can be created under the parent group /cgroups. - -# cd /cgroups -# mkdir g1 -# echo $$ > g1 - -The above steps create a new group g1 and move the current shell -process (bash) into it. CPU time consumed by this bash and its children -can be obtained from g1/cpuacct.usage and the same is accumulated in -/cgroups/cpuacct.usage also. diff -puN Documentation/controllers/devices.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/controllers/devices.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,52 +0,0 @@ -Device Whitelist Controller - -1. Description: - -Implement a cgroup to track and enforce open and mknod restrictions -on device files. A device cgroup associates a device access -whitelist with each cgroup. A whitelist entry has 4 fields. -'type' is a (all), c (char), or b (block). 'all' means it applies -to all types and all major and minor numbers. Major and minor are -either an integer or * for all. Access is a composition of r -(read), w (write), and m (mknod). - -The root device cgroup starts with rwm to 'all'. A child device -cgroup gets a copy of the parent. Administrators can then remove -devices from the whitelist or add new entries. A child cgroup can -never receive a device access which is denied by its parent. However -when a device access is removed from a parent it will not also be -removed from the child(ren). - -2. User Interface - -An entry is added using devices.allow, and removed using -devices.deny. For instance - - echo 'c 1:3 mr' > /cgroups/1/devices.allow - -allows cgroup 1 to read and mknod the device usually known as -/dev/null. Doing - - echo a > /cgroups/1/devices.deny - -will remove the default 'a *:* rwm' entry. Doing - - echo a > /cgroups/1/devices.allow - -will add the 'a *:* rwm' entry to the whitelist. - -3. Security - -Any task can move itself between cgroups. This clearly won't -suffice, but we can decide the best way to adequately restrict -movement as people get some experience with this. We may just want -to require CAP_SYS_ADMIN, which at least is a separate bit from -CAP_MKNOD. We may want to just refuse moving to a cgroup which -isn't a descendent of the current one. Or we may want to use -CAP_MAC_ADMIN, since we really are trying to lock down root. - -CAP_SYS_ADMIN is needed to modify the whitelist or move another -task to a new cgroup. (Again we'll probably want to change that). - -A cgroup may not be granted more permissions than the cgroup's -parent has. diff -puN Documentation/controllers/memcg_test.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/controllers/memcg_test.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,342 +0,0 @@ -Memory Resource Controller(Memcg) Implementation Memo. -Last Updated: 2008/12/15 -Base Kernel Version: based on 2.6.28-rc8-mm. - -Because VM is getting complex (one of reasons is memcg...), memcg's behavior -is complex. This is a document for memcg's internal behavior. -Please note that implementation details can be changed. - -(*) Topics on API should be in Documentation/controllers/memory.txt) - -0. How to record usage ? - 2 objects are used. - - page_cgroup ....an object per page. - Allocated at boot or memory hotplug. Freed at memory hot removal. - - swap_cgroup ... an entry per swp_entry. - Allocated at swapon(). Freed at swapoff(). - - The page_cgroup has USED bit and double count against a page_cgroup never - occurs. swap_cgroup is used only when a charged page is swapped-out. - -1. Charge - - a page/swp_entry may be charged (usage += PAGE_SIZE) at - - mem_cgroup_newpage_charge() - Called at new page fault and Copy-On-Write. - - mem_cgroup_try_charge_swapin() - Called at do_swap_page() (page fault on swap entry) and swapoff. - Followed by charge-commit-cancel protocol. (With swap accounting) - At commit, a charge recorded in swap_cgroup is removed. - - mem_cgroup_cache_charge() - Called at add_to_page_cache() - - mem_cgroup_cache_charge_swapin() - Called at shmem's swapin. - - mem_cgroup_prepare_migration() - Called before migration. "extra" charge is done and followed by - charge-commit-cancel protocol. - At commit, charge against oldpage or newpage will be committed. - -2. Uncharge - a page/swp_entry may be uncharged (usage -= PAGE_SIZE) by - - mem_cgroup_uncharge_page() - Called when an anonymous page is fully unmapped. I.e., mapcount goes - to 0. If the page is SwapCache, uncharge is delayed until - mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache(). - - mem_cgroup_uncharge_cache_page() - Called when a page-cache is deleted from radix-tree. If the page is - SwapCache, uncharge is delayed until mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache(). - - mem_cgroup_uncharge_swapcache() - Called when SwapCache is removed from radix-tree. The charge itself - is moved to swap_cgroup. (If mem+swap controller is disabled, no - charge to swap occurs.) - - mem_cgroup_uncharge_swap() - Called when swp_entry's refcnt goes down to 0. A charge against swap - disappears. - - mem_cgroup_end_migration(old, new) - At success of migration old is uncharged (if necessary), a charge - to new page is committed. At failure, charge to old page is committed. - -3. charge-commit-cancel - In some case, we can't know this "charge" is valid or not at charging - (because of races). - To handle such case, there are charge-commit-cancel functions. - mem_cgroup_try_charge_XXX - mem_cgroup_commit_charge_XXX - mem_cgroup_cancel_charge_XXX - these are used in swap-in and migration. - - At try_charge(), there are no flags to say "this page is charged". - at this point, usage += PAGE_SIZE. - - At commit(), the function checks the page should be charged or not - and set flags or avoid charging.(usage -= PAGE_SIZE) - - At cancel(), simply usage -= PAGE_SIZE. - -Under below explanation, we assume CONFIG_MEM_RES_CTRL_SWAP=y. - -4. Anonymous - Anonymous page is newly allocated at - - page fault into MAP_ANONYMOUS mapping. - - Copy-On-Write. - It is charged right after it's allocated before doing any page table - related operations. Of course, it's uncharged when another page is used - for the fault address. - - At freeing anonymous page (by exit() or munmap()), zap_pte() is called - and pages for ptes are freed one by one.(see mm/memory.c). Uncharges - are done at page_remove_rmap() when page_mapcount() goes down to 0. - - Another page freeing is by page-reclaim (vmscan.c) and anonymous - pages are swapped out. In this case, the page is marked as - PageSwapCache(). uncharge() routine doesn't uncharge the page marked - as SwapCache(). It's delayed until __delete_from_swap_cache(). - - 4.1 Swap-in. - At swap-in, the page is taken from swap-cache. There are 2 cases. - - (a) If the SwapCache is newly allocated and read, it has no charges. - (b) If the SwapCache has been mapped by processes, it has been - charged already. - - This swap-in is one of the most complicated work. In do_swap_page(), - following events occur when pte is unchanged. - - (1) the page (SwapCache) is looked up. - (2) lock_page() - (3) try_charge_swapin() - (4) reuse_swap_page() (may call delete_swap_cache()) - (5) commit_charge_swapin() - (6) swap_free(). - - Considering following situation for example. - - (A) The page has not been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() - doesn't call delete_from_swap_cache(). - (B) The page has not been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() - calls delete_from_swap_cache(). - (C) The page has been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() doesn't - call delete_from_swap_cache(). - (D) The page has been charged before (2) and reuse_swap_page() calls - delete_from_swap_cache(). - - memory.usage/memsw.usage changes to this page/swp_entry will be - Case (A) (B) (C) (D) - Event - Before (2) 0/ 1 0/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 - =========================================== - (3) +1/+1 +1/+1 +1/+1 +1/+1 - (4) - 0/ 0 - -1/ 0 - (5) 0/-1 0/ 0 -1/-1 0/ 0 - (6) - 0/-1 - 0/-1 - =========================================== - Result 1/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 1/ 1 - - In any cases, charges to this page should be 1/ 1. - - 4.2 Swap-out. - At swap-out, typical state transition is below. - - (a) add to swap cache. (marked as SwapCache) - swp_entry's refcnt += 1. - (b) fully unmapped. - swp_entry's refcnt += # of ptes. - (c) write back to swap. - (d) delete from swap cache. (remove from SwapCache) - swp_entry's refcnt -= 1. - - - At (b), the page is marked as SwapCache and not uncharged. - At (d), the page is removed from SwapCache and a charge in page_cgroup - is moved to swap_cgroup. - - Finally, at task exit, - (e) zap_pte() is called and swp_entry's refcnt -=1 -> 0. - Here, a charge in swap_cgroup disappears. - -5. Page Cache - Page Cache is charged at - - add_to_page_cache_locked(). - - uncharged at - - __remove_from_page_cache(). - - The logic is very clear. (About migration, see below) - Note: __remove_from_page_cache() is called by remove_from_page_cache() - and __remove_mapping(). - -6. Shmem(tmpfs) Page Cache - Memcg's charge/uncharge have special handlers of shmem. The best way - to understand shmem's page state transition is to read mm/shmem.c. - But brief explanation of the behavior of memcg around shmem will be - helpful to understand the logic. - - Shmem's page (just leaf page, not direct/indirect block) can be on - - radix-tree of shmem's inode. - - SwapCache. - - Both on radix-tree and SwapCache. This happens at swap-in - and swap-out, - - It's charged when... - - A new page is added to shmem's radix-tree. - - A swp page is read. (move a charge from swap_cgroup to page_cgroup) - It's uncharged when - - A page is removed from radix-tree and not SwapCache. - - When SwapCache is removed, a charge is moved to swap_cgroup. - - When swp_entry's refcnt goes down to 0, a charge in swap_cgroup - disappears. - -7. Page Migration - One of the most complicated functions is page-migration-handler. - Memcg has 2 routines. Assume that we are migrating a page's contents - from OLDPAGE to NEWPAGE. - - Usual migration logic is.. - (a) remove the page from LRU. - (b) allocate NEWPAGE (migration target) - (c) lock by lock_page(). - (d) unmap all mappings. - (e-1) If necessary, replace entry in radix-tree. - (e-2) move contents of a page. - (f) map all mappings again. - (g) pushback the page to LRU. - (-) OLDPAGE will be freed. - - Before (g), memcg should complete all necessary charge/uncharge to - NEWPAGE/OLDPAGE. - - The point is.... - - If OLDPAGE is anonymous, all charges will be dropped at (d) because - try_to_unmap() drops all mapcount and the page will not be - SwapCache. - - - If OLDPAGE is SwapCache, charges will be kept at (g) because - __delete_from_swap_cache() isn't called at (e-1) - - - If OLDPAGE is page-cache, charges will be kept at (g) because - remove_from_swap_cache() isn't called at (e-1) - - memcg provides following hooks. - - - mem_cgroup_prepare_migration(OLDPAGE) - Called after (b) to account a charge (usage += PAGE_SIZE) against - memcg which OLDPAGE belongs to. - - - mem_cgroup_end_migration(OLDPAGE, NEWPAGE) - Called after (f) before (g). - If OLDPAGE is used, commit OLDPAGE again. If OLDPAGE is already - charged, a charge by prepare_migration() is automatically canceled. - If NEWPAGE is used, commit NEWPAGE and uncharge OLDPAGE. - - But zap_pte() (by exit or munmap) can be called while migration, - we have to check if OLDPAGE/NEWPAGE is a valid page after commit(). - -8. LRU - Each memcg has its own private LRU. Now, it's handling is under global - VM's control (means that it's handled under global zone->lru_lock). - Almost all routines around memcg's LRU is called by global LRU's - list management functions under zone->lru_lock(). - - A special function is mem_cgroup_isolate_pages(). This scans - memcg's private LRU and call __isolate_lru_page() to extract a page - from LRU. - (By __isolate_lru_page(), the page is removed from both of global and - private LRU.) - - -9. Typical Tests. - - Tests for racy cases. - - 9.1 Small limit to memcg. - When you do test to do racy case, it's good test to set memcg's limit - to be very small rather than GB. Many races found in the test under - xKB or xxMB limits. - (Memory behavior under GB and Memory behavior under MB shows very - different situation.) - - 9.2 Shmem - Historically, memcg's shmem handling was poor and we saw some amount - of troubles here. This is because shmem is page-cache but can be - SwapCache. Test with shmem/tmpfs is always good test. - - 9.3 Migration - For NUMA, migration is an another special case. To do easy test, cpuset - is useful. Following is a sample script to do migration. - - mount -t cgroup -o cpuset none /opt/cpuset - - mkdir /opt/cpuset/01 - echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.cpus - echo 0 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.mems - echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/01/cpuset.memory_migrate - mkdir /opt/cpuset/02 - echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.cpus - echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.mems - echo 1 > /opt/cpuset/02/cpuset.memory_migrate - - In above set, when you moves a task from 01 to 02, page migration to - node 0 to node 1 will occur. Following is a script to migrate all - under cpuset. - -- - move_task() - { - for pid in $1 - do - /bin/echo $pid >$2/tasks 2>/dev/null - echo -n $pid - echo -n " " - done - echo END - } - - G1_TASK=`cat ${G1}/tasks` - G2_TASK=`cat ${G2}/tasks` - move_task "${G1_TASK}" ${G2} & - -- - 9.4 Memory hotplug. - memory hotplug test is one of good test. - to offline memory, do following. - # echo offline > /sys/devices/system/memory/memoryXXX/state - (XXX is the place of memory) - This is an easy way to test page migration, too. - - 9.5 mkdir/rmdir - When using hierarchy, mkdir/rmdir test should be done. - Use tests like the following. - - echo 1 >/opt/cgroup/01/memory/use_hierarchy - mkdir /opt/cgroup/01/child_a - mkdir /opt/cgroup/01/child_b - - set limit to 01. - add limit to 01/child_b - run jobs under child_a and child_b - - create/delete following groups at random while jobs are running. - /opt/cgroup/01/child_a/child_aa - /opt/cgroup/01/child_b/child_bb - /opt/cgroup/01/child_c - - running new jobs in new group is also good. - - 9.6 Mount with other subsystems. - Mounting with other subsystems is a good test because there is a - race and lock dependency with other cgroup subsystems. - - example) - # mount -t cgroup none /cgroup -t cpuset,memory,cpu,devices - - and do task move, mkdir, rmdir etc...under this. diff -puN Documentation/controllers/memory.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/controllers/memory.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,399 +0,0 @@ -Memory Resource Controller - -NOTE: The Memory Resource Controller has been generically been referred -to as the memory controller in this document. Do not confuse memory controller -used here with the memory controller that is used in hardware. - -Salient features - -a. Enable control of both RSS (mapped) and Page Cache (unmapped) pages -b. The infrastructure allows easy addition of other types of memory to control -c. Provides *zero overhead* for non memory controller users -d. Provides a double LRU: global memory pressure causes reclaim from the - global LRU; a cgroup on hitting a limit, reclaims from the per - cgroup LRU - -NOTE: Swap Cache (unmapped) is not accounted now. - -Benefits and Purpose of the memory controller - -The memory controller isolates the memory behaviour of a group of tasks -from the rest of the system. The article on LWN [12] mentions some probable -uses of the memory controller. The memory controller can be used to - -a. Isolate an application or a group of applications - Memory hungry applications can be isolated and limited to a smaller - amount of memory. -b. Create a cgroup with limited amount of memory, this can be used - as a good alternative to booting with mem=XXXX. -c. Virtualization solutions can control the amount of memory they want - to assign to a virtual machine instance. -d. A CD/DVD burner could control the amount of memory used by the - rest of the system to ensure that burning does not fail due to lack - of available memory. -e. There are several other use cases, find one or use the controller just - for fun (to learn and hack on the VM subsystem). - -1. History - -The memory controller has a long history. A request for comments for the memory -controller was posted by Balbir Singh [1]. At the time the RFC was posted -there were several implementations for memory control. The goal of the -RFC was to build consensus and agreement for the minimal features required -for memory control. The first RSS controller was posted by Balbir Singh[2] -in Feb 2007. Pavel Emelianov [3][4][5] has since posted three versions of the -RSS controller. At OLS, at the resource management BoF, everyone suggested -that we handle both page cache and RSS together. Another request was raised -to allow user space handling of OOM. The current memory controller is -at version 6; it combines both mapped (RSS) and unmapped Page -Cache Control [11]. - -2. Memory Control - -Memory is a unique resource in the sense that it is present in a limited -amount. If a task requires a lot of CPU processing, the task can spread -its processing over a period of hours, days, months or years, but with -memory, the same physical memory needs to be reused to accomplish the task. - -The memory controller implementation has been divided into phases. These -are: - -1. Memory controller -2. mlock(2) controller -3. Kernel user memory accounting and slab control -4. user mappings length controller - -The memory controller is the first controller developed. - -2.1. Design - -The core of the design is a counter called the res_counter. The res_counter -tracks the current memory usage and limit of the group of processes associated -with the controller. Each cgroup has a memory controller specific data -structure (mem_cgroup) associated with it. - -2.2. Accounting - - +--------------------+ - | mem_cgroup | - | (res_counter) | - +--------------------+ - / ^ \ - / | \ - +---------------+ | +---------------+ - | mm_struct | |.... | mm_struct | - | | | | | - +---------------+ | +---------------+ - | - + --------------+ - | - +---------------+ +------+--------+ - | page +----------> page_cgroup| - | | | | - +---------------+ +---------------+ - - (Figure 1: Hierarchy of Accounting) - - -Figure 1 shows the important aspects of the controller - -1. Accounting happens per cgroup -2. Each mm_struct knows about which cgroup it belongs to -3. Each page has a pointer to the page_cgroup, which in turn knows the - cgroup it belongs to - -The accounting is done as follows: mem_cgroup_charge() is invoked to setup -the necessary data structures and check if the cgroup that is being charged -is over its limit. If it is then reclaim is invoked on the cgroup. -More details can be found in the reclaim section of this document. -If everything goes well, a page meta-data-structure called page_cgroup is -allocated and associated with the page. This routine also adds the page to -the per cgroup LRU. - -2.2.1 Accounting details - -All mapped anon pages (RSS) and cache pages (Page Cache) are accounted. -(some pages which never be reclaimable and will not be on global LRU - are not accounted. we just accounts pages under usual vm management.) - -RSS pages are accounted at page_fault unless they've already been accounted -for earlier. A file page will be accounted for as Page Cache when it's -inserted into inode (radix-tree). While it's mapped into the page tables of -processes, duplicate accounting is carefully avoided. - -A RSS page is unaccounted when it's fully unmapped. A PageCache page is -unaccounted when it's removed from radix-tree. - -At page migration, accounting information is kept. - -Note: we just account pages-on-lru because our purpose is to control amount -of used pages. not-on-lru pages are tend to be out-of-control from vm view. - -2.3 Shared Page Accounting - -Shared pages are accounted on the basis of the first touch approach. The -cgroup that first touches a page is accounted for the page. The principle -behind this approach is that a cgroup that aggressively uses a shared -page will eventually get charged for it (once it is uncharged from -the cgroup that brought it in -- this will happen on memory pressure). - -Exception: If CONFIG_CGROUP_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP is not used.. -When you do swapoff and make swapped-out pages of shmem(tmpfs) to -be backed into memory in force, charges for pages are accounted against the -caller of swapoff rather than the users of shmem. - - -2.4 Swap Extension (CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP) -Swap Extension allows you to record charge for swap. A swapped-in page is -charged back to original page allocator if possible. - -When swap is accounted, following files are added. - - memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes. - - memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes. - -usage of mem+swap is limited by memsw.limit_in_bytes. - -Note: why 'mem+swap' rather than swap. -The global LRU(kswapd) can swap out arbitrary pages. Swap-out means -to move account from memory to swap...there is no change in usage of -mem+swap. - -In other words, when we want to limit the usage of swap without affecting -global LRU, mem+swap limit is better than just limiting swap from OS point -of view. - -2.5 Reclaim - -Each cgroup maintains a per cgroup LRU that consists of an active -and inactive list. When a cgroup goes over its limit, we first try -to reclaim memory from the cgroup so as to make space for the new -pages that the cgroup has touched. If the reclaim is unsuccessful, -an OOM routine is invoked to select and kill the bulkiest task in the -cgroup. - -The reclaim algorithm has not been modified for cgroups, except that -pages that are selected for reclaiming come from the per cgroup LRU -list. - -2. Locking - -The memory controller uses the following hierarchy - -1. zone->lru_lock is used for selecting pages to be isolated -2. mem->per_zone->lru_lock protects the per cgroup LRU (per zone) -3. lock_page_cgroup() is used to protect page->page_cgroup - -3. User Interface - -0. Configuration - -a. Enable CONFIG_CGROUPS -b. Enable CONFIG_RESOURCE_COUNTERS -c. Enable CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR - -1. Prepare the cgroups -# mkdir -p /cgroups -# mount -t cgroup none /cgroups -o memory - -2. Make the new group and move bash into it -# mkdir /cgroups/0 -# echo $$ > /cgroups/0/tasks - -Since now we're in the 0 cgroup, -We can alter the memory limit: -# echo 4M > /cgroups/0/memory.limit_in_bytes - -NOTE: We can use a suffix (k, K, m, M, g or G) to indicate values in kilo, -mega or gigabytes. - -# cat /cgroups/0/memory.limit_in_bytes -4194304 - -NOTE: The interface has now changed to display the usage in bytes -instead of pages - -We can check the usage: -# cat /cgroups/0/memory.usage_in_bytes -1216512 - -A successful write to this file does not guarantee a successful set of -this limit to the value written into the file. This can be due to a -number of factors, such as rounding up to page boundaries or the total -availability of memory on the system. The user is required to re-read -this file after a write to guarantee the value committed by the kernel. - -# echo 1 > memory.limit_in_bytes -# cat memory.limit_in_bytes -4096 - -The memory.failcnt field gives the number of times that the cgroup limit was -exceeded. - -The memory.stat file gives accounting information. Now, the number of -caches, RSS and Active pages/Inactive pages are shown. - -4. Testing - -Balbir posted lmbench, AIM9, LTP and vmmstress results [10] and [11]. -Apart from that v6 has been tested with several applications and regular -daily use. The controller has also been tested on the PPC64, x86_64 and -UML platforms. - -4.1 Troubleshooting - -Sometimes a user might find that the application under a cgroup is -terminated. There are several causes for this: - -1. The cgroup limit is too low (just too low to do anything useful) -2. The user is using anonymous memory and swap is turned off or too low - -A sync followed by echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches will help get rid of -some of the pages cached in the cgroup (page cache pages). - -4.2 Task migration - -When a task migrates from one cgroup to another, it's charge is not -carried forward. The pages allocated from the original cgroup still -remain charged to it, the charge is dropped when the page is freed or -reclaimed. - -4.3 Removing a cgroup - -A cgroup can be removed by rmdir, but as discussed in sections 4.1 and 4.2, a -cgroup might have some charge associated with it, even though all -tasks have migrated away from it. -Such charges are freed(at default) or moved to its parent. When moved, -both of RSS and CACHES are moved to parent. -If both of them are busy, rmdir() returns -EBUSY. See 5.1 Also. - -Charges recorded in swap information is not updated at removal of cgroup. -Recorded information is discarded and a cgroup which uses swap (swapcache) -will be charged as a new owner of it. - - -5. Misc. interfaces. - -5.1 force_empty - memory.force_empty interface is provided to make cgroup's memory usage empty. - You can use this interface only when the cgroup has no tasks. - When writing anything to this - - # echo 0 > memory.force_empty - - Almost all pages tracked by this memcg will be unmapped and freed. Some of - pages cannot be freed because it's locked or in-use. Such pages are moved - to parent and this cgroup will be empty. But this may return -EBUSY in - some too busy case. - - Typical use case of this interface is that calling this before rmdir(). - Because rmdir() moves all pages to parent, some out-of-use page caches can be - moved to the parent. If you want to avoid that, force_empty will be useful. - -5.2 stat file - memory.stat file includes following statistics (now) - cache - # of pages from page-cache and shmem. - rss - # of pages from anonymous memory. - pgpgin - # of event of charging - pgpgout - # of event of uncharging - active_anon - # of pages on active lru of anon, shmem. - inactive_anon - # of pages on active lru of anon, shmem - active_file - # of pages on active lru of file-cache - inactive_file - # of pages on inactive lru of file cache - unevictable - # of pages cannot be reclaimed.(mlocked etc) - - Below is depend on CONFIG_DEBUG_VM. - inactive_ratio - VM inernal parameter. (see mm/page_alloc.c) - recent_rotated_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) - recent_rotated_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) - recent_scanned_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) - recent_scanned_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c) - - Memo: - recent_rotated means recent frequency of lru rotation. - recent_scanned means recent # of scans to lru. - showing for better debug please see the code for meanings. - - -5.3 swappiness - Similar to /proc/sys/vm/swappiness, but affecting a hierarchy of groups only. - - Following cgroup's swapiness can't be changed. - - root cgroup (uses /proc/sys/vm/swappiness). - - a cgroup which uses hierarchy and it has child cgroup. - - a cgroup which uses hierarchy and not the root of hierarchy. - - -6. Hierarchy support - -The memory controller supports a deep hierarchy and hierarchical accounting. -The hierarchy is created by creating the appropriate cgroups in the -cgroup filesystem. Consider for example, the following cgroup filesystem -hierarchy - - root - / | \ - / | \ - a b c - | \ - | \ - d e - -In the diagram above, with hierarchical accounting enabled, all memory -usage of e, is accounted to its ancestors up until the root (i.e, c and root), -that has memory.use_hierarchy enabled. If one of the ancestors goes over its -limit, the reclaim algorithm reclaims from the tasks in the ancestor and the -children of the ancestor. - -6.1 Enabling hierarchical accounting and reclaim - -The memory controller by default disables the hierarchy feature. Support -can be enabled by writing 1 to memory.use_hierarchy file of the root cgroup - -# echo 1 > memory.use_hierarchy - -The feature can be disabled by - -# echo 0 > memory.use_hierarchy - -NOTE1: Enabling/disabling will fail if the cgroup already has other -cgroups created below it. - -NOTE2: This feature can be enabled/disabled per subtree. - -7. TODO - -1. Add support for accounting huge pages (as a separate controller) -2. Make per-cgroup scanner reclaim not-shared pages first -3. Teach controller to account for shared-pages -4. Start reclamation in the background when the limit is - not yet hit but the usage is getting closer - -Summary - -Overall, the memory controller has been a stable controller and has been -commented and discussed quite extensively in the community. - -References - -1. Singh, Balbir. RFC: Memory Controller, http://lwn.net/Articles/206697/ -2. Singh, Balbir. Memory Controller (RSS Control), - http://lwn.net/Articles/222762/ -3. Emelianov, Pavel. Resource controllers based on process cgroups - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/6/198 -4. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v2) - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/4/9/78 -5. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v3) - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/30/244 -6. Menage, Paul. Control Groups v10, http://lwn.net/Articles/236032/ -7. Vaidyanathan, Srinivasan, Control Groups: Pagecache accounting and control - subsystem (v3), http://lwn.net/Articles/235534/ -8. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 test results (lmbench), - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/17/232 -9. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 AIM9 results - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/18/1 -10. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller v6 test results, - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/19/36 -11. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller introduction (v6), - http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/17/69 -12. Corbet, Jonathan, Controlling memory use in cgroups, - http://lwn.net/Articles/243795/ diff -puN Documentation/controllers/resource_counter.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/controllers/resource_counter.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,181 +0,0 @@ - - The Resource Counter - -The resource counter, declared at include/linux/res_counter.h, -is supposed to facilitate the resource management by controllers -by providing common stuff for accounting. - -This "stuff" includes the res_counter structure and routines -to work with it. - - - -1. Crucial parts of the res_counter structure - - a. unsigned long long usage - - The usage value shows the amount of a resource that is consumed - by a group at a given time. The units of measurement should be - determined by the controller that uses this counter. E.g. it can - be bytes, items or any other unit the controller operates on. - - b. unsigned long long max_usage - - The maximal value of the usage over time. - - This value is useful when gathering statistical information about - the particular group, as it shows the actual resource requirements - for a particular group, not just some usage snapshot. - - c. unsigned long long limit - - The maximal allowed amount of resource to consume by the group. In - case the group requests for more resources, so that the usage value - would exceed the limit, the resource allocation is rejected (see - the next section). - - d. unsigned long long failcnt - - The failcnt stands for "failures counter". This is the number of - resource allocation attempts that failed. - - c. spinlock_t lock - - Protects changes of the above values. - - - -2. Basic accounting routines - - a. void res_counter_init(struct res_counter *rc) - - Initializes the resource counter. As usual, should be the first - routine called for a new counter. - - b. int res_counter_charge[_locked] - (struct res_counter *rc, unsigned long val) - - When a resource is about to be allocated it has to be accounted - with the appropriate resource counter (controller should determine - which one to use on its own). This operation is called "charging". - - This is not very important which operation - resource allocation - or charging - is performed first, but - * if the allocation is performed first, this may create a - temporary resource over-usage by the time resource counter is - charged; - * if the charging is performed first, then it should be uncharged - on error path (if the one is called). - - c. void res_counter_uncharge[_locked] - (struct res_counter *rc, unsigned long val) - - When a resource is released (freed) it should be de-accounted - from the resource counter it was accounted to. This is called - "uncharging". - - The _locked routines imply that the res_counter->lock is taken. - - - 2.1 Other accounting routines - - There are more routines that may help you with common needs, like - checking whether the limit is reached or resetting the max_usage - value. They are all declared in include/linux/res_counter.h. - - - -3. Analyzing the resource counter registrations - - a. If the failcnt value constantly grows, this means that the counter's - limit is too tight. Either the group is misbehaving and consumes too - many resources, or the configuration is not suitable for the group - and the limit should be increased. - - b. The max_usage value can be used to quickly tune the group. One may - set the limits to maximal values and either load the container with - a common pattern or leave one for a while. After this the max_usage - value shows the amount of memory the container would require during - its common activity. - - Setting the limit a bit above this value gives a pretty good - configuration that works in most of the cases. - - c. If the max_usage is much less than the limit, but the failcnt value - is growing, then the group tries to allocate a big chunk of resource - at once. - - d. If the max_usage is much less than the limit, but the failcnt value - is 0, then this group is given too high limit, that it does not - require. It is better to lower the limit a bit leaving more resource - for other groups. - - - -4. Communication with the control groups subsystem (cgroups) - -All the resource controllers that are using cgroups and resource counters -should provide files (in the cgroup filesystem) to work with the resource -counter fields. They are recommended to adhere to the following rules: - - a. File names - - Field name File name - --------------------------------------------------- - usage usage_in_<unit_of_measurement> - max_usage max_usage_in_<unit_of_measurement> - limit limit_in_<unit_of_measurement> - failcnt failcnt - lock no file :) - - b. Reading from file should show the corresponding field value in the - appropriate format. - - c. Writing to file - - Field Expected behavior - ---------------------------------- - usage prohibited - max_usage reset to usage - limit set the limit - failcnt reset to zero - - - -5. Usage example - - a. Declare a task group (take a look at cgroups subsystem for this) and - fold a res_counter into it - - struct my_group { - struct res_counter res; - - <other fields> - } - - b. Put hooks in resource allocation/release paths - - int alloc_something(...) - { - if (res_counter_charge(res_counter_ptr, amount) < 0) - return -ENOMEM; - - <allocate the resource and return to the caller> - } - - void release_something(...) - { - res_counter_uncharge(res_counter_ptr, amount); - - <release the resource> - } - - In order to keep the usage value self-consistent, both the - "res_counter_ptr" and the "amount" in release_something() should be - the same as they were in the alloc_something() when the releasing - resource was allocated. - - c. Provide the way to read res_counter values and set them (the cgroups - still can help with it). - - c. Compile and run :) diff -puN Documentation/cpusets.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents /dev/null --- a/Documentation/cpusets.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,808 +0,0 @@ - CPUSETS - ------- - -Copyright (C) 2004 BULL SA. -Written by Simon.Derr@xxxxxxxx - -Portions Copyright (c) 2004-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc. -Modified by Paul Jackson <pj@xxxxxxx> -Modified by Christoph Lameter <clameter@xxxxxxx> -Modified by Paul Menage <menage@xxxxxxxxxx> -Modified by Hidetoshi Seto <seto.hidetoshi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> - -CONTENTS: -========= - -1. Cpusets - 1.1 What are cpusets ? - 1.2 Why are cpusets needed ? - 1.3 How are cpusets implemented ? - 1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ? - 1.5 What is memory_pressure ? - 1.6 What is memory spread ? - 1.7 What is sched_load_balance ? - 1.8 What is sched_relax_domain_level ? - 1.9 How do I use cpusets ? -2. Usage Examples and Syntax - 2.1 Basic Usage - 2.2 Adding/removing cpus - 2.3 Setting flags - 2.4 Attaching processes -3. Questions -4. Contact - -1. Cpusets -========== - -1.1 What are cpusets ? ----------------------- - -Cpusets provide a mechanism for assigning a set of CPUs and Memory -Nodes to a set of tasks. In this document "Memory Node" refers to -an on-line node that contains memory. - -Cpusets constrain the CPU and Memory placement of tasks to only -the resources within a tasks current cpuset. They form a nested -hierarchy visible in a virtual file system. These are the essential -hooks, beyond what is already present, required to manage dynamic -job placement on large systems. - -Cpusets use the generic cgroup subsystem described in -Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt. - -Requests by a task, using the sched_setaffinity(2) system call to -include CPUs in its CPU affinity mask, and using the mbind(2) and -set_mempolicy(2) system calls to include Memory Nodes in its memory -policy, are both filtered through that tasks cpuset, filtering out any -CPUs or Memory Nodes not in that cpuset. The scheduler will not -schedule a task on a CPU that is not allowed in its cpus_allowed -vector, and the kernel page allocator will not allocate a page on a -node that is not allowed in the requesting tasks mems_allowed vector. - -User level code may create and destroy cpusets by name in the cgroup -virtual file system, manage the attributes and permissions of these -cpusets and which CPUs and Memory Nodes are assigned to each cpuset, -specify and query to which cpuset a task is assigned, and list the -task pids assigned to a cpuset. - - -1.2 Why are cpusets needed ? ----------------------------- - -The management of large computer systems, with many processors (CPUs), -complex memory cache hierarchies and multiple Memory Nodes having -non-uniform access times (NUMA) presents additional challenges for -the efficient scheduling and memory placement of processes. - -Frequently more modest sized systems can be operated with adequate -efficiency just by letting the operating system automatically share -the available CPU and Memory resources amongst the requesting tasks. - -But larger systems, which benefit more from careful processor and -memory placement to reduce memory access times and contention, -and which typically represent a larger investment for the customer, -can benefit from explicitly placing jobs on properly sized subsets of -the system. - -This can be especially valuable on: - - * Web Servers running multiple instances of the same web application, - * Servers running different applications (for instance, a web server - and a database), or - * NUMA systems running large HPC applications with demanding - performance characteristics. - -These subsets, or "soft partitions" must be able to be dynamically -adjusted, as the job mix changes, without impacting other concurrently -executing jobs. The location of the running jobs pages may also be moved -when the memory locations are changed. - -The kernel cpuset patch provides the minimum essential kernel -mechanisms required to efficiently implement such subsets. It -leverages existing CPU and Memory Placement facilities in the Linux -kernel to avoid any additional impact on the critical scheduler or -memory allocator code. - - -1.3 How are cpusets implemented ? ---------------------------------- - -Cpusets provide a Linux kernel mechanism to constrain which CPUs and -Memory Nodes are used by a process or set of processes. - -The Linux kernel already has a pair of mechanisms to specify on which -CPUs a task may be scheduled (sched_setaffinity) and on which Memory -Nodes it may obtain memory (mbind, set_mempolicy). - -Cpusets extends these two mechanisms as follows: - - - Cpusets are sets of allowed CPUs and Memory Nodes, known to the - kernel. - - Each task in the system is attached to a cpuset, via a pointer - in the task structure to a reference counted cgroup structure. - - Calls to sched_setaffinity are filtered to just those CPUs - allowed in that tasks cpuset. - - Calls to mbind and set_mempolicy are filtered to just - those Memory Nodes allowed in that tasks cpuset. - - The root cpuset contains all the systems CPUs and Memory - Nodes. - - For any cpuset, one can define child cpusets containing a subset - of the parents CPU and Memory Node resources. - - The hierarchy of cpusets can be mounted at /dev/cpuset, for - browsing and manipulation from user space. - - A cpuset may be marked exclusive, which ensures that no other - cpuset (except direct ancestors and descendents) may contain - any overlapping CPUs or Memory Nodes. - - You can list all the tasks (by pid) attached to any cpuset. - -The implementation of cpusets requires a few, simple hooks -into the rest of the kernel, none in performance critical paths: - - - in init/main.c, to initialize the root cpuset at system boot. - - in fork and exit, to attach and detach a task from its cpuset. - - in sched_setaffinity, to mask the requested CPUs by what's - allowed in that tasks cpuset. - - in sched.c migrate_all_tasks(), to keep migrating tasks within - the CPUs allowed by their cpuset, if possible. - - in the mbind and set_mempolicy system calls, to mask the requested - Memory Nodes by what's allowed in that tasks cpuset. - - in page_alloc.c, to restrict memory to allowed nodes. - - in vmscan.c, to restrict page recovery to the current cpuset. - -You should mount the "cgroup" filesystem type in order to enable -browsing and modifying the cpusets presently known to the kernel. No -new system calls are added for cpusets - all support for querying and -modifying cpusets is via this cpuset file system. - -The /proc/<pid>/status file for each task has four added lines, -displaying the tasks cpus_allowed (on which CPUs it may be scheduled) -and mems_allowed (on which Memory Nodes it may obtain memory), -in the two formats seen in the following example: - - Cpus_allowed: ffffffff,ffffffff,ffffffff,ffffffff - Cpus_allowed_list: 0-127 - Mems_allowed: ffffffff,ffffffff - Mems_allowed_list: 0-63 - -Each cpuset is represented by a directory in the cgroup file system -containing (on top of the standard cgroup files) the following -files describing that cpuset: - - - cpus: list of CPUs in that cpuset - - mems: list of Memory Nodes in that cpuset - - memory_migrate flag: if set, move pages to cpusets nodes - - cpu_exclusive flag: is cpu placement exclusive? - - mem_exclusive flag: is memory placement exclusive? - - mem_hardwall flag: is memory allocation hardwalled - - memory_pressure: measure of how much paging pressure in cpuset - -In addition, the root cpuset only has the following file: - - memory_pressure_enabled flag: compute memory_pressure? - -New cpusets are created using the mkdir system call or shell -command. The properties of a cpuset, such as its flags, allowed -CPUs and Memory Nodes, and attached tasks, are modified by writing -to the appropriate file in that cpusets directory, as listed above. - -The named hierarchical structure of nested cpusets allows partitioning -a large system into nested, dynamically changeable, "soft-partitions". - -The attachment of each task, automatically inherited at fork by any -children of that task, to a cpuset allows organizing the work load -on a system into related sets of tasks such that each set is constrained -to using the CPUs and Memory Nodes of a particular cpuset. A task -may be re-attached to any other cpuset, if allowed by the permissions -on the necessary cpuset file system directories. - -Such management of a system "in the large" integrates smoothly with -the detailed placement done on individual tasks and memory regions -using the sched_setaffinity, mbind and set_mempolicy system calls. - -The following rules apply to each cpuset: - - - Its CPUs and Memory Nodes must be a subset of its parents. - - It can't be marked exclusive unless its parent is. - - If its cpu or memory is exclusive, they may not overlap any sibling. - -These rules, and the natural hierarchy of cpusets, enable efficient -enforcement of the exclusive guarantee, without having to scan all -cpusets every time any of them change to ensure nothing overlaps a -exclusive cpuset. Also, the use of a Linux virtual file system (vfs) -to represent the cpuset hierarchy provides for a familiar permission -and name space for cpusets, with a minimum of additional kernel code. - -The cpus and mems files in the root (top_cpuset) cpuset are -read-only. The cpus file automatically tracks the value of -cpu_online_map using a CPU hotplug notifier, and the mems file -automatically tracks the value of node_states[N_HIGH_MEMORY]--i.e., -nodes with memory--using the cpuset_track_online_nodes() hook. - - -1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ? --------------------------------- - -If a cpuset is cpu or mem exclusive, no other cpuset, other than -a direct ancestor or descendent, may share any of the same CPUs or -Memory Nodes. - -A cpuset that is mem_exclusive *or* mem_hardwall is "hardwalled", -i.e. it restricts kernel allocations for page, buffer and other data -commonly shared by the kernel across multiple users. All cpusets, -whether hardwalled or not, restrict allocations of memory for user -space. This enables configuring a system so that several independent -jobs can share common kernel data, such as file system pages, while -isolating each job's user allocation in its own cpuset. To do this, -construct a large mem_exclusive cpuset to hold all the jobs, and -construct child, non-mem_exclusive cpusets for each individual job. -Only a small amount of typical kernel memory, such as requests from -interrupt handlers, is allowed to be taken outside even a -mem_exclusive cpuset. - - -1.5 What is memory_pressure ? ------------------------------ -The memory_pressure of a cpuset provides a simple per-cpuset metric -of the rate that the tasks in a cpuset are attempting to free up in -use memory on the nodes of the cpuset to satisfy additional memory -requests. - -This enables batch managers monitoring jobs running in dedicated -cpusets to efficiently detect what level of memory pressure that job -is causing. - -This is useful both on tightly managed systems running a wide mix of -submitted jobs, which may choose to terminate or re-prioritize jobs that -are trying to use more memory than allowed on the nodes assigned them, -and with tightly coupled, long running, massively parallel scientific -computing jobs that will dramatically fail to meet required performance -goals if they start to use more memory than allowed to them. - -This mechanism provides a very economical way for the batch manager -to monitor a cpuset for signs of memory pressure. It's up to the -batch manager or other user code to decide what to do about it and -take action. - -==> Unless this feature is enabled by writing "1" to the special file - /dev/cpuset/memory_pressure_enabled, the hook in the rebalance - code of __alloc_pages() for this metric reduces to simply noticing - that the cpuset_memory_pressure_enabled flag is zero. So only - systems that enable this feature will compute the metric. - -Why a per-cpuset, running average: - - Because this meter is per-cpuset, rather than per-task or mm, - the system load imposed by a batch scheduler monitoring this - metric is sharply reduced on large systems, because a scan of - the tasklist can be avoided on each set of queries. - - Because this meter is a running average, instead of an accumulating - counter, a batch scheduler can detect memory pressure with a - single read, instead of having to read and accumulate results - for a period of time. - - Because this meter is per-cpuset rather than per-task or mm, - the batch scheduler can obtain the key information, memory - pressure in a cpuset, with a single read, rather than having to - query and accumulate results over all the (dynamically changing) - set of tasks in the cpuset. - -A per-cpuset simple digital filter (requires a spinlock and 3 words -of data per-cpuset) is kept, and updated by any task attached to that -cpuset, if it enters the synchronous (direct) page reclaim code. - -A per-cpuset file provides an integer number representing the recent -(half-life of 10 seconds) rate of direct page reclaims caused by -the tasks in the cpuset, in units of reclaims attempted per second, -times 1000. - - -1.6 What is memory spread ? ---------------------------- -There are two boolean flag files per cpuset that control where the -kernel allocates pages for the file system buffers and related in -kernel data structures. They are called 'memory_spread_page' and -'memory_spread_slab'. - -If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_page' is set, then -the kernel will spread the file system buffers (page cache) evenly -over all the nodes that the faulting task is allowed to use, instead -of preferring to put those pages on the node where the task is running. - -If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_slab' is set, -then the kernel will spread some file system related slab caches, -such as for inodes and dentries evenly over all the nodes that the -faulting task is allowed to use, instead of preferring to put those -pages on the node where the task is running. - -The setting of these flags does not affect anonymous data segment or -stack segment pages of a task. - -By default, both kinds of memory spreading are off, and memory -pages are allocated on the node local to where the task is running, -except perhaps as modified by the tasks NUMA mempolicy or cpuset -configuration, so long as sufficient free memory pages are available. - -When new cpusets are created, they inherit the memory spread settings -of their parent. - -Setting memory spreading causes allocations for the affected page -or slab caches to ignore the tasks NUMA mempolicy and be spread -instead. Tasks using mbind() or set_mempolicy() calls to set NUMA -mempolicies will not notice any change in these calls as a result of -their containing tasks memory spread settings. If memory spreading -is turned off, then the currently specified NUMA mempolicy once again -applies to memory page allocations. - -Both 'memory_spread_page' and 'memory_spread_slab' are boolean flag -files. By default they contain "0", meaning that the feature is off -for that cpuset. If a "1" is written to that file, then that turns -the named feature on. - -The implementation is simple. - -Setting the flag 'memory_spread_page' turns on a per-process flag -PF_SPREAD_PAGE for each task that is in that cpuset or subsequently -joins that cpuset. The page allocation calls for the page cache -is modified to perform an inline check for this PF_SPREAD_PAGE task -flag, and if set, a call to a new routine cpuset_mem_spread_node() -returns the node to prefer for the allocation. - -Similarly, setting 'memory_spread_slab' turns on the flag -PF_SPREAD_SLAB, and appropriately marked slab caches will allocate -pages from the node returned by cpuset_mem_spread_node(). - -The cpuset_mem_spread_node() routine is also simple. It uses the -value of a per-task rotor cpuset_mem_spread_rotor to select the next -node in the current tasks mems_allowed to prefer for the allocation. - -This memory placement policy is also known (in other contexts) as -round-robin or interleave. - -This policy can provide substantial improvements for jobs that need -to place thread local data on the corresponding node, but that need -to access large file system data sets that need to be spread across -the several nodes in the jobs cpuset in order to fit. Without this -policy, especially for jobs that might have one thread reading in the -data set, the memory allocation across the nodes in the jobs cpuset -can become very uneven. - -1.7 What is sched_load_balance ? --------------------------------- - -The kernel scheduler (kernel/sched.c) automatically load balances -tasks. If one CPU is underutilized, kernel code running on that -CPU will look for tasks on other more overloaded CPUs and move those -tasks to itself, within the constraints of such placement mechanisms -as cpusets and sched_setaffinity. - -The algorithmic cost of load balancing and its impact on key shared -kernel data structures such as the task list increases more than -linearly with the number of CPUs being balanced. So the scheduler -has support to partition the systems CPUs into a number of sched -domains such that it only load balances within each sched domain. -Each sched domain covers some subset of the CPUs in the system; -no two sched domains overlap; some CPUs might not be in any sched -domain and hence won't be load balanced. - -Put simply, it costs less to balance between two smaller sched domains -than one big one, but doing so means that overloads in one of the -two domains won't be load balanced to the other one. - -By default, there is one sched domain covering all CPUs, except those -marked isolated using the kernel boot time "isolcpus=" argument. - -This default load balancing across all CPUs is not well suited for -the following two situations: - 1) On large systems, load balancing across many CPUs is expensive. - If the system is managed using cpusets to place independent jobs - on separate sets of CPUs, full load balancing is unnecessary. - 2) Systems supporting realtime on some CPUs need to minimize - system overhead on those CPUs, including avoiding task load - balancing if that is not needed. - -When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is enabled (the default -setting), it requests that all the CPUs in that cpusets allowed 'cpus' -be contained in a single sched domain, ensuring that load balancing -can move a task (not otherwised pinned, as by sched_setaffinity) -from any CPU in that cpuset to any other. - -When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is disabled, then the -scheduler will avoid load balancing across the CPUs in that cpuset, ---except-- in so far as is necessary because some overlapping cpuset -has "sched_load_balance" enabled. - -So, for example, if the top cpuset has the flag "sched_load_balance" -enabled, then the scheduler will have one sched domain covering all -CPUs, and the setting of the "sched_load_balance" flag in any other -cpusets won't matter, as we're already fully load balancing. - -Therefore in the above two situations, the top cpuset flag -"sched_load_balance" should be disabled, and only some of the smaller, -child cpusets have this flag enabled. - -When doing this, you don't usually want to leave any unpinned tasks in -the top cpuset that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU, as such tasks -may be artificially constrained to some subset of CPUs, depending on -the particulars of this flag setting in descendent cpusets. Even if -such a task could use spare CPU cycles in some other CPUs, the kernel -scheduler might not consider the possibility of load balancing that -task to that underused CPU. - -Of course, tasks pinned to a particular CPU can be left in a cpuset -that disables "sched_load_balance" as those tasks aren't going anywhere -else anyway. - -There is an impedance mismatch here, between cpusets and sched domains. -Cpusets are hierarchical and nest. Sched domains are flat; they don't -overlap and each CPU is in at most one sched domain. - -It is necessary for sched domains to be flat because load balancing -across partially overlapping sets of CPUs would risk unstable dynamics -that would be beyond our understanding. So if each of two partially -overlapping cpusets enables the flag 'sched_load_balance', then we -form a single sched domain that is a superset of both. We won't move -a task to a CPU outside it cpuset, but the scheduler load balancing -code might waste some compute cycles considering that possibility. - -This mismatch is why there is not a simple one-to-one relation -between which cpusets have the flag "sched_load_balance" enabled, -and the sched domain configuration. If a cpuset enables the flag, it -will get balancing across all its CPUs, but if it disables the flag, -it will only be assured of no load balancing if no other overlapping -cpuset enables the flag. - -If two cpusets have partially overlapping 'cpus' allowed, and only -one of them has this flag enabled, then the other may find its -tasks only partially load balanced, just on the overlapping CPUs. -This is just the general case of the top_cpuset example given a few -paragraphs above. In the general case, as in the top cpuset case, -don't leave tasks that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU in -such partially load balanced cpusets, as they may be artificially -constrained to some subset of the CPUs allowed to them, for lack of -load balancing to the other CPUs. - -1.7.1 sched_load_balance implementation details. ------------------------------------------------- - -The per-cpuset flag 'sched_load_balance' defaults to enabled (contrary -to most cpuset flags.) When enabled for a cpuset, the kernel will -ensure that it can load balance across all the CPUs in that cpuset -(makes sure that all the CPUs in the cpus_allowed of that cpuset are -in the same sched domain.) - -If two overlapping cpusets both have 'sched_load_balance' enabled, -then they will be (must be) both in the same sched domain. - -If, as is the default, the top cpuset has 'sched_load_balance' enabled, -then by the above that means there is a single sched domain covering -the whole system, regardless of any other cpuset settings. - -The kernel commits to user space that it will avoid load balancing -where it can. It will pick as fine a granularity partition of sched -domains as it can while still providing load balancing for any set -of CPUs allowed to a cpuset having 'sched_load_balance' enabled. - -The internal kernel cpuset to scheduler interface passes from the -cpuset code to the scheduler code a partition of the load balanced -CPUs in the system. This partition is a set of subsets (represented -as an array of cpumask_t) of CPUs, pairwise disjoint, that cover all -the CPUs that must be load balanced. - -Whenever the 'sched_load_balance' flag changes, or CPUs come or go -from a cpuset with this flag enabled, or a cpuset with this flag -enabled is removed, the cpuset code builds a new such partition and -passes it to the scheduler sched domain setup code, to have the sched -domains rebuilt as necessary. - -This partition exactly defines what sched domains the scheduler should -setup - one sched domain for each element (cpumask_t) in the partition. - -The scheduler remembers the currently active sched domain partitions. -When the scheduler routine partition_sched_domains() is invoked from -the cpuset code to update these sched domains, it compares the new -partition requested with the current, and updates its sched domains, -removing the old and adding the new, for each change. - - -1.8 What is sched_relax_domain_level ? --------------------------------------- - -In sched domain, the scheduler migrates tasks in 2 ways; periodic load -balance on tick, and at time of some schedule events. - -When a task is woken up, scheduler try to move the task on idle CPU. -For example, if a task A running on CPU X activates another task B -on the same CPU X, and if CPU Y is X's sibling and performing idle, -then scheduler migrate task B to CPU Y so that task B can start on -CPU Y without waiting task A on CPU X. - -And if a CPU run out of tasks in its runqueue, the CPU try to pull -extra tasks from other busy CPUs to help them before it is going to -be idle. - -Of course it takes some searching cost to find movable tasks and/or -idle CPUs, the scheduler might not search all CPUs in the domain -everytime. In fact, in some architectures, the searching ranges on -events are limited in the same socket or node where the CPU locates, -while the load balance on tick searchs all. - -For example, assume CPU Z is relatively far from CPU X. Even if CPU Z -is idle while CPU X and the siblings are busy, scheduler can't migrate -woken task B from X to Z since it is out of its searching range. -As the result, task B on CPU X need to wait task A or wait load balance -on the next tick. For some applications in special situation, waiting -1 tick may be too long. - -The 'sched_relax_domain_level' file allows you to request changing -this searching range as you like. This file takes int value which -indicates size of searching range in levels ideally as follows, -otherwise initial value -1 that indicates the cpuset has no request. - - -1 : no request. use system default or follow request of others. - 0 : no search. - 1 : search siblings (hyperthreads in a core). - 2 : search cores in a package. - 3 : search cpus in a node [= system wide on non-NUMA system] - ( 4 : search nodes in a chunk of node [on NUMA system] ) - ( 5 : search system wide [on NUMA system] ) - -The system default is architecture dependent. The system default -can be changed using the relax_domain_level= boot parameter. - -This file is per-cpuset and affect the sched domain where the cpuset -belongs to. Therefore if the flag 'sched_load_balance' of a cpuset -is disabled, then 'sched_relax_domain_level' have no effect since -there is no sched domain belonging the cpuset. - -If multiple cpusets are overlapping and hence they form a single sched -domain, the largest value among those is used. Be careful, if one -requests 0 and others are -1 then 0 is used. - -Note that modifying this file will have both good and bad effects, -and whether it is acceptable or not will be depend on your situation. -Don't modify this file if you are not sure. - -If your situation is: - - The migration costs between each cpu can be assumed considerably - small(for you) due to your special application's behavior or - special hardware support for CPU cache etc. - - The searching cost doesn't have impact(for you) or you can make - the searching cost enough small by managing cpuset to compact etc. - - The latency is required even it sacrifices cache hit rate etc. -then increasing 'sched_relax_domain_level' would benefit you. - - -1.9 How do I use cpusets ? --------------------------- - -In order to minimize the impact of cpusets on critical kernel -code, such as the scheduler, and due to the fact that the kernel -does not support one task updating the memory placement of another -task directly, the impact on a task of changing its cpuset CPU -or Memory Node placement, or of changing to which cpuset a task -is attached, is subtle. - -If a cpuset has its Memory Nodes modified, then for each task attached -to that cpuset, the next time that the kernel attempts to allocate -a page of memory for that task, the kernel will notice the change -in the tasks cpuset, and update its per-task memory placement to -remain within the new cpusets memory placement. If the task was using -mempolicy MPOL_BIND, and the nodes to which it was bound overlap with -its new cpuset, then the task will continue to use whatever subset -of MPOL_BIND nodes are still allowed in the new cpuset. If the task -was using MPOL_BIND and now none of its MPOL_BIND nodes are allowed -in the new cpuset, then the task will be essentially treated as if it -was MPOL_BIND bound to the new cpuset (even though its numa placement, -as queried by get_mempolicy(), doesn't change). If a task is moved -from one cpuset to another, then the kernel will adjust the tasks -memory placement, as above, the next time that the kernel attempts -to allocate a page of memory for that task. - -If a cpuset has its 'cpus' modified, then each task in that cpuset -will have its allowed CPU placement changed immediately. Similarly, -if a tasks pid is written to a cpusets 'tasks' file, in either its -current cpuset or another cpuset, then its allowed CPU placement is -changed immediately. If such a task had been bound to some subset -of its cpuset using the sched_setaffinity() call, the task will be -allowed to run on any CPU allowed in its new cpuset, negating the -affect of the prior sched_setaffinity() call. - -In summary, the memory placement of a task whose cpuset is changed is -updated by the kernel, on the next allocation of a page for that task, -but the processor placement is not updated, until that tasks pid is -rewritten to the 'tasks' file of its cpuset. This is done to avoid -impacting the scheduler code in the kernel with a check for changes -in a tasks processor placement. - -Normally, once a page is allocated (given a physical page -of main memory) then that page stays on whatever node it -was allocated, so long as it remains allocated, even if the -cpusets memory placement policy 'mems' subsequently changes. -If the cpuset flag file 'memory_migrate' is set true, then when -tasks are attached to that cpuset, any pages that task had -allocated to it on nodes in its previous cpuset are migrated -to the tasks new cpuset. The relative placement of the page within -the cpuset is preserved during these migration operations if possible. -For example if the page was on the second valid node of the prior cpuset -then the page will be placed on the second valid node of the new cpuset. - -Also if 'memory_migrate' is set true, then if that cpusets -'mems' file is modified, pages allocated to tasks in that -cpuset, that were on nodes in the previous setting of 'mems', -will be moved to nodes in the new setting of 'mems.' -Pages that were not in the tasks prior cpuset, or in the cpusets -prior 'mems' setting, will not be moved. - -There is an exception to the above. If hotplug functionality is used -to remove all the CPUs that are currently assigned to a cpuset, -then all the tasks in that cpuset will be moved to the nearest ancestor -with non-empty cpus. But the moving of some (or all) tasks might fail if -cpuset is bound with another cgroup subsystem which has some restrictions -on task attaching. In this failing case, those tasks will stay -in the original cpuset, and the kernel will automatically update -their cpus_allowed to allow all online CPUs. When memory hotplug -functionality for removing Memory Nodes is available, a similar exception -is expected to apply there as well. In general, the kernel prefers to -violate cpuset placement, over starving a task that has had all -its allowed CPUs or Memory Nodes taken offline. - -There is a second exception to the above. GFP_ATOMIC requests are -kernel internal allocations that must be satisfied, immediately. -The kernel may drop some request, in rare cases even panic, if a -GFP_ATOMIC alloc fails. If the request cannot be satisfied within -the current tasks cpuset, then we relax the cpuset, and look for -memory anywhere we can find it. It's better to violate the cpuset -than stress the kernel. - -To start a new job that is to be contained within a cpuset, the steps are: - - 1) mkdir /dev/cpuset - 2) mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset - 3) Create the new cpuset by doing mkdir's and write's (or echo's) in - the /dev/cpuset virtual file system. - 4) Start a task that will be the "founding father" of the new job. - 5) Attach that task to the new cpuset by writing its pid to the - /dev/cpuset tasks file for that cpuset. - 6) fork, exec or clone the job tasks from this founding father task. - -For example, the following sequence of commands will setup a cpuset -named "Charlie", containing just CPUs 2 and 3, and Memory Node 1, -and then start a subshell 'sh' in that cpuset: - - mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset - cd /dev/cpuset - mkdir Charlie - cd Charlie - /bin/echo 2-3 > cpus - /bin/echo 1 > mems - /bin/echo $$ > tasks - sh - # The subshell 'sh' is now running in cpuset Charlie - # The next line should display '/Charlie' - cat /proc/self/cpuset - -In the future, a C library interface to cpusets will likely be -available. For now, the only way to query or modify cpusets is -via the cpuset file system, using the various cd, mkdir, echo, cat, -rmdir commands from the shell, or their equivalent from C. - -The sched_setaffinity calls can also be done at the shell prompt using -SGI's runon or Robert Love's taskset. The mbind and set_mempolicy -calls can be done at the shell prompt using the numactl command -(part of Andi Kleen's numa package). - -2. Usage Examples and Syntax -============================ - -2.1 Basic Usage ---------------- - -Creating, modifying, using the cpusets can be done through the cpuset -virtual filesystem. - -To mount it, type: -# mount -t cgroup -o cpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset - -Then under /dev/cpuset you can find a tree that corresponds to the -tree of the cpusets in the system. For instance, /dev/cpuset -is the cpuset that holds the whole system. - -If you want to create a new cpuset under /dev/cpuset: -# cd /dev/cpuset -# mkdir my_cpuset - -Now you want to do something with this cpuset. -# cd my_cpuset - -In this directory you can find several files: -# ls -cpu_exclusive memory_migrate mems tasks -cpus memory_pressure notify_on_release -mem_exclusive memory_spread_page sched_load_balance -mem_hardwall memory_spread_slab sched_relax_domain_level - -Reading them will give you information about the state of this cpuset: -the CPUs and Memory Nodes it can use, the processes that are using -it, its properties. By writing to these files you can manipulate -the cpuset. - -Set some flags: -# /bin/echo 1 > cpu_exclusive - -Add some cpus: -# /bin/echo 0-7 > cpus - -Add some mems: -# /bin/echo 0-7 > mems - -Now attach your shell to this cpuset: -# /bin/echo $$ > tasks - -You can also create cpusets inside your cpuset by using mkdir in this -directory. -# mkdir my_sub_cs - -To remove a cpuset, just use rmdir: -# rmdir my_sub_cs -This will fail if the cpuset is in use (has cpusets inside, or has -processes attached). - -Note that for legacy reasons, the "cpuset" filesystem exists as a -wrapper around the cgroup filesystem. - -The command - -mount -t cpuset X /dev/cpuset - -is equivalent to - -mount -t cgroup -ocpuset X /dev/cpuset -echo "/sbin/cpuset_release_agent" > /dev/cpuset/release_agent - -2.2 Adding/removing cpus ------------------------- - -This is the syntax to use when writing in the cpus or mems files -in cpuset directories: - -# /bin/echo 1-4 > cpus -> set cpus list to cpus 1,2,3,4 -# /bin/echo 1,2,3,4 > cpus -> set cpus list to cpus 1,2,3,4 - -2.3 Setting flags ------------------ - -The syntax is very simple: - -# /bin/echo 1 > cpu_exclusive -> set flag 'cpu_exclusive' -# /bin/echo 0 > cpu_exclusive -> unset flag 'cpu_exclusive' - -2.4 Attaching processes ------------------------ - -# /bin/echo PID > tasks - -Note that it is PID, not PIDs. You can only attach ONE task at a time. -If you have several tasks to attach, you have to do it one after another: - -# /bin/echo PID1 > tasks -# /bin/echo PID2 > tasks - ... -# /bin/echo PIDn > tasks - - -3. Questions -============ - -Q: what's up with this '/bin/echo' ? -A: bash's builtin 'echo' command does not check calls to write() against - errors. If you use it in the cpuset file system, you won't be - able to tell whether a command succeeded or failed. - -Q: When I attach processes, only the first of the line gets really attached ! -A: We can only return one error code per call to write(). So you should also - put only ONE pid. - -4. Contact -========== - -Web: http://www.bullopensource.org/cpuset diff -puN Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt --- a/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents +++ a/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt @@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ CPU bandwidth control purposes: This options needs CONFIG_CGROUPS to be defined, and lets the administrator create arbitrary groups of tasks, using the "cgroup" pseudo filesystem. See - Documentation/cgroups.txt for more information about this filesystem. + Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt for more information about this filesystem. Only one of these options to group tasks can be chosen and not both. diff -puN include/linux/res_counter.h~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents include/linux/res_counter.h --- a/include/linux/res_counter.h~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents +++ a/include/linux/res_counter.h @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ * * Author: Pavel Emelianov <xemul@xxxxxxxxxx> * - * See Documentation/controllers/resource_counter.txt for more + * See Documentation/cgroups/resource_counter.txt for more * info about what this counter is. */ diff -puN init/Kconfig~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents init/Kconfig --- a/init/Kconfig~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents +++ a/init/Kconfig @@ -323,8 +323,8 @@ config CGROUP_SCHED This option allows you to create arbitrary task groups using the "cgroup" pseudo filesystem and control the cpu bandwidth allocated to each such task group. - Refer to Documentation/cgroups.txt for more information - on "cgroup" pseudo filesystem. + Refer to Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt for more + information on "cgroup" pseudo filesystem. endchoice @@ -335,10 +335,9 @@ menuconfig CGROUPS use with process control subsystems such as Cpusets, CFS, memory controls or device isolation. See - - Documentation/cpusets.txt (Cpusets) - Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt (CFS) - - Documentation/cgroups/ (features for grouping, isolation) - - Documentation/controllers/ (features for resource control) + - Documentation/cgroups/ (features for grouping, isolation + and resource control) Say N if unsure. diff -puN kernel/cpuset.c~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents kernel/cpuset.c --- a/kernel/cpuset.c~cgroups-consolidate-cgroup-documents +++ a/kernel/cpuset.c @@ -568,7 +568,7 @@ update_domain_attr_tree(struct sched_dom * load balancing domains (sched domains) as specified by that partial * partition. * - * See "What is sched_load_balance" in Documentation/cpusets.txt + * See "What is sched_load_balance" in Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt * for a background explanation of this. * * Does not return errors, on the theory that the callers of this _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from lizf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx are origin.patch memcg-get-put-parents-at-create-free.patch linux-next.patch relax-ns_can_attach-checks-to-allow-attaching-to-grandchild-cgroups.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html