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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/vm/idle_page_tracking.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/vm/idle_page_tracking.txt b/Documentation/vm/idle_page_tracking.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..85dcc3bb85dc --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/vm/idle_page_tracking.txt @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +MOTIVATION + +The idle page tracking feature allows to track which memory pages are being +accessed by a workload and which are idle. This information can be useful for +estimating the workload's working set size, which, in turn, can be taken into +account when configuring the workload parameters, setting memory cgroup limits, +or deciding where to place the workload within a compute cluster. + +It is enabled by CONFIG_IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING=y. + +USER API + +The idle page tracking API is located at /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle. Currently, +it consists of the only read-write file, /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap. + +The file implements a bitmap where each bit corresponds to a memory page. The +bitmap is represented by an array of 8-byte integers, and the page at PFN #i is +mapped to bit #i%64 of array element #i/64, byte order is native. When a bit is +set, the corresponding page is idle. + +A page is considered idle if it has not been accessed since it was marked idle +(for more details on what "accessed" actually means see the IMPLEMENTATION +DETAILS section). To mark a page idle one has to set the bit corresponding to +the page by writing to the file. A value written to the file is OR-ed with the +current bitmap value. + +Only accesses to user memory pages are tracked. These are pages mapped to a +process address space, page cache and buffer pages, swap cache pages. For other +page types (e.g. SLAB pages) an attempt to mark a page idle is silently ignored, +and hence such pages are never reported idle. + +For huge pages the idle flag is set only on the head page, so one has to read +/proc/kpageflags in order to correctly count idle huge pages. + +Reading from or writing to /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap will return +-EINVAL if you are not starting the read/write on an 8-byte boundary, or +if the size of the read/write is not a multiple of 8 bytes. Writing to +this file beyond max PFN will return -ENXIO. + +That said, in order to estimate the amount of pages that are not used by a +workload one should: + + 1. Mark all the workload's pages as idle by setting corresponding bits in + /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap. The pages can be found by reading + /proc/pid/pagemap if the workload is represented by a process, or by + filtering out alien pages using /proc/kpagecgroup in case the workload is + placed in a memory cgroup. + + 2. Wait until the workload accesses its working set. + + 3. Read /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap and count the number of bits set. If + one wants to ignore certain types of pages, e.g. mlocked pages since they + are not reclaimable, he or she can filter them out using /proc/kpageflags. + +See Documentation/vm/pagemap.txt for more information about /proc/pid/pagemap, +/proc/kpageflags, and /proc/kpagecgroup. + +IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS + +The kernel internally keeps track of accesses to user memory pages in order to +reclaim unreferenced pages first on memory shortage conditions. A page is +considered referenced if it has been recently accessed via a process address +space, in which case one or more PTEs it is mapped to will have the Accessed bit +set, or marked accessed explicitly by the kernel (see mark_page_accessed()). The +latter happens when: + + - a userspace process reads or writes a page using a system call (e.g. read(2) + or write(2)) + + - a page that is used for storing filesystem buffers is read or written, + because a process needs filesystem metadata stored in it (e.g. lists a + directory tree) + + - a page is accessed by a device driver using get_user_pages() + +When a dirty page is written to swap or disk as a result of memory reclaim or +exceeding the dirty memory limit, it is not marked referenced. + +The idle memory tracking feature adds a new page flag, the Idle flag. This flag +is set manually, by writing to /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap (see the USER API +section), and cleared automatically whenever a page is referenced as defined +above. + +When a page is marked idle, the Accessed bit must be cleared in all PTEs it is +mapped to, otherwise we will not be able to detect accesses to the page coming +from a process address space. To avoid interference with the reclaimer, which, +as noted above, uses the Accessed bit to promote actively referenced pages, one +more page flag is introduced, the Young flag. When the PTE Accessed bit is +cleared as a result of setting or updating a page's Idle flag, the Young flag +is set on the page. The reclaimer treats the Young flag as an extra PTE +Accessed bit and therefore will consider such a page as referenced. + +Since the idle memory tracking feature is based on the memory reclaimer logic, +it only works with pages that are on an LRU list, other pages are silently +ignored. That means it will ignore a user memory page if it is isolated, but +since there are usually not many of them, it should not affect the overall +result noticeably. In order not to stall scanning of the idle page bitmap, +locked pages may be skipped too. |