diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt | 215 |
1 files changed, 159 insertions, 56 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt index 96f0ee825be..4415aa91568 100644 --- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt +++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt @@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ files can be found in mm/swap.c. Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm: +- admin_reserve_kbytes - block_dump - compact_memory - dirty_background_bytes @@ -42,11 +43,11 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm: - mmap_min_addr - nr_hugepages - nr_overcommit_hugepages -- nr_pdflush_threads - nr_trim_pages (only if CONFIG_MMU=n) - numa_zonelist_order - oom_dump_tasks - oom_kill_allocating_task +- overcommit_kbytes - overcommit_memory - overcommit_ratio - page-cluster @@ -54,11 +55,41 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm: - percpu_pagelist_fraction - stat_interval - swappiness +- user_reserve_kbytes - vfs_cache_pressure - zone_reclaim_mode ============================================================== +admin_reserve_kbytes + +The amount of free memory in the system that should be reserved for users +with the capability cap_sys_admin. + +admin_reserve_kbytes defaults to min(3% of free pages, 8MB) + +That should provide enough for the admin to log in and kill a process, +if necessary, under the default overcommit 'guess' mode. + +Systems running under overcommit 'never' should increase this to account +for the full Virtual Memory Size of programs used to recover. Otherwise, +root may not be able to log in to recover the system. + +How do you calculate a minimum useful reserve? + +sshd or login + bash (or some other shell) + top (or ps, kill, etc.) + +For overcommit 'guess', we can sum resident set sizes (RSS). +On x86_64 this is about 8MB. + +For overcommit 'never', we can take the max of their virtual sizes (VSZ) +and add the sum of their RSS. +On x86_64 this is about 128MB. + +Changing this takes effect whenever an application requests memory. + +============================================================== + block_dump block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More @@ -77,8 +108,8 @@ huge pages although processes will also directly compact memory as required. dirty_background_bytes -Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback -daemon will start writeback. +Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the background kernel +flusher threads will start writeback. Note: dirty_background_bytes is the counterpart of dirty_background_ratio. Only one of them may be specified at a time. When one sysctl is written it is @@ -89,8 +120,11 @@ other appears as 0 when read. dirty_background_ratio -Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which -the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out dirty data. +Contains, as a percentage of total available memory that contains free pages +and reclaimable pages, the number of pages at which the background kernel +flusher threads will start writing out dirty data. + +The total avaiable memory is not equal to total system memory. ============================================================== @@ -113,23 +147,25 @@ retained. dirty_expire_centisecs This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible -for writeout by the pdflush daemons. It is expressed in 100'ths of a second. -Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be -written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up. +for writeout by the kernel flusher threads. It is expressed in 100'ths +of a second. Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this +interval will be written out next time a flusher thread wakes up. ============================================================== dirty_ratio -Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which -a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty -data. +Contains, as a percentage of total available memory that contains free pages +and reclaimable pages, the number of pages at which a process which is +generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty data. + +The total avaiable memory is not equal to total system memory. ============================================================== dirty_writeback_centisecs -The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data +The kernel flusher threads will periodically wake up and write `old' data out to disk. This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in 100'ths of a second. @@ -139,18 +175,39 @@ Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether. drop_caches -Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and -inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free. +Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, as well as +reclaimable slab objects like dentries and inodes. Once dropped, their +memory becomes free. To free pagecache: echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches -To free dentries and inodes: +To free reclaimable slab objects (includes dentries and inodes): echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches -To free pagecache, dentries and inodes: +To free slab objects and pagecache: echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches -As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the -user should run `sync' first. +This is a non-destructive operation and will not free any dirty objects. +To increase the number of objects freed by this operation, the user may run +`sync' prior to writing to /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches. This will minimize the +number of dirty objects on the system and create more candidates to be +dropped. + +This file is not a means to control the growth of the various kernel caches +(inodes, dentries, pagecache, etc...) These objects are automatically +reclaimed by the kernel when memory is needed elsewhere on the system. + +Use of this file can cause performance problems. Since it discards cached +objects, it may cost a significant amount of I/O and CPU to recreate the +dropped objects, especially if they were under heavy use. Because of this, +use outside of a testing or debugging environment is not recommended. + +You may see informational messages in your kernel log when this file is +used: + + cat (1234): drop_caches: 3 + +These are informational only. They do not mean that anything is wrong +with your system. To disable them, echo 4 (bit 3) into drop_caches. ============================================================== @@ -170,17 +227,25 @@ fragmentation index is <= extfrag_threshold. The default value is 500. hugepages_treat_as_movable -This parameter is only useful when kernelcore= is specified at boot time to -create ZONE_MOVABLE for pages that may be reclaimed or migrated. Huge pages -are not movable so are not normally allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. A non-zero -value written to hugepages_treat_as_movable allows huge pages to be allocated -from ZONE_MOVABLE. +This parameter controls whether we can allocate hugepages from ZONE_MOVABLE +or not. If set to non-zero, hugepages can be allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. +ZONE_MOVABLE is created when kernel boot parameter kernelcore= is specified, +so this parameter has no effect if used without kernelcore=. -Once enabled, the ZONE_MOVABLE is treated as an area of memory the huge -pages pool can easily grow or shrink within. Assuming that applications are -not running that mlock() a lot of memory, it is likely the huge pages pool -can grow to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE by repeatedly entering the desired value -into nr_hugepages and triggering page reclaim. +Hugepage migration is now available in some situations which depend on the +architecture and/or the hugepage size. If a hugepage supports migration, +allocation from ZONE_MOVABLE is always enabled for the hugepage regardless +of the value of this parameter. +IOW, this parameter affects only non-migratable hugepages. + +Assuming that hugepages are not migratable in your system, one usecase of +this parameter is that users can make hugepage pool more extensible by +enabling the allocation from ZONE_MOVABLE. This is because on ZONE_MOVABLE +page reclaim/migration/compaction work more and you can get contiguous +memory more likely. Note that using ZONE_MOVABLE for non-migratable +hugepages can do harm to other features like memory hotremove (because +memory hotremove expects that memory blocks on ZONE_MOVABLE are always +removable,) so it's a trade-off responsible for the users. ============================================================== @@ -426,16 +491,6 @@ See Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt ============================================================== -nr_pdflush_threads - -The current number of pdflush threads. This value is read-only. -The value changes according to the number of dirty pages in the system. - -When necessary, additional pdflush threads are created, one per second, up to -nr_pdflush_threads_max. - -============================================================== - nr_trim_pages This is available only on NOMMU kernels. @@ -490,7 +545,7 @@ Specify "[Dd]efault" to request automatic configuration. Autoconfiguration will select "node" order in following case. (1) if the DMA zone does not exist or (2) if the DMA zone comprises greater than 50% of the available memory or -(3) if any node's DMA zone comprises greater than 60% of its local memory and +(3) if any node's DMA zone comprises greater than 70% of its local memory and the amount of local memory is big enough. Otherwise, "zone" order will be selected. Default order is recommended unless @@ -502,9 +557,10 @@ oom_dump_tasks Enables a system-wide task dump (excluding kernel threads) to be produced when the kernel performs an OOM-killing and includes such -information as pid, uid, tgid, vm size, rss, cpu, oom_adj score, and -name. This is helpful to determine why the OOM killer was invoked -and to identify the rogue task that caused it. +information as pid, uid, tgid, vm size, rss, nr_ptes, swapents, +oom_score_adj score, and name. This is helpful to determine why the +OOM killer was invoked, to identify the rogue task that caused it, +and to determine why the OOM killer chose the task it did to kill. If this is set to zero, this information is suppressed. On very large systems with thousands of tasks it may not be feasible to dump @@ -540,6 +596,17 @@ The default value is 0. ============================================================== +overcommit_kbytes: + +When overcommit_memory is set to 2, the committed address space is not +permitted to exceed swap plus this amount of physical RAM. See below. + +Note: overcommit_kbytes is the counterpart of overcommit_ratio. Only one +of them may be specified at a time. Setting one disables the other (which +then appears as 0 when read). + +============================================================== + overcommit_memory: This value contains a flag that enables memory overcommitment. @@ -552,6 +619,7 @@ memory until it actually runs out. When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit" policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory. +Note that user_reserve_kbytes affects this policy. This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case" @@ -574,16 +642,24 @@ of physical RAM. See above. page-cluster -page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in -a single attempt. The swap I/O size. +page-cluster controls the number of pages up to which consecutive pages +are read in from swap in a single attempt. This is the swap counterpart +to page cache readahead. +The mentioned consecutivity is not in terms of virtual/physical addresses, +but consecutive on swap space - that means they were swapped out together. It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc. +Zero disables swap readahead completely. The default value is three (eight pages at a time). There may be some small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is swap-intensive. +Lower values mean lower latencies for initial faults, but at the same time +extra faults and I/O delays for following faults if they would have been part of +that consecutive pages readahead would have brought in. + ============================================================= panic_on_oom @@ -626,7 +702,8 @@ The batch value of each per cpu pagelist is also updated as a result. It is set to pcp->high/4. The upper limit of batch is (PAGE_SHIFT * 8) The initial value is zero. Kernel does not use this value at boot time to set -the high water marks for each per cpu page list. +the high water marks for each per cpu page list. If the user writes '0' to this +sysctl, it will revert to this default behavior. ============================================================== @@ -641,17 +718,37 @@ swappiness This control is used to define how aggressive the kernel will swap memory pages. Higher values will increase agressiveness, lower values -decrease the amount of swap. +decrease the amount of swap. A value of 0 instructs the kernel not to +initiate swap until the amount of free and file-backed pages is less +than the high water mark in a zone. The default value is 60. ============================================================== +- user_reserve_kbytes + +When overcommit_memory is set to 2, "never overommit" mode, reserve +min(3% of current process size, user_reserve_kbytes) of free memory. +This is intended to prevent a user from starting a single memory hogging +process, such that they cannot recover (kill the hog). + +user_reserve_kbytes defaults to min(3% of the current process size, 128MB). + +If this is reduced to zero, then the user will be allowed to allocate +all free memory with a single process, minus admin_reserve_kbytes. +Any subsequent attempts to execute a command will result in +"fork: Cannot allocate memory". + +Changing this takes effect whenever an application requests memory. + +============================================================== + vfs_cache_pressure ------------------ -Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for -caching of directory and inode objects. +This percentage value controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim +the memory which is used for caching of directory and inode objects. At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and @@ -661,6 +758,11 @@ never reclaim dentries and inodes due to memory pressure and this can easily lead to out-of-memory conditions. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100 causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes. +Increasing vfs_cache_pressure significantly beyond 100 may have negative +performance impact. Reclaim code needs to take various locks to find freeable +directory and inode objects. With vfs_cache_pressure=1000, it will look for +ten times more freeable objects than there are. + ============================================================== zone_reclaim_mode: @@ -676,16 +778,17 @@ This is value ORed together of 2 = Zone reclaim writes dirty pages out 4 = Zone reclaim swaps pages -zone_reclaim_mode is set during bootup to 1 if it is determined that pages -from remote zones will cause a measurable performance reduction. The -page allocator will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page -cache pages that are currently not used) before allocating off node pages. - -It may be beneficial to switch off zone reclaim if the system is -used for a file server and all of memory should be used for caching files -from disk. In that case the caching effect is more important than +zone_reclaim_mode is disabled by default. For file servers or workloads +that benefit from having their data cached, zone_reclaim_mode should be +left disabled as the caching effect is likely to be more important than data locality. +zone_reclaim may be enabled if it's known that the workload is partitioned +such that each partition fits within a NUMA node and that accessing remote +memory would cause a measurable performance reduction. The page allocator +will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page cache pages that are +currently not used) before allocating off node pages. + Allowing zone reclaim to write out pages stops processes that are writing large amounts of data from dirtying pages on other nodes. Zone reclaim will write out dirty pages if a zone fills up and so effectively |