blob: e479007f1a75470b944d9cfb8bebf53b57be638d [file] [log] [blame]
Balbir Singh00f0b822008-03-04 14:28:39 -08001Memory Resource Controller
2
Jörg Sommer67de0162011-06-15 13:00:47 -07003NOTE: The Memory Resource Controller has generically been referred to as the
4 memory controller in this document. Do not confuse memory controller
5 used here with the memory controller that is used in hardware.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08006
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -07007(For editors)
8In this document:
9 When we mention a cgroup (cgroupfs's directory) with memory controller,
10 we call it "memory cgroup". When you see git-log and source code, you'll
11 see patch's title and function names tend to use "memcg".
12 In this document, we avoid using it.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -080013
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -080014Benefits and Purpose of the memory controller
15
16The memory controller isolates the memory behaviour of a group of tasks
17from the rest of the system. The article on LWN [12] mentions some probable
18uses of the memory controller. The memory controller can be used to
19
20a. Isolate an application or a group of applications
21 Memory hungry applications can be isolated and limited to a smaller
22 amount of memory.
23b. Create a cgroup with limited amount of memory, this can be used
24 as a good alternative to booting with mem=XXXX.
25c. Virtualization solutions can control the amount of memory they want
26 to assign to a virtual machine instance.
27d. A CD/DVD burner could control the amount of memory used by the
28 rest of the system to ensure that burning does not fail due to lack
29 of available memory.
30e. There are several other use cases, find one or use the controller just
31 for fun (to learn and hack on the VM subsystem).
32
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070033Current Status: linux-2.6.34-mmotm(development version of 2010/April)
34
35Features:
36 - accounting anonymous pages, file caches, swap caches usage and limiting them.
Ying Han6252efc2012-04-12 12:49:10 -070037 - pages are linked to per-memcg LRU exclusively, and there is no global LRU.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070038 - optionally, memory+swap usage can be accounted and limited.
39 - hierarchical accounting
40 - soft limit
41 - moving(recharging) account at moving a task is selectable.
42 - usage threshold notifier
43 - oom-killer disable knob and oom-notifier
44 - Root cgroup has no limit controls.
45
Glauber Costa65c64ce2011-12-22 01:02:27 +000046 Kernel memory support is work in progress, and the current version provides
47 basically functionality. (See Section 2.7)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070048
49Brief summary of control files.
50
51 tasks # attach a task(thread) and show list of threads
52 cgroup.procs # show list of processes
53 cgroup.event_control # an interface for event_fd()
Daisuke Nishimuraa111c962011-04-27 15:26:48 -070054 memory.usage_in_bytes # show current res_counter usage for memory
55 (See 5.5 for details)
56 memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes # show current res_counter usage for memory+Swap
57 (See 5.5 for details)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070058 memory.limit_in_bytes # set/show limit of memory usage
59 memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes # set/show limit of memory+Swap usage
60 memory.failcnt # show the number of memory usage hits limits
61 memory.memsw.failcnt # show the number of memory+Swap hits limits
62 memory.max_usage_in_bytes # show max memory usage recorded
Zhu Yanhaid66c1ce2012-01-12 17:18:24 -080063 memory.memsw.max_usage_in_bytes # show max memory+Swap usage recorded
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070064 memory.soft_limit_in_bytes # set/show soft limit of memory usage
65 memory.stat # show various statistics
66 memory.use_hierarchy # set/show hierarchical account enabled
67 memory.force_empty # trigger forced move charge to parent
68 memory.swappiness # set/show swappiness parameter of vmscan
69 (See sysctl's vm.swappiness)
70 memory.move_charge_at_immigrate # set/show controls of moving charges
71 memory.oom_control # set/show oom controls.
Ying Han50c35e52011-06-15 15:08:16 -070072 memory.numa_stat # show the number of memory usage per numa node
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -070073
Glauber Costa3aaabe22011-12-11 21:47:06 +000074 memory.kmem.tcp.limit_in_bytes # set/show hard limit for tcp buf memory
Glauber Costa5a6dd342011-12-11 21:47:07 +000075 memory.kmem.tcp.usage_in_bytes # show current tcp buf memory allocation
Glauber Costae5671df2011-12-11 21:47:01 +000076
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800771. History
78
79The memory controller has a long history. A request for comments for the memory
80controller was posted by Balbir Singh [1]. At the time the RFC was posted
81there were several implementations for memory control. The goal of the
82RFC was to build consensus and agreement for the minimal features required
83for memory control. The first RSS controller was posted by Balbir Singh[2]
84in Feb 2007. Pavel Emelianov [3][4][5] has since posted three versions of the
85RSS controller. At OLS, at the resource management BoF, everyone suggested
86that we handle both page cache and RSS together. Another request was raised
87to allow user space handling of OOM. The current memory controller is
88at version 6; it combines both mapped (RSS) and unmapped Page
89Cache Control [11].
90
912. Memory Control
92
93Memory is a unique resource in the sense that it is present in a limited
94amount. If a task requires a lot of CPU processing, the task can spread
95its processing over a period of hours, days, months or years, but with
96memory, the same physical memory needs to be reused to accomplish the task.
97
98The memory controller implementation has been divided into phases. These
99are:
100
1011. Memory controller
1022. mlock(2) controller
1033. Kernel user memory accounting and slab control
1044. user mappings length controller
105
106The memory controller is the first controller developed.
107
1082.1. Design
109
110The core of the design is a counter called the res_counter. The res_counter
111tracks the current memory usage and limit of the group of processes associated
112with the controller. Each cgroup has a memory controller specific data
113structure (mem_cgroup) associated with it.
114
1152.2. Accounting
116
117 +--------------------+
118 | mem_cgroup |
119 | (res_counter) |
120 +--------------------+
121 / ^ \
122 / | \
123 +---------------+ | +---------------+
124 | mm_struct | |.... | mm_struct |
125 | | | | |
126 +---------------+ | +---------------+
127 |
128 + --------------+
129 |
130 +---------------+ +------+--------+
131 | page +----------> page_cgroup|
132 | | | |
133 +---------------+ +---------------+
134
135 (Figure 1: Hierarchy of Accounting)
136
137
138Figure 1 shows the important aspects of the controller
139
1401. Accounting happens per cgroup
1412. Each mm_struct knows about which cgroup it belongs to
1423. Each page has a pointer to the page_cgroup, which in turn knows the
143 cgroup it belongs to
144
145The accounting is done as follows: mem_cgroup_charge() is invoked to setup
146the necessary data structures and check if the cgroup that is being charged
147is over its limit. If it is then reclaim is invoked on the cgroup.
148More details can be found in the reclaim section of this document.
149If everything goes well, a page meta-data-structure called page_cgroup is
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700150updated. page_cgroup has its own LRU on cgroup.
151(*) page_cgroup structure is allocated at boot/memory-hotplug time.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800152
1532.2.1 Accounting details
154
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki5b4e6552008-10-18 20:28:10 -0700155All mapped anon pages (RSS) and cache pages (Page Cache) are accounted.
Ying Han6252efc2012-04-12 12:49:10 -0700156Some pages which are never reclaimable and will not be on the LRU
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700157are not accounted. We just account pages under usual VM management.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki5b4e6552008-10-18 20:28:10 -0700158
159RSS pages are accounted at page_fault unless they've already been accounted
160for earlier. A file page will be accounted for as Page Cache when it's
161inserted into inode (radix-tree). While it's mapped into the page tables of
162processes, duplicate accounting is carefully avoided.
163
164A RSS page is unaccounted when it's fully unmapped. A PageCache page is
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700165unaccounted when it's removed from radix-tree. Even if RSS pages are fully
166unmapped (by kswapd), they may exist as SwapCache in the system until they
167are really freed. Such SwapCaches also also accounted.
168A swapped-in page is not accounted until it's mapped.
169
170Note: The kernel does swapin-readahead and read multiple swaps at once.
171This means swapped-in pages may contain pages for other tasks than a task
172causing page fault. So, we avoid accounting at swap-in I/O.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki5b4e6552008-10-18 20:28:10 -0700173
174At page migration, accounting information is kept.
175
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700176Note: we just account pages-on-LRU because our purpose is to control amount
177of used pages; not-on-LRU pages tend to be out-of-control from VM view.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800178
1792.3 Shared Page Accounting
180
181Shared pages are accounted on the basis of the first touch approach. The
182cgroup that first touches a page is accounted for the page. The principle
183behind this approach is that a cgroup that aggressively uses a shared
184page will eventually get charged for it (once it is uncharged from
185the cgroup that brought it in -- this will happen on memory pressure).
186
Jörg Sommer67de0162011-06-15 13:00:47 -0700187Exception: If CONFIG_CGROUP_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP is not used.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800188When you do swapoff and make swapped-out pages of shmem(tmpfs) to
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukid13d1442009-01-07 18:07:56 -0800189be backed into memory in force, charges for pages are accounted against the
190caller of swapoff rather than the users of shmem.
191
192
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -08001932.4 Swap Extension (CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700194
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800195Swap Extension allows you to record charge for swap. A swapped-in page is
196charged back to original page allocator if possible.
197
198When swap is accounted, following files are added.
199 - memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes.
200 - memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes.
201
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700202memsw means memory+swap. Usage of memory+swap is limited by
203memsw.limit_in_bytes.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800204
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700205Example: Assume a system with 4G of swap. A task which allocates 6G of memory
206(by mistake) under 2G memory limitation will use all swap.
207In this case, setting memsw.limit_in_bytes=3G will prevent bad use of swap.
208By using memsw limit, you can avoid system OOM which can be caused by swap
209shortage.
210
211* why 'memory+swap' rather than swap.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800212The global LRU(kswapd) can swap out arbitrary pages. Swap-out means
213to move account from memory to swap...there is no change in usage of
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700214memory+swap. In other words, when we want to limit the usage of swap without
215affecting global LRU, memory+swap limit is better than just limiting swap from
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki22a668d2009-06-17 16:27:19 -0700216OS point of view.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800217
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki22a668d2009-06-17 16:27:19 -0700218* What happens when a cgroup hits memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes
Jörg Sommer67de0162011-06-15 13:00:47 -0700219When a cgroup hits memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes, it's useless to do swap-out
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki22a668d2009-06-17 16:27:19 -0700220in this cgroup. Then, swap-out will not be done by cgroup routine and file
221caches are dropped. But as mentioned above, global LRU can do swapout memory
222from it for sanity of the system's memory management state. You can't forbid
223it by cgroup.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800224
2252.5 Reclaim
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800226
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700227Each cgroup maintains a per cgroup LRU which has the same structure as
228global VM. When a cgroup goes over its limit, we first try
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800229to reclaim memory from the cgroup so as to make space for the new
230pages that the cgroup has touched. If the reclaim is unsuccessful,
231an OOM routine is invoked to select and kill the bulkiest task in the
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700232cgroup. (See 10. OOM Control below.)
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800233
234The reclaim algorithm has not been modified for cgroups, except that
235pages that are selected for reclaiming come from the per cgroup LRU
236list.
237
Balbir Singh4b3bde42009-09-23 15:56:32 -0700238NOTE: Reclaim does not work for the root cgroup, since we cannot set any
239limits on the root cgroup.
240
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidaaf1e62010-03-10 15:22:32 -0800241Note2: When panic_on_oom is set to "2", the whole system will panic.
242
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -0700243When oom event notifier is registered, event will be delivered.
244(See oom_control section)
245
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -07002462.6 Locking
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800247
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700248 lock_page_cgroup()/unlock_page_cgroup() should not be called under
249 mapping->tree_lock.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800250
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700251 Other lock order is following:
252 PG_locked.
253 mm->page_table_lock
254 zone->lru_lock
255 lock_page_cgroup.
256 In many cases, just lock_page_cgroup() is called.
257 per-zone-per-cgroup LRU (cgroup's private LRU) is just guarded by
258 zone->lru_lock, it has no lock of its own.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800259
Glauber Costae5671df2011-12-11 21:47:01 +00002602.7 Kernel Memory Extension (CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_KMEM)
261
262With the Kernel memory extension, the Memory Controller is able to limit
263the amount of kernel memory used by the system. Kernel memory is fundamentally
264different than user memory, since it can't be swapped out, which makes it
265possible to DoS the system by consuming too much of this precious resource.
266
Glauber Costae5671df2011-12-11 21:47:01 +0000267Kernel memory limits are not imposed for the root cgroup. Usage for the root
268cgroup may or may not be accounted.
269
Glauber Costae5671df2011-12-11 21:47:01 +0000270Currently no soft limit is implemented for kernel memory. It is future work
271to trigger slab reclaim when those limits are reached.
272
2732.7.1 Current Kernel Memory resources accounted
274
Glauber Costae1aab162011-12-11 21:47:03 +0000275* sockets memory pressure: some sockets protocols have memory pressure
276thresholds. The Memory Controller allows them to be controlled individually
277per cgroup, instead of globally.
Glauber Costae5671df2011-12-11 21:47:01 +0000278
Glauber Costad1a4c0b2011-12-11 21:47:04 +0000279* tcp memory pressure: sockets memory pressure for the tcp protocol.
280
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08002813. User Interface
282
2830. Configuration
284
285a. Enable CONFIG_CGROUPS
286b. Enable CONFIG_RESOURCE_COUNTERS
Balbir Singh00f0b822008-03-04 14:28:39 -0800287c. Enable CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700288d. Enable CONFIG_CGROUP_MEM_RES_CTLR_SWAP (to use swap extension)
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800289
Jörg Sommerf6e07d32011-06-15 12:59:45 -07002901. Prepare the cgroups (see cgroups.txt, Why are cgroups needed?)
291# mount -t tmpfs none /sys/fs/cgroup
292# mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/memory
293# mount -t cgroup none /sys/fs/cgroup/memory -o memory
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800294
2952. Make the new group and move bash into it
Jörg Sommerf6e07d32011-06-15 12:59:45 -0700296# mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0
297# echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/tasks
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800298
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700299Since now we're in the 0 cgroup, we can alter the memory limit:
Jörg Sommerf6e07d32011-06-15 12:59:45 -0700300# echo 4M > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.limit_in_bytes
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800301
302NOTE: We can use a suffix (k, K, m, M, g or G) to indicate values in kilo,
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700303mega or gigabytes. (Here, Kilo, Mega, Giga are Kibibytes, Mebibytes, Gibibytes.)
304
Daisuke Nishimurac5b947b2009-06-17 16:27:20 -0700305NOTE: We can write "-1" to reset the *.limit_in_bytes(unlimited).
Balbir Singh4b3bde42009-09-23 15:56:32 -0700306NOTE: We cannot set limits on the root cgroup any more.
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800307
Jörg Sommerf6e07d32011-06-15 12:59:45 -0700308# cat /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.limit_in_bytes
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -08003094194304
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800310
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800311We can check the usage:
Jörg Sommerf6e07d32011-06-15 12:59:45 -0700312# cat /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.usage_in_bytes
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -08003131216512
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800314
315A successful write to this file does not guarantee a successful set of
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700316this limit to the value written into the file. This can be due to a
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800317number of factors, such as rounding up to page boundaries or the total
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700318availability of memory on the system. The user is required to re-read
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800319this file after a write to guarantee the value committed by the kernel.
320
Balbir Singhfb789222008-03-04 14:28:24 -0800321# echo 1 > memory.limit_in_bytes
Balbir Singh0eea1032008-02-07 00:13:57 -0800322# cat memory.limit_in_bytes
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -08003234096
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800324
325The memory.failcnt field gives the number of times that the cgroup limit was
326exceeded.
327
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidfc05c22008-02-07 00:14:41 -0800328The memory.stat file gives accounting information. Now, the number of
329caches, RSS and Active pages/Inactive pages are shown.
330
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08003314. Testing
332
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700333For testing features and implementation, see memcg_test.txt.
334
335Performance test is also important. To see pure memory controller's overhead,
336testing on tmpfs will give you good numbers of small overheads.
337Example: do kernel make on tmpfs.
338
339Page-fault scalability is also important. At measuring parallel
340page fault test, multi-process test may be better than multi-thread
341test because it has noise of shared objects/status.
342
343But the above two are testing extreme situations.
344Trying usual test under memory controller is always helpful.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800345
3464.1 Troubleshooting
347
348Sometimes a user might find that the application under a cgroup is
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700349terminated by OOM killer. There are several causes for this:
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800350
3511. The cgroup limit is too low (just too low to do anything useful)
3522. The user is using anonymous memory and swap is turned off or too low
353
354A sync followed by echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches will help get rid of
355some of the pages cached in the cgroup (page cache pages).
356
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700357To know what happens, disable OOM_Kill by 10. OOM Control(see below) and
358seeing what happens will be helpful.
359
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08003604.2 Task migration
361
Francis Galieguea33f3222010-04-23 00:08:02 +0200362When a task migrates from one cgroup to another, its charge is not
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800363carried forward by default. The pages allocated from the original cgroup still
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800364remain charged to it, the charge is dropped when the page is freed or
365reclaimed.
366
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700367You can move charges of a task along with task migration.
368See 8. "Move charges at task migration"
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800369
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08003704.3 Removing a cgroup
371
372A cgroup can be removed by rmdir, but as discussed in sections 4.1 and 4.2, a
373cgroup might have some charge associated with it, even though all
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700374tasks have migrated away from it. (because we charge against pages, not
375against tasks.)
376
377Such charges are freed or moved to their parent. At moving, both of RSS
378and CACHES are moved to parent.
379rmdir() may return -EBUSY if freeing/moving fails. See 5.1 also.
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800380
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki8c7c6e342009-01-07 18:08:00 -0800381Charges recorded in swap information is not updated at removal of cgroup.
382Recorded information is discarded and a cgroup which uses swap (swapcache)
383will be charged as a new owner of it.
384
385
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukic1e862c2009-01-07 18:07:55 -08003865. Misc. interfaces.
387
3885.1 force_empty
389 memory.force_empty interface is provided to make cgroup's memory usage empty.
390 You can use this interface only when the cgroup has no tasks.
391 When writing anything to this
392
393 # echo 0 > memory.force_empty
394
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700395 Almost all pages tracked by this memory cgroup will be unmapped and freed.
396 Some pages cannot be freed because they are locked or in-use. Such pages are
397 moved to parent and this cgroup will be empty. This may return -EBUSY if
398 VM is too busy to free/move all pages immediately.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukic1e862c2009-01-07 18:07:55 -0800399
400 Typical use case of this interface is that calling this before rmdir().
401 Because rmdir() moves all pages to parent, some out-of-use page caches can be
402 moved to the parent. If you want to avoid that, force_empty will be useful.
403
KOSAKI Motohiro7f016ee2009-01-07 18:08:22 -08004045.2 stat file
KOSAKI Motohiro7f016ee2009-01-07 18:08:22 -0800405
Johannes Weiner185efc02011-09-14 16:21:58 -0700406memory.stat file includes following statistics
KOSAKI Motohiro7f016ee2009-01-07 18:08:22 -0800407
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700408# per-memory cgroup local status
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700409cache - # of bytes of page cache memory.
410rss - # of bytes of anonymous and swap cache memory.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700411mapped_file - # of bytes of mapped file (includes tmpfs/shmem)
Ying Han0527b692012-01-12 17:18:27 -0800412pgpgin - # of charging events to the memory cgroup. The charging
413 event happens each time a page is accounted as either mapped
414 anon page(RSS) or cache page(Page Cache) to the cgroup.
415pgpgout - # of uncharging events to the memory cgroup. The uncharging
416 event happens each time a page is unaccounted from the cgroup.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700417swap - # of bytes of swap usage
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700418inactive_anon - # of bytes of anonymous memory and swap cache memory on
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700419 LRU list.
420active_anon - # of bytes of anonymous and swap cache memory on active
421 inactive LRU list.
422inactive_file - # of bytes of file-backed memory on inactive LRU list.
423active_file - # of bytes of file-backed memory on active LRU list.
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700424unevictable - # of bytes of memory that cannot be reclaimed (mlocked etc).
425
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700426# status considering hierarchy (see memory.use_hierarchy settings)
427
428hierarchical_memory_limit - # of bytes of memory limit with regard to hierarchy
429 under which the memory cgroup is
430hierarchical_memsw_limit - # of bytes of memory+swap limit with regard to
431 hierarchy under which memory cgroup is.
432
Johannes Weinereb6332a2012-05-29 15:06:26 -0700433total_<counter> - # hierarchical version of <counter>, which in
434 addition to the cgroup's own value includes the
435 sum of all hierarchical children's values of
436 <counter>, i.e. total_cache
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700437
438# The following additional stats are dependent on CONFIG_DEBUG_VM.
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700439
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700440recent_rotated_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c)
441recent_rotated_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c)
442recent_scanned_anon - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c)
443recent_scanned_file - VM internal parameter. (see mm/vmscan.c)
444
445Memo:
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700446 recent_rotated means recent frequency of LRU rotation.
447 recent_scanned means recent # of scans to LRU.
KOSAKI Motohiro7f016ee2009-01-07 18:08:22 -0800448 showing for better debug please see the code for meanings.
449
Bharata B Raoc863d832009-04-13 14:40:15 -0700450Note:
451 Only anonymous and swap cache memory is listed as part of 'rss' stat.
452 This should not be confused with the true 'resident set size' or the
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700453 amount of physical memory used by the cgroup.
454 'rss + file_mapped" will give you resident set size of cgroup.
455 (Note: file and shmem may be shared among other cgroups. In that case,
456 file_mapped is accounted only when the memory cgroup is owner of page
457 cache.)
KOSAKI Motohiro7f016ee2009-01-07 18:08:22 -0800458
KOSAKI Motohiroa7885eb2009-01-07 18:08:24 -08004595.3 swappiness
KOSAKI Motohiroa7885eb2009-01-07 18:08:24 -0800460
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700461Similar to /proc/sys/vm/swappiness, but affecting a hierarchy of groups only.
KOSAKI Motohiroa7885eb2009-01-07 18:08:24 -0800462
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700463Following cgroups' swappiness can't be changed.
464- root cgroup (uses /proc/sys/vm/swappiness).
465- a cgroup which uses hierarchy and it has other cgroup(s) below it.
466- a cgroup which uses hierarchy and not the root of hierarchy.
467
4685.4 failcnt
469
470A memory cgroup provides memory.failcnt and memory.memsw.failcnt files.
471This failcnt(== failure count) shows the number of times that a usage counter
472hit its limit. When a memory cgroup hits a limit, failcnt increases and
473memory under it will be reclaimed.
474
475You can reset failcnt by writing 0 to failcnt file.
476# echo 0 > .../memory.failcnt
KOSAKI Motohiroa7885eb2009-01-07 18:08:24 -0800477
Daisuke Nishimuraa111c962011-04-27 15:26:48 -07004785.5 usage_in_bytes
479
480For efficiency, as other kernel components, memory cgroup uses some optimization
481to avoid unnecessary cacheline false sharing. usage_in_bytes is affected by the
482method and doesn't show 'exact' value of memory(and swap) usage, it's an fuzz
483value for efficient access. (Of course, when necessary, it's synchronized.)
484If you want to know more exact memory usage, you should use RSS+CACHE(+SWAP)
485value in memory.stat(see 5.2).
486
Ying Han50c35e52011-06-15 15:08:16 -07004875.6 numa_stat
488
489This is similar to numa_maps but operates on a per-memcg basis. This is
490useful for providing visibility into the numa locality information within
491an memcg since the pages are allowed to be allocated from any physical
492node. One of the usecases is evaluating application performance by
493combining this information with the application's cpu allocation.
494
495We export "total", "file", "anon" and "unevictable" pages per-node for
496each memcg. The ouput format of memory.numa_stat is:
497
498total=<total pages> N0=<node 0 pages> N1=<node 1 pages> ...
499file=<total file pages> N0=<node 0 pages> N1=<node 1 pages> ...
500anon=<total anon pages> N0=<node 0 pages> N1=<node 1 pages> ...
501unevictable=<total anon pages> N0=<node 0 pages> N1=<node 1 pages> ...
502
503And we have total = file + anon + unevictable.
504
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -08005056. Hierarchy support
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukic1e862c2009-01-07 18:07:55 -0800506
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800507The memory controller supports a deep hierarchy and hierarchical accounting.
508The hierarchy is created by creating the appropriate cgroups in the
509cgroup filesystem. Consider for example, the following cgroup filesystem
510hierarchy
511
Jörg Sommer67de0162011-06-15 13:00:47 -0700512 root
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800513 / | \
Jörg Sommer67de0162011-06-15 13:00:47 -0700514 / | \
515 a b c
516 | \
517 | \
518 d e
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800519
520In the diagram above, with hierarchical accounting enabled, all memory
521usage of e, is accounted to its ancestors up until the root (i.e, c and root),
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700522that has memory.use_hierarchy enabled. If one of the ancestors goes over its
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800523limit, the reclaim algorithm reclaims from the tasks in the ancestor and the
524children of the ancestor.
525
5266.1 Enabling hierarchical accounting and reclaim
527
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700528A memory cgroup by default disables the hierarchy feature. Support
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800529can be enabled by writing 1 to memory.use_hierarchy file of the root cgroup
530
531# echo 1 > memory.use_hierarchy
532
533The feature can be disabled by
534
535# echo 0 > memory.use_hierarchy
536
Greg Thelen689bca32011-02-16 17:51:23 -0800537NOTE1: Enabling/disabling will fail if either the cgroup already has other
538 cgroups created below it, or if the parent cgroup has use_hierarchy
539 enabled.
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800540
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidaaf1e62010-03-10 15:22:32 -0800541NOTE2: When panic_on_oom is set to "2", the whole system will panic in
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700542 case of an OOM event in any cgroup.
Balbir Singh52bc0d82009-01-07 18:08:03 -0800543
Balbir Singha6df6362009-09-23 15:56:34 -07005447. Soft limits
545
546Soft limits allow for greater sharing of memory. The idea behind soft limits
547is to allow control groups to use as much of the memory as needed, provided
548
549a. There is no memory contention
550b. They do not exceed their hard limit
551
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700552When the system detects memory contention or low memory, control groups
Balbir Singha6df6362009-09-23 15:56:34 -0700553are pushed back to their soft limits. If the soft limit of each control
554group is very high, they are pushed back as much as possible to make
555sure that one control group does not starve the others of memory.
556
557Please note that soft limits is a best effort feature, it comes with
558no guarantees, but it does its best to make sure that when memory is
559heavily contended for, memory is allocated based on the soft limit
560hints/setup. Currently soft limit based reclaim is setup such that
561it gets invoked from balance_pgdat (kswapd).
562
5637.1 Interface
564
565Soft limits can be setup by using the following commands (in this example we
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700566assume a soft limit of 256 MiB)
Balbir Singha6df6362009-09-23 15:56:34 -0700567
568# echo 256M > memory.soft_limit_in_bytes
569
570If we want to change this to 1G, we can at any time use
571
572# echo 1G > memory.soft_limit_in_bytes
573
574NOTE1: Soft limits take effect over a long period of time, since they involve
575 reclaiming memory for balancing between memory cgroups
576NOTE2: It is recommended to set the soft limit always below the hard limit,
577 otherwise the hard limit will take precedence.
578
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -08005798. Move charges at task migration
580
581Users can move charges associated with a task along with task migration, that
582is, uncharge task's pages from the old cgroup and charge them to the new cgroup.
Daisuke Nishimura02491442010-03-10 15:22:17 -0800583This feature is not supported in !CONFIG_MMU environments because of lack of
584page tables.
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800585
5868.1 Interface
587
588This feature is disabled by default. It can be enabled(and disabled again) by
589writing to memory.move_charge_at_immigrate of the destination cgroup.
590
591If you want to enable it:
592
593# echo (some positive value) > memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
594
595Note: Each bits of move_charge_at_immigrate has its own meaning about what type
596 of charges should be moved. See 8.2 for details.
597Note: Charges are moved only when you move mm->owner, IOW, a leader of a thread
598 group.
599Note: If we cannot find enough space for the task in the destination cgroup, we
600 try to make space by reclaiming memory. Task migration may fail if we
601 cannot make enough space.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700602Note: It can take several seconds if you move charges much.
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800603
604And if you want disable it again:
605
606# echo 0 > memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
607
6088.2 Type of charges which can be move
609
610Each bits of move_charge_at_immigrate has its own meaning about what type of
Daisuke Nishimura87946a72010-05-26 14:42:39 -0700611charges should be moved. But in any cases, it must be noted that an account of
612a page or a swap can be moved only when it is charged to the task's current(old)
613memory cgroup.
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800614
615 bit | what type of charges would be moved ?
616 -----+------------------------------------------------------------------------
617 0 | A charge of an anonymous page(or swap of it) used by the target task.
618 | Those pages and swaps must be used only by the target task. You must
619 | enable Swap Extension(see 2.4) to enable move of swap charges.
Daisuke Nishimura87946a72010-05-26 14:42:39 -0700620 -----+------------------------------------------------------------------------
621 1 | A charge of file pages(normal file, tmpfs file(e.g. ipc shared memory)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700622 | and swaps of tmpfs file) mmapped by the target task. Unlike the case of
Daisuke Nishimura87946a72010-05-26 14:42:39 -0700623 | anonymous pages, file pages(and swaps) in the range mmapped by the task
624 | will be moved even if the task hasn't done page fault, i.e. they might
625 | not be the task's "RSS", but other task's "RSS" that maps the same file.
626 | And mapcount of the page is ignored(the page can be moved even if
627 | page_mapcount(page) > 1). You must enable Swap Extension(see 2.4) to
628 | enable move of swap charges.
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800629
6308.3 TODO
631
Daisuke Nishimura7dc74be2010-03-10 15:22:13 -0800632- Implement madvise(2) to let users decide the vma to be moved or not to be
633 moved.
634- All of moving charge operations are done under cgroup_mutex. It's not good
635 behavior to hold the mutex too long, so we may need some trick.
636
Kirill A. Shutemov2e72b632010-03-10 15:22:24 -08006379. Memory thresholds
638
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700639Memory cgroup implements memory thresholds using cgroups notification
Kirill A. Shutemov2e72b632010-03-10 15:22:24 -0800640API (see cgroups.txt). It allows to register multiple memory and memsw
641thresholds and gets notifications when it crosses.
642
643To register a threshold application need:
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700644- create an eventfd using eventfd(2);
645- open memory.usage_in_bytes or memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes;
646- write string like "<event_fd> <fd of memory.usage_in_bytes> <threshold>" to
647 cgroup.event_control.
Kirill A. Shutemov2e72b632010-03-10 15:22:24 -0800648
649Application will be notified through eventfd when memory usage crosses
650threshold in any direction.
651
652It's applicable for root and non-root cgroup.
653
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -070065410. OOM Control
655
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki3c11ecf2010-05-26 14:42:37 -0700656memory.oom_control file is for OOM notification and other controls.
657
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700658Memory cgroup implements OOM notifier using cgroup notification
659API (See cgroups.txt). It allows to register multiple OOM notification
660delivery and gets notification when OOM happens.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -0700661
662To register a notifier, application need:
663 - create an eventfd using eventfd(2)
664 - open memory.oom_control file
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700665 - write string like "<event_fd> <fd of memory.oom_control>" to
666 cgroup.event_control
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -0700667
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700668Application will be notified through eventfd when OOM happens.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -0700669OOM notification doesn't work for root cgroup.
670
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700671You can disable OOM-killer by writing "1" to memory.oom_control file, as:
672
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki3c11ecf2010-05-26 14:42:37 -0700673 #echo 1 > memory.oom_control
674
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700675This operation is only allowed to the top cgroup of sub-hierarchy.
676If OOM-killer is disabled, tasks under cgroup will hang/sleep
677in memory cgroup's OOM-waitqueue when they request accountable memory.
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki3c11ecf2010-05-26 14:42:37 -0700678
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700679For running them, you have to relax the memory cgroup's OOM status by
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki3c11ecf2010-05-26 14:42:37 -0700680 * enlarge limit or reduce usage.
681To reduce usage,
682 * kill some tasks.
683 * move some tasks to other group with account migration.
684 * remove some files (on tmpfs?)
685
686Then, stopped tasks will work again.
687
688At reading, current status of OOM is shown.
689 oom_kill_disable 0 or 1 (if 1, oom-killer is disabled)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidc10e282010-05-26 14:42:40 -0700690 under_oom 0 or 1 (if 1, the memory cgroup is under OOM, tasks may
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki3c11ecf2010-05-26 14:42:37 -0700691 be stopped.)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki9490ff22010-05-26 14:42:36 -0700692
69311. TODO
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800694
6951. Add support for accounting huge pages (as a separate controller)
KAMEZAWA Hiroyukidfc05c22008-02-07 00:14:41 -08006962. Make per-cgroup scanner reclaim not-shared pages first
6973. Teach controller to account for shared-pages
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki628f4232008-07-25 01:47:20 -07006984. Start reclamation in the background when the limit is
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800699 not yet hit but the usage is getting closer
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800700
701Summary
702
703Overall, the memory controller has been a stable controller and has been
704commented and discussed quite extensively in the community.
705
706References
707
7081. Singh, Balbir. RFC: Memory Controller, http://lwn.net/Articles/206697/
7092. Singh, Balbir. Memory Controller (RSS Control),
710 http://lwn.net/Articles/222762/
7113. Emelianov, Pavel. Resource controllers based on process cgroups
712 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/6/198
7134. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v2)
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -0800714 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/4/9/78
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -08007155. Emelianov, Pavel. RSS controller based on process cgroups (v3)
716 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/30/244
7176. Menage, Paul. Control Groups v10, http://lwn.net/Articles/236032/
7187. Vaidyanathan, Srinivasan, Control Groups: Pagecache accounting and control
719 subsystem (v3), http://lwn.net/Articles/235534/
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -08007208. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 test results (lmbench),
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800721 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/17/232
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -08007229. Singh, Balbir. RSS controller v2 AIM9 results
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800723 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/18/1
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -080072410. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller v6 test results,
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -0800725 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/19/36
Li Zefan2324c5d2008-02-23 15:24:12 -080072611. Singh, Balbir. Memory controller introduction (v6),
727 http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/17/69
Balbir Singh1b6df3a2008-02-07 00:13:46 -080072812. Corbet, Jonathan, Controlling memory use in cgroups,
729 http://lwn.net/Articles/243795/