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diff --git a/Documentation/vm/damon/faq.rst b/Documentation/vm/damon/faq.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..cb3d8b585a8b --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/vm/damon/faq.rst @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +========================== +Frequently Asked Questions +========================== + +Why a new subsystem, instead of extending perf or other user space tools? +========================================================================= + +First, because it needs to be lightweight as much as possible so that it can be +used online, any unnecessary overhead such as kernel - user space context +switching cost should be avoided. Second, DAMON aims to be used by other +programs including the kernel. Therefore, having a dependency on specific +tools like perf is not desirable. These are the two biggest reasons why DAMON +is implemented in the kernel space. + + +Can 'idle pages tracking' or 'perf mem' substitute DAMON? +========================================================= + +Idle page tracking is a low level primitive for access check of the physical +address space. 'perf mem' is similar, though it can use sampling to minimize +the overhead. On the other hand, DAMON is a higher-level framework for the +monitoring of various address spaces. It is focused on memory management +optimization and provides sophisticated accuracy/overhead handling mechanisms. +Therefore, 'idle pages tracking' and 'perf mem' could provide a subset of +DAMON's output, but cannot substitute DAMON. + + +Does DAMON support virtual memory only? +======================================= + +No. The core of the DAMON is address space independent. The address space +specific low level primitive parts including monitoring target regions +constructions and actual access checks can be implemented and configured on the +DAMON core by the users. In this way, DAMON users can monitor any address +space with any access check technique. + +Nonetheless, DAMON provides vma tracking and PTE Accessed bit check based +implementations of the address space dependent functions for the virtual memory +by default, for a reference and convenient use. In near future, we will +provide those for physical memory address space. + + +Can I simply monitor page granularity? +====================================== + +Yes. You can do so by setting the ``min_nr_regions`` attribute higher than the +working set size divided by the page size. Because the monitoring target +regions size is forced to be ``>=page size``, the region split will make no +effect. |