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-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt288
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt619
2 files changed, 437 insertions, 470 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index d105eb45282a..bbebc3a43ac0 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -1371,292 +1371,8 @@ auto_msgmni default value is 1.
13712.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem 13712.4 /proc/sys/vm - The virtual memory subsystem
1372----------------------------------------------- 1372-----------------------------------------------
1373 1373
1374The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation of the virtual 1374Please see: Documentation/sysctls/vm.txt for a description of these
1375memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel. 1375entries.
1376
1377vfs_cache_pressure
1378------------------
1379
1380Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for
1381caching of directory and inode objects.
1382
1383At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to
1384reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and
1385swapcache reclaim. Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer
1386to retain dentry and inode caches. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100
1387causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes.
1388
1389dirty_background_bytes
1390----------------------
1391
1392Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback
1393daemon will start writeback.
1394
1395If dirty_background_bytes is written, dirty_background_ratio becomes a function
1396of its value (dirty_background_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory).
1397
1398dirty_background_ratio
1399----------------------
1400
1401Contains, as a percentage of the dirtyable system memory (free pages + mapped
1402pages + file cache, not including locked pages and HugePages), the number of
1403pages at which the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out
1404dirty data.
1405
1406If dirty_background_ratio is written, dirty_background_bytes becomes a function
1407of its value (dirty_background_ratio * the amount of dirtyable system memory).
1408
1409dirty_bytes
1410-----------
1411
1412Contains the amount of dirty memory at which a process generating disk writes
1413will itself start writeback.
1414
1415If dirty_bytes is written, dirty_ratio becomes a function of its value
1416(dirty_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory).
1417
1418dirty_ratio
1419-----------
1420
1421Contains, as a percentage of the dirtyable system memory (free pages + mapped
1422pages + file cache, not including locked pages and HugePages), the number of
1423pages at which a process which is generating disk writes will itself start
1424writing out dirty data.
1425
1426If dirty_ratio is written, dirty_bytes becomes a function of its value
1427(dirty_ratio * the amount of dirtyable system memory).
1428
1429dirty_writeback_centisecs
1430-------------------------
1431
1432The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data
1433out to disk. This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in
1434100'ths of a second.
1435
1436Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether.
1437
1438dirty_expire_centisecs
1439----------------------
1440
1441This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible
1442for writeout by the pdflush daemons. It is expressed in 100'ths of a second.
1443Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be
1444written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up.
1445
1446highmem_is_dirtyable
1447--------------------
1448
1449Only present if CONFIG_HIGHMEM is set.
1450
1451This defaults to 0 (false), meaning that the ratios set above are calculated
1452as a percentage of lowmem only. This protects against excessive scanning
1453in page reclaim, swapping and general VM distress.
1454
1455Setting this to 1 can be useful on 32 bit machines where you want to make
1456random changes within an MMAPed file that is larger than your available
1457lowmem without causing large quantities of random IO. Is is safe if the
1458behavior of all programs running on the machine is known and memory will
1459not be otherwise stressed.
1460
1461legacy_va_layout
1462----------------
1463
1464If non-zero, this sysctl disables the new 32-bit mmap mmap layout - the kernel
1465will use the legacy (2.4) layout for all processes.
1466
1467lowmem_reserve_ratio
1468---------------------
1469
1470For some specialised workloads on highmem machines it is dangerous for
1471the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from the "lowmem"
1472zone. This is because that memory could then be pinned via the mlock()
1473system call, or by unavailability of swapspace.
1474
1475And on large highmem machines this lack of reclaimable lowmem memory
1476can be fatal.
1477
1478So the Linux page allocator has a mechanism which prevents allocations
1479which _could_ use highmem from using too much lowmem. This means that
1480a certain amount of lowmem is defended from the possibility of being
1481captured into pinned user memory.
1482
1483(The same argument applies to the old 16 megabyte ISA DMA region. This
1484mechanism will also defend that region from allocations which could use
1485highmem or lowmem).
1486
1487The `lowmem_reserve_ratio' tunable determines how aggressive the kernel is
1488in defending these lower zones.
1489
1490If you have a machine which uses highmem or ISA DMA and your
1491applications are using mlock(), or if you are running with no swap then
1492you probably should change the lowmem_reserve_ratio setting.
1493
1494The lowmem_reserve_ratio is an array. You can see them by reading this file.
1495-
1496% cat /proc/sys/vm/lowmem_reserve_ratio
1497256 256 32
1498-
1499Note: # of this elements is one fewer than number of zones. Because the highest
1500 zone's value is not necessary for following calculation.
1501
1502But, these values are not used directly. The kernel calculates # of protection
1503pages for each zones from them. These are shown as array of protection pages
1504in /proc/zoneinfo like followings. (This is an example of x86-64 box).
1505Each zone has an array of protection pages like this.
1506
1507-
1508Node 0, zone DMA
1509 pages free 1355
1510 min 3
1511 low 3
1512 high 4
1513 :
1514 :
1515 numa_other 0
1516 protection: (0, 2004, 2004, 2004)
1517 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1518 pagesets
1519 cpu: 0 pcp: 0
1520 :
1521-
1522These protections are added to score to judge whether this zone should be used
1523for page allocation or should be reclaimed.
1524
1525In this example, if normal pages (index=2) are required to this DMA zone and
1526pages_high is used for watermark, the kernel judges this zone should not be
1527used because pages_free(1355) is smaller than watermark + protection[2]
1528(4 + 2004 = 2008). If this protection value is 0, this zone would be used for
1529normal page requirement. If requirement is DMA zone(index=0), protection[0]
1530(=0) is used.
1531
1532zone[i]'s protection[j] is calculated by following expression.
1533
1534(i < j):
1535 zone[i]->protection[j]
1536 = (total sums of present_pages from zone[i+1] to zone[j] on the node)
1537 / lowmem_reserve_ratio[i];
1538(i = j):
1539 (should not be protected. = 0;
1540(i > j):
1541 (not necessary, but looks 0)
1542
1543The default values of lowmem_reserve_ratio[i] are
1544 256 (if zone[i] means DMA or DMA32 zone)
1545 32 (others).
1546As above expression, they are reciprocal number of ratio.
1547256 means 1/256. # of protection pages becomes about "0.39%" of total present
1548pages of higher zones on the node.
1549
1550If you would like to protect more pages, smaller values are effective.
1551The minimum value is 1 (1/1 -> 100%).
1552
1553page-cluster
1554------------
1555
1556page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in
1557a single attempt. The swap I/O size.
1558
1559It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting
1560it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc.
1561
1562The default value is three (eight pages at a time). There may be some
1563small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is
1564swap-intensive.
1565
1566overcommit_memory
1567-----------------
1568
1569Controls overcommit of system memory, possibly allowing processes
1570to allocate (but not use) more memory than is actually available.
1571
1572
15730 - Heuristic overcommit handling. Obvious overcommits of
1574 address space are refused. Used for a typical system. It
1575 ensures a seriously wild allocation fails while allowing
1576 overcommit to reduce swap usage. root is allowed to
1577 allocate slightly more memory in this mode. This is the
1578 default.
1579
15801 - Always overcommit. Appropriate for some scientific
1581 applications.
1582
15832 - Don't overcommit. The total address space commit
1584 for the system is not permitted to exceed swap plus a
1585 configurable percentage (default is 50) of physical RAM.
1586 Depending on the percentage you use, in most situations
1587 this means a process will not be killed while attempting
1588 to use already-allocated memory but will receive errors
1589 on memory allocation as appropriate.
1590
1591overcommit_ratio
1592----------------
1593
1594Percentage of physical memory size to include in overcommit calculations
1595(see above.)
1596
1597Memory allocation limit = swapspace + physmem * (overcommit_ratio / 100)
1598
1599 swapspace = total size of all swap areas
1600 physmem = size of physical memory in system
1601
1602nr_hugepages and hugetlb_shm_group
1603----------------------------------
1604
1605nr_hugepages configures number of hugetlb page reserved for the system.
1606
1607hugetlb_shm_group contains group id that is allowed to create SysV shared
1608memory segment using hugetlb page.
1609
1610hugepages_treat_as_movable
1611--------------------------
1612
1613This parameter is only useful when kernelcore= is specified at boot time to
1614create ZONE_MOVABLE for pages that may be reclaimed or migrated. Huge pages
1615are not movable so are not normally allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. A non-zero
1616value written to hugepages_treat_as_movable allows huge pages to be allocated
1617from ZONE_MOVABLE.
1618
1619Once enabled, the ZONE_MOVABLE is treated as an area of memory the huge
1620pages pool can easily grow or shrink within. Assuming that applications are
1621not running that mlock() a lot of memory, it is likely the huge pages pool
1622can grow to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE by repeatedly entering the desired value
1623into nr_hugepages and triggering page reclaim.
1624
1625laptop_mode
1626-----------
1627
1628laptop_mode is a knob that controls "laptop mode". All the things that are
1629controlled by this knob are discussed in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
1630
1631block_dump
1632----------
1633
1634block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More
1635information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
1636
1637swap_token_timeout
1638------------------
1639
1640This file contains valid hold time of swap out protection token. The Linux
1641VM has token based thrashing control mechanism and uses the token to prevent
1642unnecessary page faults in thrashing situation. The unit of the value is
1643second. The value would be useful to tune thrashing behavior.
1644
1645drop_caches
1646-----------
1647
1648Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and
1649inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free.
1650
1651To free pagecache:
1652 echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1653To free dentries and inodes:
1654 echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1655To free pagecache, dentries and inodes:
1656 echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
1657
1658As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the
1659user should run `sync' first.
1660 1376
1661 1377
16622.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters 13782.5 /proc/sys/dev - Device specific parameters
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index a3415070bcac..3197fc83bc51 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
1Documentation for /proc/sys/vm/* kernel version 2.2.10 1Documentation for /proc/sys/vm/* kernel version 2.6.29
2 (c) 1998, 1999, Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org> 2 (c) 1998, 1999, Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>
3 (c) 2008 Peter W. Morreale <pmorreale@novell.com>
3 4
4For general info and legal blurb, please look in README. 5For general info and legal blurb, please look in README.
5 6
6============================================================== 7==============================================================
7 8
8This file contains the documentation for the sysctl files in 9This file contains the documentation for the sysctl files in
9/proc/sys/vm and is valid for Linux kernel version 2.2. 10/proc/sys/vm and is valid for Linux kernel version 2.6.29.
10 11
11The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation 12The files in this directory can be used to tune the operation
12of the virtual memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel and 13of the virtual memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel and
@@ -16,180 +17,274 @@ Default values and initialization routines for most of these
16files can be found in mm/swap.c. 17files can be found in mm/swap.c.
17 18
18Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm: 19Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
19- overcommit_memory 20
20- page-cluster 21- block_dump
21- dirty_ratio 22- dirty_background_bytes
22- dirty_background_ratio 23- dirty_background_ratio
24- dirty_bytes
23- dirty_expire_centisecs 25- dirty_expire_centisecs
26- dirty_ratio
24- dirty_writeback_centisecs 27- dirty_writeback_centisecs
25- highmem_is_dirtyable (only if CONFIG_HIGHMEM set) 28- drop_caches
29- hugepages_treat_as_movable
30- hugetlb_shm_group
31- laptop_mode
32- legacy_va_layout
33- lowmem_reserve_ratio
26- max_map_count 34- max_map_count
27- min_free_kbytes 35- min_free_kbytes
28- laptop_mode
29- block_dump
30- drop-caches
31- zone_reclaim_mode
32- min_unmapped_ratio
33- min_slab_ratio 36- min_slab_ratio
34- panic_on_oom 37- min_unmapped_ratio
35- oom_dump_tasks 38- mmap_min_addr
36- oom_kill_allocating_task
37- mmap_min_address
38- numa_zonelist_order
39- nr_hugepages 39- nr_hugepages
40- nr_overcommit_hugepages 40- nr_overcommit_hugepages
41- nr_trim_pages (only if CONFIG_MMU=n) 41- nr_pdflush_threads
42- nr_trim_pages (only if CONFIG_MMU=n)
43- numa_zonelist_order
44- oom_dump_tasks
45- oom_kill_allocating_task
46- overcommit_memory
47- overcommit_ratio
48- page-cluster
49- panic_on_oom
50- percpu_pagelist_fraction
51- stat_interval
52- swappiness
53- vfs_cache_pressure
54- zone_reclaim_mode
55
42 56
43============================================================== 57==============================================================
44 58
45dirty_bytes, dirty_ratio, dirty_background_bytes, 59block_dump
46dirty_background_ratio, dirty_expire_centisecs,
47dirty_writeback_centisecs, highmem_is_dirtyable,
48vfs_cache_pressure, laptop_mode, block_dump, swap_token_timeout,
49drop-caches, hugepages_treat_as_movable:
50 60
51See Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt 61block_dump enables block I/O debugging when set to a nonzero value. More
62information on block I/O debugging is in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
52 63
53============================================================== 64==============================================================
54 65
55overcommit_memory: 66dirty_background_bytes
56 67
57This value contains a flag that enables memory overcommitment. 68Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback
69daemon will start writeback.
58 70
59When this flag is 0, the kernel attempts to estimate the amount 71If dirty_background_bytes is written, dirty_background_ratio becomes a function
60of free memory left when userspace requests more memory. 72of its value (dirty_background_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory).
61 73
62When this flag is 1, the kernel pretends there is always enough 74==============================================================
63memory until it actually runs out.
64 75
65When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit" 76dirty_background_ratio
66policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory.
67 77
68This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of 78Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
69programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case" 79the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writing out dirty data.
70and don't use much of it.
71 80
72The default value is 0. 81==============================================================
73 82
74See Documentation/vm/overcommit-accounting and 83dirty_bytes
75security/commoncap.c::cap_vm_enough_memory() for more information. 84
85Contains the amount of dirty memory at which a process generating disk writes
86will itself start writeback.
87
88If dirty_bytes is written, dirty_ratio becomes a function of its value
89(dirty_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory).
76 90
77============================================================== 91==============================================================
78 92
79overcommit_ratio: 93dirty_expire_centisecs
80 94
81When overcommit_memory is set to 2, the committed address 95This tunable is used to define when dirty data is old enough to be eligible
82space is not permitted to exceed swap plus this percentage 96for writeout by the pdflush daemons. It is expressed in 100'ths of a second.
83of physical RAM. See above. 97Data which has been dirty in-memory for longer than this interval will be
98written out next time a pdflush daemon wakes up.
99
100==============================================================
101
102dirty_ratio
103
104Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
105a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty
106data.
84 107
85============================================================== 108==============================================================
86 109
87page-cluster: 110dirty_writeback_centisecs
88 111
89The Linux VM subsystem avoids excessive disk seeks by reading 112The pdflush writeback daemons will periodically wake up and write `old' data
90multiple pages on a page fault. The number of pages it reads 113out to disk. This tunable expresses the interval between those wakeups, in
91is dependent on the amount of memory in your machine. 114100'ths of a second.
92 115
93The number of pages the kernel reads in at once is equal to 116Setting this to zero disables periodic writeback altogether.
942 ^ page-cluster. Values above 2 ^ 5 don't make much sense
95for swap because we only cluster swap data in 32-page groups.
96 117
97============================================================== 118==============================================================
98 119
99max_map_count: 120drop_caches
100 121
101This file contains the maximum number of memory map areas a process 122Writing to this will cause the kernel to drop clean caches, dentries and
102may have. Memory map areas are used as a side-effect of calling 123inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free.
103malloc, directly by mmap and mprotect, and also when loading shared
104libraries.
105 124
106While most applications need less than a thousand maps, certain 125To free pagecache:
107programs, particularly malloc debuggers, may consume lots of them, 126 echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
108e.g., up to one or two maps per allocation. 127To free dentries and inodes:
128 echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
129To free pagecache, dentries and inodes:
130 echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
109 131
110The default value is 65536. 132As this is a non-destructive operation and dirty objects are not freeable, the
133user should run `sync' first.
111 134
112============================================================== 135==============================================================
113 136
114min_free_kbytes: 137hugepages_treat_as_movable
115 138
116This is used to force the Linux VM to keep a minimum number 139This parameter is only useful when kernelcore= is specified at boot time to
117of kilobytes free. The VM uses this number to compute a pages_min 140create ZONE_MOVABLE for pages that may be reclaimed or migrated. Huge pages
118value for each lowmem zone in the system. Each lowmem zone gets 141are not movable so are not normally allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. A non-zero
119a number of reserved free pages based proportionally on its size. 142value written to hugepages_treat_as_movable allows huge pages to be allocated
143from ZONE_MOVABLE.
120 144
121Some minimal amount of memory is needed to satisfy PF_MEMALLOC 145Once enabled, the ZONE_MOVABLE is treated as an area of memory the huge
122allocations; if you set this to lower than 1024KB, your system will 146pages pool can easily grow or shrink within. Assuming that applications are
123become subtly broken, and prone to deadlock under high loads. 147not running that mlock() a lot of memory, it is likely the huge pages pool
124 148can grow to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE by repeatedly entering the desired value
125Setting this too high will OOM your machine instantly. 149into nr_hugepages and triggering page reclaim.
126 150
127============================================================== 151==============================================================
128 152
129percpu_pagelist_fraction 153hugetlb_shm_group
130 154
131This is the fraction of pages at most (high mark pcp->high) in each zone that 155hugetlb_shm_group contains group id that is allowed to create SysV
132are allocated for each per cpu page list. The min value for this is 8. It 156shared memory segment using hugetlb page.
133means that we don't allow more than 1/8th of pages in each zone to be
134allocated in any single per_cpu_pagelist. This entry only changes the value
135of hot per cpu pagelists. User can specify a number like 100 to allocate
1361/100th of each zone to each per cpu page list.
137 157
138The batch value of each per cpu pagelist is also updated as a result. It is 158==============================================================
139set to pcp->high/4. The upper limit of batch is (PAGE_SHIFT * 8)
140 159
141The initial value is zero. Kernel does not use this value at boot time to set 160laptop_mode
142the high water marks for each per cpu page list.
143 161
144=============================================================== 162laptop_mode is a knob that controls "laptop mode". All the things that are
163controlled by this knob are discussed in Documentation/laptops/laptop-mode.txt.
145 164
146zone_reclaim_mode: 165==============================================================
147 166
148Zone_reclaim_mode allows someone to set more or less aggressive approaches to 167legacy_va_layout
149reclaim memory when a zone runs out of memory. If it is set to zero then no
150zone reclaim occurs. Allocations will be satisfied from other zones / nodes
151in the system.
152 168
153This is value ORed together of 169If non-zero, this sysctl disables the new 32-bit mmap mmap layout - the kernel
170will use the legacy (2.4) layout for all processes.
154 171
1551 = Zone reclaim on 172==============================================================
1562 = Zone reclaim writes dirty pages out
1574 = Zone reclaim swaps pages
158 173
159zone_reclaim_mode is set during bootup to 1 if it is determined that pages 174lowmem_reserve_ratio
160from remote zones will cause a measurable performance reduction. The 175
161page allocator will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page 176For some specialised workloads on highmem machines it is dangerous for
162cache pages that are currently not used) before allocating off node pages. 177the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from the "lowmem"
178zone. This is because that memory could then be pinned via the mlock()
179system call, or by unavailability of swapspace.
180
181And on large highmem machines this lack of reclaimable lowmem memory
182can be fatal.
183
184So the Linux page allocator has a mechanism which prevents allocations
185which _could_ use highmem from using too much lowmem. This means that
186a certain amount of lowmem is defended from the possibility of being
187captured into pinned user memory.
188
189(The same argument applies to the old 16 megabyte ISA DMA region. This
190mechanism will also defend that region from allocations which could use
191highmem or lowmem).
192
193The `lowmem_reserve_ratio' tunable determines how aggressive the kernel is
194in defending these lower zones.
195
196If you have a machine which uses highmem or ISA DMA and your
197applications are using mlock(), or if you are running with no swap then
198you probably should change the lowmem_reserve_ratio setting.
199
200The lowmem_reserve_ratio is an array. You can see them by reading this file.
201-
202% cat /proc/sys/vm/lowmem_reserve_ratio
203256 256 32
204-
205Note: # of this elements is one fewer than number of zones. Because the highest
206 zone's value is not necessary for following calculation.
207
208But, these values are not used directly. The kernel calculates # of protection
209pages for each zones from them. These are shown as array of protection pages
210in /proc/zoneinfo like followings. (This is an example of x86-64 box).
211Each zone has an array of protection pages like this.
212
213-
214Node 0, zone DMA
215 pages free 1355
216 min 3
217 low 3
218 high 4
219 :
220 :
221 numa_other 0
222 protection: (0, 2004, 2004, 2004)
223 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
224 pagesets
225 cpu: 0 pcp: 0
226 :
227-
228These protections are added to score to judge whether this zone should be used
229for page allocation or should be reclaimed.
230
231In this example, if normal pages (index=2) are required to this DMA zone and
232pages_high is used for watermark, the kernel judges this zone should not be
233used because pages_free(1355) is smaller than watermark + protection[2]
234(4 + 2004 = 2008). If this protection value is 0, this zone would be used for
235normal page requirement. If requirement is DMA zone(index=0), protection[0]
236(=0) is used.
237
238zone[i]'s protection[j] is calculated by following expression.
239
240(i < j):
241 zone[i]->protection[j]
242 = (total sums of present_pages from zone[i+1] to zone[j] on the node)
243 / lowmem_reserve_ratio[i];
244(i = j):
245 (should not be protected. = 0;
246(i > j):
247 (not necessary, but looks 0)
248
249The default values of lowmem_reserve_ratio[i] are
250 256 (if zone[i] means DMA or DMA32 zone)
251 32 (others).
252As above expression, they are reciprocal number of ratio.
253256 means 1/256. # of protection pages becomes about "0.39%" of total present
254pages of higher zones on the node.
255
256If you would like to protect more pages, smaller values are effective.
257The minimum value is 1 (1/1 -> 100%).
163 258
164It may be beneficial to switch off zone reclaim if the system is 259==============================================================
165used for a file server and all of memory should be used for caching files
166from disk. In that case the caching effect is more important than
167data locality.
168 260
169Allowing zone reclaim to write out pages stops processes that are 261max_map_count:
170writing large amounts of data from dirtying pages on other nodes. Zone
171reclaim will write out dirty pages if a zone fills up and so effectively
172throttle the process. This may decrease the performance of a single process
173since it cannot use all of system memory to buffer the outgoing writes
174anymore but it preserve the memory on other nodes so that the performance
175of other processes running on other nodes will not be affected.
176 262
177Allowing regular swap effectively restricts allocations to the local 263This file contains the maximum number of memory map areas a process
178node unless explicitly overridden by memory policies or cpuset 264may have. Memory map areas are used as a side-effect of calling
179configurations. 265malloc, directly by mmap and mprotect, and also when loading shared
266libraries.
180 267
181============================================================= 268While most applications need less than a thousand maps, certain
269programs, particularly malloc debuggers, may consume lots of them,
270e.g., up to one or two maps per allocation.
182 271
183min_unmapped_ratio: 272The default value is 65536.
184 273
185This is available only on NUMA kernels. 274==============================================================
186 275
187A percentage of the total pages in each zone. Zone reclaim will only 276min_free_kbytes:
188occur if more than this percentage of pages are file backed and unmapped.
189This is to insure that a minimal amount of local pages is still available for
190file I/O even if the node is overallocated.
191 277
192The default is 1 percent. 278This is used to force the Linux VM to keep a minimum number
279of kilobytes free. The VM uses this number to compute a pages_min
280value for each lowmem zone in the system. Each lowmem zone gets
281a number of reserved free pages based proportionally on its size.
282
283Some minimal amount of memory is needed to satisfy PF_MEMALLOC
284allocations; if you set this to lower than 1024KB, your system will
285become subtly broken, and prone to deadlock under high loads.
286
287Setting this too high will OOM your machine instantly.
193 288
194============================================================= 289=============================================================
195 290
@@ -211,82 +306,73 @@ and may not be fast.
211 306
212============================================================= 307=============================================================
213 308
214panic_on_oom 309min_unmapped_ratio:
215 310
216This enables or disables panic on out-of-memory feature. 311This is available only on NUMA kernels.
217 312
218If this is set to 0, the kernel will kill some rogue process, 313A percentage of the total pages in each zone. Zone reclaim will only
219called oom_killer. Usually, oom_killer can kill rogue processes and 314occur if more than this percentage of pages are file backed and unmapped.
220system will survive. 315This is to insure that a minimal amount of local pages is still available for
316file I/O even if the node is overallocated.
221 317
222If this is set to 1, the kernel panics when out-of-memory happens. 318The default is 1 percent.
223However, if a process limits using nodes by mempolicy/cpusets,
224and those nodes become memory exhaustion status, one process
225may be killed by oom-killer. No panic occurs in this case.
226Because other nodes' memory may be free. This means system total status
227may be not fatal yet.
228 319
229If this is set to 2, the kernel panics compulsorily even on the 320==============================================================
230above-mentioned.
231 321
232The default value is 0. 322mmap_min_addr
2331 and 2 are for failover of clustering. Please select either
234according to your policy of failover.
235 323
236============================================================= 324This file indicates the amount of address space which a user process will
325be restricted from mmaping. Since kernel null dereference bugs could
326accidentally operate based on the information in the first couple of pages
327of memory userspace processes should not be allowed to write to them. By
328default this value is set to 0 and no protections will be enforced by the
329security module. Setting this value to something like 64k will allow the
330vast majority of applications to work correctly and provide defense in depth
331against future potential kernel bugs.
237 332
238oom_dump_tasks 333==============================================================
239 334
240Enables a system-wide task dump (excluding kernel threads) to be 335nr_hugepages
241produced when the kernel performs an OOM-killing and includes such
242information as pid, uid, tgid, vm size, rss, cpu, oom_adj score, and
243name. This is helpful to determine why the OOM killer was invoked
244and to identify the rogue task that caused it.
245 336
246If this is set to zero, this information is suppressed. On very 337Change the minimum size of the hugepage pool.
247large systems with thousands of tasks it may not be feasible to dump
248the memory state information for each one. Such systems should not
249be forced to incur a performance penalty in OOM conditions when the
250information may not be desired.
251 338
252If this is set to non-zero, this information is shown whenever the 339See Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt
253OOM killer actually kills a memory-hogging task.
254 340
255The default value is 0. 341==============================================================
256 342
257============================================================= 343nr_overcommit_hugepages
258 344
259oom_kill_allocating_task 345Change the maximum size of the hugepage pool. The maximum is
346nr_hugepages + nr_overcommit_hugepages.
260 347
261This enables or disables killing the OOM-triggering task in 348See Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt
262out-of-memory situations.
263 349
264If this is set to zero, the OOM killer will scan through the entire 350==============================================================
265tasklist and select a task based on heuristics to kill. This normally
266selects a rogue memory-hogging task that frees up a large amount of
267memory when killed.
268 351
269If this is set to non-zero, the OOM killer simply kills the task that 352nr_pdflush_threads
270triggered the out-of-memory condition. This avoids the expensive
271tasklist scan.
272 353
273If panic_on_oom is selected, it takes precedence over whatever value 354The current number of pdflush threads. This value is read-only.
274is used in oom_kill_allocating_task. 355The value changes according to the number of dirty pages in the system.
275 356
276The default value is 0. 357When neccessary, additional pdflush threads are created, one per second, up to
358nr_pdflush_threads_max.
277 359
278============================================================== 360==============================================================
279 361
280mmap_min_addr 362nr_trim_pages
281 363
282This file indicates the amount of address space which a user process will 364This is available only on NOMMU kernels.
283be restricted from mmaping. Since kernel null dereference bugs could 365
284accidentally operate based on the information in the first couple of pages 366This value adjusts the excess page trimming behaviour of power-of-2 aligned
285of memory userspace processes should not be allowed to write to them. By 367NOMMU mmap allocations.
286default this value is set to 0 and no protections will be enforced by the 368
287security module. Setting this value to something like 64k will allow the 369A value of 0 disables trimming of allocations entirely, while a value of 1
288vast majority of applications to work correctly and provide defense in depth 370trims excess pages aggressively. Any value >= 1 acts as the watermark where
289against future potential kernel bugs. 371trimming of allocations is initiated.
372
373The default value is 1.
374
375See Documentation/nommu-mmap.txt for more information.
290 376
291============================================================== 377==============================================================
292 378
@@ -335,34 +421,199 @@ this is causing problems for your system/application.
335 421
336============================================================== 422==============================================================
337 423
338nr_hugepages 424oom_dump_tasks
339 425
340Change the minimum size of the hugepage pool. 426Enables a system-wide task dump (excluding kernel threads) to be
427produced when the kernel performs an OOM-killing and includes such
428information as pid, uid, tgid, vm size, rss, cpu, oom_adj score, and
429name. This is helpful to determine why the OOM killer was invoked
430and to identify the rogue task that caused it.
341 431
342See Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt 432If this is set to zero, this information is suppressed. On very
433large systems with thousands of tasks it may not be feasible to dump
434the memory state information for each one. Such systems should not
435be forced to incur a performance penalty in OOM conditions when the
436information may not be desired.
437
438If this is set to non-zero, this information is shown whenever the
439OOM killer actually kills a memory-hogging task.
440
441The default value is 0.
343 442
344============================================================== 443==============================================================
345 444
346nr_overcommit_hugepages 445oom_kill_allocating_task
347 446
348Change the maximum size of the hugepage pool. The maximum is 447This enables or disables killing the OOM-triggering task in
349nr_hugepages + nr_overcommit_hugepages. 448out-of-memory situations.
350 449
351See Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt 450If this is set to zero, the OOM killer will scan through the entire
451tasklist and select a task based on heuristics to kill. This normally
452selects a rogue memory-hogging task that frees up a large amount of
453memory when killed.
454
455If this is set to non-zero, the OOM killer simply kills the task that
456triggered the out-of-memory condition. This avoids the expensive
457tasklist scan.
458
459If panic_on_oom is selected, it takes precedence over whatever value
460is used in oom_kill_allocating_task.
461
462The default value is 0.
352 463
353============================================================== 464==============================================================
354 465
355nr_trim_pages 466overcommit_memory:
356 467
357This is available only on NOMMU kernels. 468This value contains a flag that enables memory overcommitment.
358 469
359This value adjusts the excess page trimming behaviour of power-of-2 aligned 470When this flag is 0, the kernel attempts to estimate the amount
360NOMMU mmap allocations. 471of free memory left when userspace requests more memory.
361 472
362A value of 0 disables trimming of allocations entirely, while a value of 1 473When this flag is 1, the kernel pretends there is always enough
363trims excess pages aggressively. Any value >= 1 acts as the watermark where 474memory until it actually runs out.
364trimming of allocations is initiated.
365 475
366The default value is 1. 476When this flag is 2, the kernel uses a "never overcommit"
477policy that attempts to prevent any overcommit of memory.
367 478
368See Documentation/nommu-mmap.txt for more information. 479This feature can be very useful because there are a lot of
480programs that malloc() huge amounts of memory "just-in-case"
481and don't use much of it.
482
483The default value is 0.
484
485See Documentation/vm/overcommit-accounting and
486security/commoncap.c::cap_vm_enough_memory() for more information.
487
488==============================================================
489
490overcommit_ratio:
491
492When overcommit_memory is set to 2, the committed address
493space is not permitted to exceed swap plus this percentage
494of physical RAM. See above.
495
496==============================================================
497
498page-cluster
499
500page-cluster controls the number of pages which are written to swap in
501a single attempt. The swap I/O size.
502
503It is a logarithmic value - setting it to zero means "1 page", setting
504it to 1 means "2 pages", setting it to 2 means "4 pages", etc.
505
506The default value is three (eight pages at a time). There may be some
507small benefits in tuning this to a different value if your workload is
508swap-intensive.
509
510=============================================================
511
512panic_on_oom
513
514This enables or disables panic on out-of-memory feature.
515
516If this is set to 0, the kernel will kill some rogue process,
517called oom_killer. Usually, oom_killer can kill rogue processes and
518system will survive.
519
520If this is set to 1, the kernel panics when out-of-memory happens.
521However, if a process limits using nodes by mempolicy/cpusets,
522and those nodes become memory exhaustion status, one process
523may be killed by oom-killer. No panic occurs in this case.
524Because other nodes' memory may be free. This means system total status
525may be not fatal yet.
526
527If this is set to 2, the kernel panics compulsorily even on the
528above-mentioned.
529
530The default value is 0.
5311 and 2 are for failover of clustering. Please select either
532according to your policy of failover.
533
534=============================================================
535
536percpu_pagelist_fraction
537
538This is the fraction of pages at most (high mark pcp->high) in each zone that
539are allocated for each per cpu page list. The min value for this is 8. It
540means that we don't allow more than 1/8th of pages in each zone to be
541allocated in any single per_cpu_pagelist. This entry only changes the value
542of hot per cpu pagelists. User can specify a number like 100 to allocate
5431/100th of each zone to each per cpu page list.
544
545The batch value of each per cpu pagelist is also updated as a result. It is
546set to pcp->high/4. The upper limit of batch is (PAGE_SHIFT * 8)
547
548The initial value is zero. Kernel does not use this value at boot time to set
549the high water marks for each per cpu page list.
550
551==============================================================
552
553stat_interval
554
555The time interval between which vm statistics are updated. The default
556is 1 second.
557
558==============================================================
559
560swappiness
561
562This control is used to define how aggressive the kernel will swap
563memory pages. Higher values will increase agressiveness, lower values
564descrease the amount of swap.
565
566The default value is 60.
567
568==============================================================
569
570vfs_cache_pressure
571------------------
572
573Controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for
574caching of directory and inode objects.
575
576At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to
577reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and
578swapcache reclaim. Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer
579to retain dentry and inode caches. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100
580causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes.
581
582==============================================================
583
584zone_reclaim_mode:
585
586Zone_reclaim_mode allows someone to set more or less aggressive approaches to
587reclaim memory when a zone runs out of memory. If it is set to zero then no
588zone reclaim occurs. Allocations will be satisfied from other zones / nodes
589in the system.
590
591This is value ORed together of
592
5931 = Zone reclaim on
5942 = Zone reclaim writes dirty pages out
5954 = Zone reclaim swaps pages
596
597zone_reclaim_mode is set during bootup to 1 if it is determined that pages
598from remote zones will cause a measurable performance reduction. The
599page allocator will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page
600cache pages that are currently not used) before allocating off node pages.
601
602It may be beneficial to switch off zone reclaim if the system is
603used for a file server and all of memory should be used for caching files
604from disk. In that case the caching effect is more important than
605data locality.
606
607Allowing zone reclaim to write out pages stops processes that are
608writing large amounts of data from dirtying pages on other nodes. Zone
609reclaim will write out dirty pages if a zone fills up and so effectively
610throttle the process. This may decrease the performance of a single process
611since it cannot use all of system memory to buffer the outgoing writes
612anymore but it preserve the memory on other nodes so that the performance
613of other processes running on other nodes will not be affected.
614
615Allowing regular swap effectively restricts allocations to the local
616node unless explicitly overridden by memory policies or cpuset
617configurations.
618
619============ End of Document =================================