8ad4b1fb82
As recently there has been lot of traffic on the right values for batch and high water marks for per_cpu_pagelists. This patch makes these two variables configurable through /proc interface. A new tunable /proc/sys/vm/percpu_pagelist_fraction is added. This entry controls the fraction of pages at most in each zone that are allocated for each per cpu page list. The min value for this is 8. It means that we don't allow more than 1/8th of pages in each zone to be allocated in any single per_cpu_pagelist. 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) Signed-off-by: Rohit Seth <rohit.seth@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
123 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
123 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
Documentation for /proc/sys/vm/* kernel version 2.2.10
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(c) 1998, 1999, Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>
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For general info and legal blurb, please look in README.
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==============================================================
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This file contains the documentation for the sysctl files in
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/proc/sys/vm and is valid for Linux kernel version 2.2.
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The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation
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of the virtual memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel and
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the writeout of dirty data to disk.
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Default values and initialization routines for most of these
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files can be found in mm/swap.c.
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Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
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- overcommit_memory
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- page-cluster
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- dirty_ratio
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- dirty_background_ratio
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- dirty_expire_centisecs
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- dirty_writeback_centisecs
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- max_map_count
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- min_free_kbytes
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- laptop_mode
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- block_dump
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- drop-caches
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==============================================================
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dirty_ratio, dirty_background_ratio, dirty_expire_centisecs,
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dirty_writeback_centisecs, vfs_cache_pressure, laptop_mode,
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block_dump, swap_token_timeout, drop-caches:
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See Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
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==============================================================
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overcommit_memory:
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This value contains a flag that enables memory overcommitment.
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When this flag is 0, the kernel attempts to estimate the amount
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of free memory left when userspace requests more memory.
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When this flag is 1, the kernel pretends there is always enough
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memory until it actually runs out.
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When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit"
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policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory.
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This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of
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programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case"
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and don't use much of it.
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The default value is 0.
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See Documentation/vm/overcommit-accounting and
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security/commoncap.c::cap_vm_enough_memory() for more information.
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==============================================================
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overcommit_ratio:
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When overcommit_memory is set to 2, the committed address
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space is not permitted to exceed swap plus this percentage
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of physical RAM. See above.
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==============================================================
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page-cluster:
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The Linux VM subsystem avoids excessive disk seeks by reading
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multiple pages on a page fault. The number of pages it reads
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is dependent on the amount of memory in your machine.
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The number of pages the kernel reads in at once is equal to
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2 ^ page-cluster. Values above 2 ^ 5 don't make much sense
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for swap because we only cluster swap data in 32-page groups.
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==============================================================
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max_map_count:
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This file contains the maximum number of memory map areas a process
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may have. Memory map areas are used as a side-effect of calling
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malloc, directly by mmap and mprotect, and also when loading shared
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libraries.
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While most applications need less than a thousand maps, certain
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programs, particularly malloc debuggers, may consume lots of them,
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e.g., up to one or two maps per allocation.
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The default value is 65536.
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==============================================================
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min_free_kbytes:
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This is used to force the Linux VM to keep a minimum number
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of kilobytes free. The VM uses this number to compute a pages_min
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value for each lowmem zone in the system. Each lowmem zone gets
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a number of reserved free pages based proportionally on its size.
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==============================================================
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percpu_pagelist_fraction
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This is the fraction of pages at most (high mark pcp->high) in each zone that
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are allocated for each per cpu page list. The min value for this is 8. It
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means that we don't allow more than 1/8th of pages in each zone to be
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allocated in any single per_cpu_pagelist. This entry only changes the value
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of hot per cpu pagelists. User can specify a number like 100 to allocate
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1/100th of each zone to each per cpu page list.
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The batch value of each per cpu pagelist is also updated as a result. It is
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set to pcp->high/4. The upper limit of batch is (PAGE_SHIFT * 8)
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The initial value is zero. Kernel does not use this value at boot time to set
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the high water marks for each per cpu page list.
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