mm: compaction: add /proc trigger for memory compaction

Add a proc file /proc/sys/vm/compact_memory.  When an arbitrary value is
written to the file, all zones are compacted.  The expected user of such a
trigger is a job scheduler that prepares the system before the target
application runs.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 6c7d18c53f84..56dd29b97a91 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ files can be found in mm/swap.c.
 Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
 
 - block_dump
+- compact_memory
 - dirty_background_bytes
 - dirty_background_ratio
 - dirty_bytes
@@ -64,6 +65,15 @@ information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
 
 ==============================================================
 
+compact_memory
+
+Available only when CONFIG_COMPACTION is set. When 1 is written to the file,
+all zones are compacted such that free memory is available in contiguous
+blocks where possible. This can be important for example in the allocation of
+huge pages although processes will also directly compact memory as required.
+
+==============================================================
+
 dirty_background_bytes
 
 Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback