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authorDaisuke Nishimura <nishimura@mxp.nes.nec.co.jp>2011-04-27 15:26:48 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2011-04-28 11:28:21 -0700
commita111c966a65e4b5d9c6fd2d8459978c1407077d5 (patch)
tree00deb8e67fff61c8e234ad048a7534f9129c618d /Documentation
parent98909cf0d125eb0110afe92d0b419be7fa097f78 (diff)
memcg: update documentation to describe usage_in_bytes
Since 569b846d ("memcg: coalesce uncharge during unmap/truncate"), we do batched (delayed) uncharge at truncation/unmap. And since cdec2e42(memcg: coalesce charging via percpu storage), we have percpu cache for res_counter. These changes improved performance of memory cgroup very much, but made res_counter->usage usually have a bigger value than the actual value of memory usage. So, *.usage_in_bytes, which show res_counter->usage, are not desirable for precise values of memory(and swap) usage anymore. Instead of removing these files completely(because we cannot know res_counter->usage without them), this patch updates the meaning of those files. Signed-off-by: Daisuke Nishimura <nishimura@mxp.nes.nec.co.jp> Acked-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com> Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz> Cc: Balbir Singh <balbir@in.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt15
1 files changed, 13 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt
index b6ed61c9585..7c163477fcd 100644
--- a/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt
@@ -52,8 +52,10 @@ Brief summary of control files.
tasks # attach a task(thread) and show list of threads
cgroup.procs # show list of processes
cgroup.event_control # an interface for event_fd()
- memory.usage_in_bytes # show current memory(RSS+Cache) usage.
- memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes # show current memory+Swap usage
+ memory.usage_in_bytes # show current res_counter usage for memory
+ (See 5.5 for details)
+ memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes # show current res_counter usage for memory+Swap
+ (See 5.5 for details)
memory.limit_in_bytes # set/show limit of memory usage
memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes # set/show limit of memory+Swap usage
memory.failcnt # show the number of memory usage hits limits
@@ -453,6 +455,15 @@ memory under it will be reclaimed.
You can reset failcnt by writing 0 to failcnt file.
# echo 0 > .../memory.failcnt
+5.5 usage_in_bytes
+
+For efficiency, as other kernel components, memory cgroup uses some optimization
+to avoid unnecessary cacheline false sharing. usage_in_bytes is affected by the
+method and doesn't show 'exact' value of memory(and swap) usage, it's an fuzz
+value for efficient access. (Of course, when necessary, it's synchronized.)
+If you want to know more exact memory usage, you should use RSS+CACHE(+SWAP)
+value in memory.stat(see 5.2).
+
6. Hierarchy support
The memory controller supports a deep hierarchy and hierarchical accounting.