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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst | 98 |
1 files changed, 89 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst index fb6ba2002a4b..ad8e7a41f3b5 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst @@ -1,5 +1,3 @@ -.. _admin_guide_ksm: - ======================= Kernel Samepage Merging ======================= @@ -22,7 +20,7 @@ content which can be replaced by a single write-protected page (which is automatically copied if a process later wants to update its content). The amount of pages that KSM daemon scans in a single pass and the time between the passes are configured using :ref:`sysfs -intraface <ksm_sysfs>` +interface <ksm_sysfs>` KSM only merges anonymous (private) pages, never pagecache (file) pages. KSM's merged pages were originally locked into kernel memory, but can now @@ -82,6 +80,9 @@ pages_to_scan how many pages to scan before ksmd goes to sleep e.g. ``echo 100 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/pages_to_scan``. + The pages_to_scan value cannot be changed if ``advisor_mode`` has + been set to scan-time. + Default: 100 (chosen for demonstration purposes) sleep_millisecs @@ -157,8 +158,44 @@ stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs scan. It's a noop if not a single KSM page hit the ``max_page_sharing`` yet. +smart_scan + Historically KSM checked every candidate page for each scan. It did + not take into account historic information. When smart scan is + enabled, pages that have previously not been de-duplicated get + skipped. How often these pages are skipped depends on how often + de-duplication has already been tried and failed. By default this + optimization is enabled. The ``pages_skipped`` metric shows how + effective the setting is. + +advisor_mode + The ``advisor_mode`` selects the current advisor. Two modes are + supported: none and scan-time. The default is none. By setting + ``advisor_mode`` to scan-time, the scan time advisor is enabled. + The section about ``advisor`` explains in detail how the scan time + advisor works. + +adivsor_max_cpu + specifies the upper limit of the cpu percent usage of the ksmd + background thread. The default is 70. + +advisor_target_scan_time + specifies the target scan time in seconds to scan all the candidate + pages. The default value is 200 seconds. + +advisor_min_pages_to_scan + specifies the lower limit of the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter of the + scan time advisor. The default is 500. + +adivsor_max_pages_to_scan + specifies the upper limit of the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter of the + scan time advisor. The default is 30000. + The effectiveness of KSM and MADV_MERGEABLE is shown in ``/sys/kernel/mm/ksm/``: +general_profit + how effective is KSM. The calculation is explained below. +pages_scanned + how many pages are being scanned for ksm pages_shared how many shared pages are being used pages_sharing @@ -167,12 +204,21 @@ pages_unshared how many pages unique but repeatedly checked for merging pages_volatile how many pages changing too fast to be placed in a tree +pages_skipped + how many pages did the "smart" page scanning algorithm skip full_scans how many times all mergeable areas have been scanned stable_node_chains the number of KSM pages that hit the ``max_page_sharing`` limit stable_node_dups number of duplicated KSM pages +ksm_zero_pages + how many zero pages that are still mapped into processes were mapped by + KSM when deduplicating. + +When ``use_zero_pages`` is/was enabled, the sum of ``pages_sharing`` + +``ksm_zero_pages`` represents the actual number of pages saved by KSM. +if ``use_zero_pages`` has never been enabled, ``ksm_zero_pages`` is 0. A high ratio of ``pages_sharing`` to ``pages_shared`` indicates good sharing, but a high ratio of ``pages_unshared`` to ``pages_sharing`` @@ -196,20 +242,25 @@ several times, which are unprofitable memory consumed. 1) How to determine whether KSM save memory or consume memory in system-wide range? Here is a simple approximate calculation for reference:: - general_profit =~ pages_sharing * sizeof(page) - (all_rmap_items) * + general_profit =~ ksm_saved_pages * sizeof(page) - (all_rmap_items) * sizeof(rmap_item); - where all_rmap_items can be easily obtained by summing ``pages_sharing``, - ``pages_shared``, ``pages_unshared`` and ``pages_volatile``. + where ksm_saved_pages equals to the sum of ``pages_sharing`` + + ``ksm_zero_pages`` of the system, and all_rmap_items can be easily + obtained by summing ``pages_sharing``, ``pages_shared``, ``pages_unshared`` + and ``pages_volatile``. 2) The KSM profit inner a single process can be similarly obtained by the following approximate calculation:: - process_profit =~ ksm_merging_pages * sizeof(page) - + process_profit =~ ksm_saved_pages * sizeof(page) - ksm_rmap_items * sizeof(rmap_item). - where ksm_merging_pages is shown under the directory ``/proc/<pid>/``, - and ksm_rmap_items is shown in ``/proc/<pid>/ksm_stat``. + where ksm_saved_pages equals to the sum of ``ksm_merging_pages`` and + ``ksm_zero_pages``, both of which are shown under the directory + ``/proc/<pid>/ksm_stat``, and ksm_rmap_items is also shown in + ``/proc/<pid>/ksm_stat``. The process profit is also shown in + ``/proc/<pid>/ksm_stat`` as ksm_process_profit. From the perspective of application, a high ratio of ``ksm_rmap_items`` to ``ksm_merging_pages`` means a bad madvise-applied policy, so developers or @@ -238,6 +289,35 @@ ksm_swpin_copy note that KSM page might be copied when swapping in because do_swap_page() cannot do all the locking needed to reconstitute a cross-anon_vma KSM page. +Advisor +======= + +The number of candidate pages for KSM is dynamic. It can be often observed +that during the startup of an application more candidate pages need to be +processed. Without an advisor the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter needs to be +sized for the maximum number of candidate pages. The scan time advisor can +changes the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter based on demand. + +The advisor can be enabled, so KSM can automatically adapt to changes in the +number of candidate pages to scan. Two advisors are implemented: none and +scan-time. With none, no advisor is enabled. The default is none. + +The scan time advisor changes the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter based on the +observed scan times. The possible values for the ``pages_to_scan`` parameter is +limited by the ``advisor_max_cpu`` parameter. In addition there is also the +``advisor_target_scan_time`` parameter. This parameter sets the target time to +scan all the KSM candidate pages. The parameter ``advisor_target_scan_time`` +decides how aggressive the scan time advisor scans candidate pages. Lower +values make the scan time advisor to scan more aggressively. This is the most +important parameter for the configuration of the scan time advisor. + +The initial value and the maximum value can be changed with +``advisor_min_pages_to_scan`` and ``advisor_max_pages_to_scan``. The default +values are sufficient for most workloads and use cases. + +The ``pages_to_scan`` parameter is re-calculated after a scan has been completed. + + -- Izik Eidus, Hugh Dickins, 17 Nov 2009 |