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diff --git a/Documentation/vm/ksm.txt b/Documentation/vm/ksm.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6686bd267dc9..000000000000 --- a/Documentation/vm/ksm.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,178 +0,0 @@ -How to use the Kernel Samepage Merging feature ----------------------------------------------- - -KSM is a memory-saving de-duplication feature, enabled by CONFIG_KSM=y, -added to the Linux kernel in 2.6.32. See mm/ksm.c for its implementation, -and http://lwn.net/Articles/306704/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/330589/ - -The KSM daemon ksmd periodically scans those areas of user memory which -have been registered with it, looking for pages of identical content which -can be replaced by a single write-protected page (which is automatically -copied if a process later wants to update its content). - -KSM was originally developed for use with KVM (where it was known as -Kernel Shared Memory), to fit more virtual machines into physical memory, -by sharing the data common between them. But it can be useful to any -application which generates many instances of the same data. - -KSM only merges anonymous (private) pages, never pagecache (file) pages. -KSM's merged pages were originally locked into kernel memory, but can now -be swapped out just like other user pages (but sharing is broken when they -are swapped back in: ksmd must rediscover their identity and merge again). - -KSM only operates on those areas of address space which an application -has advised to be likely candidates for merging, by using the madvise(2) -system call: int madvise(addr, length, MADV_MERGEABLE). - -The app may call int madvise(addr, length, MADV_UNMERGEABLE) to cancel -that advice and restore unshared pages: whereupon KSM unmerges whatever -it merged in that range. Note: this unmerging call may suddenly require -more memory than is available - possibly failing with EAGAIN, but more -probably arousing the Out-Of-Memory killer. - -If KSM is not configured into the running kernel, madvise MADV_MERGEABLE -and MADV_UNMERGEABLE simply fail with EINVAL. If the running kernel was -built with CONFIG_KSM=y, those calls will normally succeed: even if the -the KSM daemon is not currently running, MADV_MERGEABLE still registers -the range for whenever the KSM daemon is started; even if the range -cannot contain any pages which KSM could actually merge; even if -MADV_UNMERGEABLE is applied to a range which was never MADV_MERGEABLE. - -If a region of memory must be split into at least one new MADV_MERGEABLE -or MADV_UNMERGEABLE region, the madvise may return ENOMEM if the process -will exceed vm.max_map_count (see Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt). - -Like other madvise calls, they are intended for use on mapped areas of -the user address space: they will report ENOMEM if the specified range -includes unmapped gaps (though working on the intervening mapped areas), -and might fail with EAGAIN if not enough memory for internal structures. - -Applications should be considerate in their use of MADV_MERGEABLE, -restricting its use to areas likely to benefit. KSM's scans may use a lot -of processing power: some installations will disable KSM for that reason. - -The KSM daemon is controlled by sysfs files in /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/, -readable by all but writable only by root: - -pages_to_scan - how many present pages to scan before ksmd goes to sleep - e.g. "echo 100 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/pages_to_scan" - Default: 100 (chosen for demonstration purposes) - -sleep_millisecs - how many milliseconds ksmd should sleep before next scan - e.g. "echo 20 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/sleep_millisecs" - Default: 20 (chosen for demonstration purposes) - -merge_across_nodes - specifies if pages from different numa nodes can be merged. - When set to 0, ksm merges only pages which physically - reside in the memory area of same NUMA node. That brings - lower latency to access of shared pages. Systems with more - nodes, at significant NUMA distances, are likely to benefit - from the lower latency of setting 0. Smaller systems, which - need to minimize memory usage, are likely to benefit from - the greater sharing of setting 1 (default). You may wish to - compare how your system performs under each setting, before - deciding on which to use. merge_across_nodes setting can be - changed only when there are no ksm shared pages in system: - set run 2 to unmerge pages first, then to 1 after changing - merge_across_nodes, to remerge according to the new setting. - Default: 1 (merging across nodes as in earlier releases) - -run - set 0 to stop ksmd from running but keep merged pages, - set 1 to run ksmd e.g. "echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/run", - set 2 to stop ksmd and unmerge all pages currently merged, - but leave mergeable areas registered for next run - Default: 0 (must be changed to 1 to activate KSM, - except if CONFIG_SYSFS is disabled) - -use_zero_pages - specifies whether empty pages (i.e. allocated pages - that only contain zeroes) should be treated specially. - When set to 1, empty pages are merged with the kernel - zero page(s) instead of with each other as it would - happen normally. This can improve the performance on - architectures with coloured zero pages, depending on - the workload. Care should be taken when enabling this - setting, as it can potentially degrade the performance - of KSM for some workloads, for example if the checksums - of pages candidate for merging match the checksum of - an empty page. This setting can be changed at any time, - it is only effective for pages merged after the change. - Default: 0 (normal KSM behaviour as in earlier releases) - -max_page_sharing - Maximum sharing allowed for each KSM page. This - enforces a deduplication limit to avoid the virtual - memory rmap lists to grow too large. The minimum - value is 2 as a newly created KSM page will have at - least two sharers. The rmap walk has O(N) - complexity where N is the number of rmap_items - (i.e. virtual mappings) that are sharing the page, - which is in turn capped by max_page_sharing. So - this effectively spread the the linear O(N) - computational complexity from rmap walk context - over different KSM pages. The ksmd walk over the - stable_node "chains" is also O(N), but N is the - number of stable_node "dups", not the number of - rmap_items, so it has not a significant impact on - ksmd performance. In practice the best stable_node - "dup" candidate will be kept and found at the head - of the "dups" list. The higher this value the - faster KSM will merge the memory (because there - will be fewer stable_node dups queued into the - stable_node chain->hlist to check for pruning) and - the higher the deduplication factor will be, but - the slowest the worst case rmap walk could be for - any given KSM page. Slowing down the rmap_walk - means there will be higher latency for certain - virtual memory operations happening during - swapping, compaction, NUMA balancing and page - migration, in turn decreasing responsiveness for - the caller of those virtual memory operations. The - scheduler latency of other tasks not involved with - the VM operations doing the rmap walk is not - affected by this parameter as the rmap walks are - always schedule friendly themselves. - -stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs - How frequently to walk the whole - list of stable_node "dups" linked in the - stable_node "chains" in order to prune stale - stable_nodes. Smaller milllisecs values will free - up the KSM metadata with lower latency, but they - will make ksmd use more CPU during the scan. This - only applies to the stable_node chains so it's a - noop if not a single KSM page hit the - max_page_sharing yet (there would be no stable_node - chains in such case). - -The effectiveness of KSM and MADV_MERGEABLE is shown in /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/: - -pages_shared - how many shared pages are being used -pages_sharing - how many more sites are sharing them i.e. how much saved -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 -full_scans - how many times all mergeable areas have been scanned - -stable_node_chains - number of stable node chains allocated, this is - effectively the number of KSM pages that hit the - max_page_sharing limit -stable_node_dups - number of stable node dups queued into the - stable_node chains - -A high ratio of pages_sharing to pages_shared indicates good sharing, but -a high ratio of pages_unshared to pages_sharing indicates wasted effort. -pages_volatile embraces several different kinds of activity, but a high -proportion there would also indicate poor use of madvise MADV_MERGEABLE. - -The maximum possible page_sharing/page_shared ratio is limited by the -max_page_sharing tunable. To increase the ratio max_page_sharing must -be increased accordingly. - -The stable_node_dups/stable_node_chains ratio is also affected by the -max_page_sharing tunable, and an high ratio may indicate fragmentation -in the stable_node dups, which could be solved by introducing -fragmentation algorithms in ksmd which would refile rmap_items from -one stable_node dup to another stable_node dup, in order to freeup -stable_node "dups" with few rmap_items in them, but that may increase -the ksmd CPU usage and possibly slowdown the readonly computations on -the KSM pages of the applications. - -Izik Eidus, -Hugh Dickins, 17 Nov 2009 |