SLUB: More documentation

Update documentation to describe how to read a SLUB error report.
Add slub parameters to Documentation/kernel-parameters.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Cc: "Randy.Dunlap" <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 124 insertions, 11 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/slub.txt b/Documentation/vm/slub.txt
index 727c8d81aeaf..1523320abd87 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/slub.txt
+++ b/Documentation/vm/slub.txt
@@ -1,13 +1,9 @@
 Short users guide for SLUB
 --------------------------
 
-First of all slub should transparently replace SLAB. If you enable
-SLUB then everything should work the same (Note the word "should".
-There is likely not much value in that word at this point).
-
 The basic philosophy of SLUB is very different from SLAB. SLAB
 requires rebuilding the kernel to activate debug options for all
-SLABS. SLUB always includes full debugging but its off by default.
+slab caches. SLUB always includes full debugging but it is off by default.
 SLUB can enable debugging only for selected slabs in order to avoid
 an impact on overall system performance which may make a bug more
 difficult to find.
@@ -76,13 +72,28 @@ of objects.
 Careful with tracing: It may spew out lots of information and never stop if
 used on the wrong slab.
 
-SLAB Merging
+Slab merging
 ------------
 
-If no debugging is specified then SLUB may merge similar slabs together
+If no debug options are specified then SLUB may merge similar slabs together
 in order to reduce overhead and increase cache hotness of objects.
 slabinfo -a displays which slabs were merged together.
 
+Slab validation
+---------------
+
+SLUB can validate all object if the kernel was booted with slub_debug. In
+order to do so you must have the slabinfo tool. Then you can do
+
+slabinfo -v
+
+which will test all objects. Output will be generated to the syslog.
+
+This also works in a more limited way if boot was without slab debug.
+In that case slabinfo -v simply tests all reachable objects. Usually
+these are in the cpu slabs and the partial slabs. Full slabs are not
+tracked by SLUB in a non debug situation.
+
 Getting more performance
 ------------------------
 
@@ -91,9 +102,9 @@ list_lock once in a while to deal with partial slabs. That overhead is
 governed by the order of the allocation for each slab. The allocations
 can be influenced by kernel parameters:
 
-slub_min_objects=x              (default 8)
+slub_min_objects=x              (default 4)
 slub_min_order=x                (default 0)
-slub_max_order=x                (default 4)
+slub_max_order=x                (default 1)
 
 slub_min_objects allows to specify how many objects must at least fit
 into one slab in order for the allocation order to be acceptable.
@@ -109,5 +120,107 @@ longer be checked. This is useful to avoid SLUB trying to generate
 super large order pages to fit slub_min_objects of a slab cache with
 large object sizes into one high order page.
 
-
-Christoph Lameter, <clameter@sgi.com>, April 10, 2007
+SLUB Debug output
+-----------------
+
+Here is a sample of slub debug output:
+
+*** SLUB kmalloc-8: Redzone Active@0xc90f6d20 slab 0xc528c530 offset=3360 flags=0x400000c3 inuse=61 freelist=0xc90f6d58
+  Bytes b4 0xc90f6d10:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a ........ZZZZZZZZ
+    Object 0xc90f6d20:  31 30 31 39 2e 30 30 35                         1019.005
+   Redzone 0xc90f6d28:  00 cc cc cc                                     .
+FreePointer 0xc90f6d2c -> 0xc90f6d58
+Last alloc: get_modalias+0x61/0xf5 jiffies_ago=53 cpu=1 pid=554
+Filler 0xc90f6d50:  5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a                         ZZZZZZZZ
+  [<c010523d>] dump_trace+0x63/0x1eb
+  [<c01053df>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x2f
+  [<c010601d>] show_trace+0x12/0x14
+  [<c0106035>] dump_stack+0x16/0x18
+  [<c017e0fa>] object_err+0x143/0x14b
+  [<c017e2cc>] check_object+0x66/0x234
+  [<c017eb43>] __slab_free+0x239/0x384
+  [<c017f446>] kfree+0xa6/0xc6
+  [<c02e2335>] get_modalias+0xb9/0xf5
+  [<c02e23b7>] dmi_dev_uevent+0x27/0x3c
+  [<c027866a>] dev_uevent+0x1ad/0x1da
+  [<c0205024>] kobject_uevent_env+0x20a/0x45b
+  [<c020527f>] kobject_uevent+0xa/0xf
+  [<c02779f1>] store_uevent+0x4f/0x58
+  [<c027758e>] dev_attr_store+0x29/0x2f
+  [<c01bec4f>] sysfs_write_file+0x16e/0x19c
+  [<c0183ba7>] vfs_write+0xd1/0x15a
+  [<c01841d7>] sys_write+0x3d/0x72
+  [<c0104112>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x99
+  [<b7f7b410>] 0xb7f7b410
+  =======================
+@@@ SLUB kmalloc-8: Restoring redzone (0xcc) from 0xc90f6d28-0xc90f6d2b
+
+
+
+If SLUB encounters a corrupted object then it will perform the following
+actions:
+
+1. Isolation and report of the issue
+
+This will be a message in the system log starting with
+
+*** SLUB <slab cache affected>: <What went wrong>@<object address>
+offset=<offset of object into slab> flags=<slabflags>
+inuse=<objects in use in this slab> freelist=<first free object in slab>
+
+2. Report on how the problem was dealt with in order to ensure the continued
+operation of the system.
+
+These are messages in the system log beginning with
+
+@@@ SLUB <slab cache affected>: <corrective action taken>
+
+
+In the above sample SLUB found that the Redzone of an active object has
+been overwritten. Here a string of 8 characters was written into a slab that
+has the length of 8 characters. However, a 8 character string needs a
+terminating 0. That zero has overwritten the first byte of the Redzone field.
+After reporting the details of the issue encountered the @@@ SLUB message
+tell us that SLUB has restored the redzone to its proper value and then
+system operations continue.
+
+Various types of lines can follow the @@@ SLUB line:
+
+Bytes b4 <address> : <bytes>
+        Show a few bytes before the object where the problem was detected.
+        Can be useful if the corruption does not stop with the start of the
+        object.
+
+Object <address> : <bytes>
+        The bytes of the object. If the object is inactive then the bytes
+        typically contain poisoning values. Any non-poison value shows a
+        corruption by a write after free.
+
+Redzone <address> : <bytes>
+        The redzone following the object. The redzone is used to detect
+        writes after the object. All bytes should always have the same
+        value. If there is any deviation then it is due to a write after
+        the object boundary.
+
+Freepointer
+        The pointer to the next free object in the slab. May become
+        corrupted if overwriting continues after the red zone.
+
+Last alloc:
+Last free:
+        Shows the address from which the object was allocated/freed last.
+        We note the pid, the time and the CPU that did so. This is usually
+        the most useful information to figure out where things went wrong.
+        Here get_modalias() did an kmalloc(8) instead of a kmalloc(9).
+
+Filler <address> : <bytes>
+        Unused data to fill up the space in order to get the next object
+        properly aligned. In the debug case we make sure that there are
+        at least 4 bytes of filler. This allow for the detection of writes
+        before the object.
+
+Following the filler will be a stackdump. That stackdump describes the
+location where the error was detected. The cause of the corruption is more
+likely to be found by looking at the information about the last alloc / free.
+
+Christoph Lameter, <clameter@sgi.com>, May 23, 2007