Merge tag 'for-6.4-rc7-tag' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kdave...
[linux-2.6-block.git] / Documentation / admin-guide / cgroup-v2.rst
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1.. _cgroup-v2:
2
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6c292092 4Control Group v2
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7:Date: October, 2015
8:Author: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
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9
10This is the authoritative documentation on the design, interface and
11conventions of cgroup v2. It describes all userland-visible aspects
12of cgroup including core and specific controller behaviors. All
13future changes must be reflected in this document. Documentation for
373e8ffa 14v1 is available under :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/index.rst <cgroup-v1>`.
6c292092 15
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16.. CONTENTS
17
18 1. Introduction
19 1-1. Terminology
20 1-2. What is cgroup?
21 2. Basic Operations
22 2-1. Mounting
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23 2-2. Organizing Processes and Threads
24 2-2-1. Processes
25 2-2-2. Threads
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26 2-3. [Un]populated Notification
27 2-4. Controlling Controllers
28 2-4-1. Enabling and Disabling
29 2-4-2. Top-down Constraint
30 2-4-3. No Internal Process Constraint
31 2-5. Delegation
32 2-5-1. Model of Delegation
33 2-5-2. Delegation Containment
34 2-6. Guidelines
35 2-6-1. Organize Once and Control
36 2-6-2. Avoid Name Collisions
37 3. Resource Distribution Models
38 3-1. Weights
39 3-2. Limits
40 3-3. Protections
41 3-4. Allocations
42 4. Interface Files
43 4-1. Format
44 4-2. Conventions
45 4-3. Core Interface Files
46 5. Controllers
47 5-1. CPU
48 5-1-1. CPU Interface Files
49 5-2. Memory
50 5-2-1. Memory Interface Files
51 5-2-2. Usage Guidelines
52 5-2-3. Memory Ownership
53 5-3. IO
54 5-3-1. IO Interface Files
55 5-3-2. Writeback
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56 5-3-3. IO Latency
57 5-3-3-1. How IO Latency Throttling Works
58 5-3-3-2. IO Latency Interface Files
556910e3 59 5-3-4. IO Priority
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60 5-4. PID
61 5-4-1. PID Interface Files
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62 5-5. Cpuset
63 5.5-1. Cpuset Interface Files
64 5-6. Device
65 5-7. RDMA
66 5-7-1. RDMA Interface Files
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67 5-8. HugeTLB
68 5.8-1. HugeTLB Interface Files
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69 5-9. Misc
70 5.9-1 Miscellaneous cgroup Interface Files
71 5.9-2 Migration and Ownership
72 5-10. Others
73 5-10-1. perf_event
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74 5-N. Non-normative information
75 5-N-1. CPU controller root cgroup process behaviour
76 5-N-2. IO controller root cgroup process behaviour
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77 6. Namespace
78 6-1. Basics
79 6-2. The Root and Views
80 6-3. Migration and setns(2)
81 6-4. Interaction with Other Namespaces
82 P. Information on Kernel Programming
83 P-1. Filesystem Support for Writeback
84 D. Deprecated v1 Core Features
85 R. Issues with v1 and Rationales for v2
86 R-1. Multiple Hierarchies
87 R-2. Thread Granularity
88 R-3. Competition Between Inner Nodes and Threads
89 R-4. Other Interface Issues
90 R-5. Controller Issues and Remedies
91 R-5-1. Memory
92
93
94Introduction
95============
96
97Terminology
98-----------
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99
100"cgroup" stands for "control group" and is never capitalized. The
101singular form is used to designate the whole feature and also as a
102qualifier as in "cgroup controllers". When explicitly referring to
103multiple individual control groups, the plural form "cgroups" is used.
104
105
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106What is cgroup?
107---------------
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108
109cgroup is a mechanism to organize processes hierarchically and
110distribute system resources along the hierarchy in a controlled and
111configurable manner.
112
113cgroup is largely composed of two parts - the core and controllers.
114cgroup core is primarily responsible for hierarchically organizing
115processes. A cgroup controller is usually responsible for
116distributing a specific type of system resource along the hierarchy
117although there are utility controllers which serve purposes other than
118resource distribution.
119
120cgroups form a tree structure and every process in the system belongs
121to one and only one cgroup. All threads of a process belong to the
122same cgroup. On creation, all processes are put in the cgroup that
123the parent process belongs to at the time. A process can be migrated
124to another cgroup. Migration of a process doesn't affect already
125existing descendant processes.
126
127Following certain structural constraints, controllers may be enabled or
128disabled selectively on a cgroup. All controller behaviors are
129hierarchical - if a controller is enabled on a cgroup, it affects all
130processes which belong to the cgroups consisting the inclusive
131sub-hierarchy of the cgroup. When a controller is enabled on a nested
132cgroup, it always restricts the resource distribution further. The
133restrictions set closer to the root in the hierarchy can not be
134overridden from further away.
135
136
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137Basic Operations
138================
6c292092 139
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140Mounting
141--------
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142
143Unlike v1, cgroup v2 has only single hierarchy. The cgroup v2
633b11be 144hierarchy can be mounted with the following mount command::
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145
146 # mount -t cgroup2 none $MOUNT_POINT
147
148cgroup2 filesystem has the magic number 0x63677270 ("cgrp"). All
149controllers which support v2 and are not bound to a v1 hierarchy are
150automatically bound to the v2 hierarchy and show up at the root.
151Controllers which are not in active use in the v2 hierarchy can be
152bound to other hierarchies. This allows mixing v2 hierarchy with the
153legacy v1 multiple hierarchies in a fully backward compatible way.
154
155A controller can be moved across hierarchies only after the controller
156is no longer referenced in its current hierarchy. Because per-cgroup
157controller states are destroyed asynchronously and controllers may
158have lingering references, a controller may not show up immediately on
159the v2 hierarchy after the final umount of the previous hierarchy.
160Similarly, a controller should be fully disabled to be moved out of
161the unified hierarchy and it may take some time for the disabled
162controller to become available for other hierarchies; furthermore, due
163to inter-controller dependencies, other controllers may need to be
164disabled too.
165
166While useful for development and manual configurations, moving
167controllers dynamically between the v2 and other hierarchies is
168strongly discouraged for production use. It is recommended to decide
169the hierarchies and controller associations before starting using the
170controllers after system boot.
171
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172During transition to v2, system management software might still
173automount the v1 cgroup filesystem and so hijack all controllers
174during boot, before manual intervention is possible. To make testing
175and experimenting easier, the kernel parameter cgroup_no_v1= allows
176disabling controllers in v1 and make them always available in v2.
177
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178cgroup v2 currently supports the following mount options.
179
c808f463 180 nsdelegate
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181 Consider cgroup namespaces as delegation boundaries. This
182 option is system wide and can only be set on mount or modified
183 through remount from the init namespace. The mount option is
184 ignored on non-init namespace mounts. Please refer to the
185 Delegation section for details.
186
c808f463 187 favordynmods
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188 Reduce the latencies of dynamic cgroup modifications such as
189 task migrations and controller on/offs at the cost of making
190 hot path operations such as forks and exits more expensive.
191 The static usage pattern of creating a cgroup, enabling
192 controllers, and then seeding it with CLONE_INTO_CGROUP is
193 not affected by this option.
194
c808f463 195 memory_localevents
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196 Only populate memory.events with data for the current cgroup,
197 and not any subtrees. This is legacy behaviour, the default
198 behaviour without this option is to include subtree counts.
199 This option is system wide and can only be set on mount or
200 modified through remount from the init namespace. The mount
201 option is ignored on non-init namespace mounts.
202
c808f463 203 memory_recursiveprot
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204 Recursively apply memory.min and memory.low protection to
205 entire subtrees, without requiring explicit downward
206 propagation into leaf cgroups. This allows protecting entire
207 subtrees from one another, while retaining free competition
208 within those subtrees. This should have been the default
209 behavior but is a mount-option to avoid regressing setups
210 relying on the original semantics (e.g. specifying bogusly
211 high 'bypass' protection values at higher tree levels).
212
6c292092 213
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214Organizing Processes and Threads
215--------------------------------
216
217Processes
218~~~~~~~~~
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219
220Initially, only the root cgroup exists to which all processes belong.
633b11be 221A child cgroup can be created by creating a sub-directory::
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222
223 # mkdir $CGROUP_NAME
224
225A given cgroup may have multiple child cgroups forming a tree
226structure. Each cgroup has a read-writable interface file
227"cgroup.procs". When read, it lists the PIDs of all processes which
228belong to the cgroup one-per-line. The PIDs are not ordered and the
229same PID may show up more than once if the process got moved to
230another cgroup and then back or the PID got recycled while reading.
231
232A process can be migrated into a cgroup by writing its PID to the
233target cgroup's "cgroup.procs" file. Only one process can be migrated
234on a single write(2) call. If a process is composed of multiple
235threads, writing the PID of any thread migrates all threads of the
236process.
237
238When a process forks a child process, the new process is born into the
239cgroup that the forking process belongs to at the time of the
240operation. After exit, a process stays associated with the cgroup
241that it belonged to at the time of exit until it's reaped; however, a
242zombie process does not appear in "cgroup.procs" and thus can't be
243moved to another cgroup.
244
245A cgroup which doesn't have any children or live processes can be
246destroyed by removing the directory. Note that a cgroup which doesn't
247have any children and is associated only with zombie processes is
633b11be 248considered empty and can be removed::
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249
250 # rmdir $CGROUP_NAME
251
252"/proc/$PID/cgroup" lists a process's cgroup membership. If legacy
253cgroup is in use in the system, this file may contain multiple lines,
254one for each hierarchy. The entry for cgroup v2 is always in the
633b11be 255format "0::$PATH"::
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256
257 # cat /proc/842/cgroup
258 ...
259 0::/test-cgroup/test-cgroup-nested
260
261If the process becomes a zombie and the cgroup it was associated with
633b11be 262is removed subsequently, " (deleted)" is appended to the path::
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263
264 # cat /proc/842/cgroup
265 ...
266 0::/test-cgroup/test-cgroup-nested (deleted)
267
268
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269Threads
270~~~~~~~
271
272cgroup v2 supports thread granularity for a subset of controllers to
273support use cases requiring hierarchical resource distribution across
274the threads of a group of processes. By default, all threads of a
275process belong to the same cgroup, which also serves as the resource
276domain to host resource consumptions which are not specific to a
277process or thread. The thread mode allows threads to be spread across
278a subtree while still maintaining the common resource domain for them.
279
280Controllers which support thread mode are called threaded controllers.
281The ones which don't are called domain controllers.
282
283Marking a cgroup threaded makes it join the resource domain of its
284parent as a threaded cgroup. The parent may be another threaded
285cgroup whose resource domain is further up in the hierarchy. The root
286of a threaded subtree, that is, the nearest ancestor which is not
287threaded, is called threaded domain or thread root interchangeably and
288serves as the resource domain for the entire subtree.
289
290Inside a threaded subtree, threads of a process can be put in
291different cgroups and are not subject to the no internal process
292constraint - threaded controllers can be enabled on non-leaf cgroups
293whether they have threads in them or not.
294
295As the threaded domain cgroup hosts all the domain resource
296consumptions of the subtree, it is considered to have internal
297resource consumptions whether there are processes in it or not and
298can't have populated child cgroups which aren't threaded. Because the
299root cgroup is not subject to no internal process constraint, it can
300serve both as a threaded domain and a parent to domain cgroups.
301
302The current operation mode or type of the cgroup is shown in the
303"cgroup.type" file which indicates whether the cgroup is a normal
304domain, a domain which is serving as the domain of a threaded subtree,
305or a threaded cgroup.
306
307On creation, a cgroup is always a domain cgroup and can be made
308threaded by writing "threaded" to the "cgroup.type" file. The
309operation is single direction::
310
311 # echo threaded > cgroup.type
312
313Once threaded, the cgroup can't be made a domain again. To enable the
314thread mode, the following conditions must be met.
315
316- As the cgroup will join the parent's resource domain. The parent
317 must either be a valid (threaded) domain or a threaded cgroup.
318
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319- When the parent is an unthreaded domain, it must not have any domain
320 controllers enabled or populated domain children. The root is
321 exempt from this requirement.
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322
323Topology-wise, a cgroup can be in an invalid state. Please consider
2877cbe6 324the following topology::
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325
326 A (threaded domain) - B (threaded) - C (domain, just created)
327
328C is created as a domain but isn't connected to a parent which can
329host child domains. C can't be used until it is turned into a
330threaded cgroup. "cgroup.type" file will report "domain (invalid)" in
331these cases. Operations which fail due to invalid topology use
332EOPNOTSUPP as the errno.
333
334A domain cgroup is turned into a threaded domain when one of its child
335cgroup becomes threaded or threaded controllers are enabled in the
336"cgroup.subtree_control" file while there are processes in the cgroup.
337A threaded domain reverts to a normal domain when the conditions
338clear.
339
340When read, "cgroup.threads" contains the list of the thread IDs of all
341threads in the cgroup. Except that the operations are per-thread
342instead of per-process, "cgroup.threads" has the same format and
343behaves the same way as "cgroup.procs". While "cgroup.threads" can be
344written to in any cgroup, as it can only move threads inside the same
345threaded domain, its operations are confined inside each threaded
346subtree.
347
348The threaded domain cgroup serves as the resource domain for the whole
349subtree, and, while the threads can be scattered across the subtree,
350all the processes are considered to be in the threaded domain cgroup.
351"cgroup.procs" in a threaded domain cgroup contains the PIDs of all
352processes in the subtree and is not readable in the subtree proper.
353However, "cgroup.procs" can be written to from anywhere in the subtree
354to migrate all threads of the matching process to the cgroup.
355
356Only threaded controllers can be enabled in a threaded subtree. When
357a threaded controller is enabled inside a threaded subtree, it only
358accounts for and controls resource consumptions associated with the
359threads in the cgroup and its descendants. All consumptions which
360aren't tied to a specific thread belong to the threaded domain cgroup.
361
362Because a threaded subtree is exempt from no internal process
363constraint, a threaded controller must be able to handle competition
364between threads in a non-leaf cgroup and its child cgroups. Each
365threaded controller defines how such competitions are handled.
366
367
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368[Un]populated Notification
369--------------------------
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370
371Each non-root cgroup has a "cgroup.events" file which contains
372"populated" field indicating whether the cgroup's sub-hierarchy has
373live processes in it. Its value is 0 if there is no live process in
374the cgroup and its descendants; otherwise, 1. poll and [id]notify
375events are triggered when the value changes. This can be used, for
376example, to start a clean-up operation after all processes of a given
377sub-hierarchy have exited. The populated state updates and
378notifications are recursive. Consider the following sub-hierarchy
379where the numbers in the parentheses represent the numbers of processes
633b11be 380in each cgroup::
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381
382 A(4) - B(0) - C(1)
383 \ D(0)
384
385A, B and C's "populated" fields would be 1 while D's 0. After the one
386process in C exits, B and C's "populated" fields would flip to "0" and
387file modified events will be generated on the "cgroup.events" files of
388both cgroups.
389
390
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391Controlling Controllers
392-----------------------
6c292092 393
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394Enabling and Disabling
395~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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396
397Each cgroup has a "cgroup.controllers" file which lists all
633b11be 398controllers available for the cgroup to enable::
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399
400 # cat cgroup.controllers
401 cpu io memory
402
403No controller is enabled by default. Controllers can be enabled and
633b11be 404disabled by writing to the "cgroup.subtree_control" file::
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405
406 # echo "+cpu +memory -io" > cgroup.subtree_control
407
408Only controllers which are listed in "cgroup.controllers" can be
409enabled. When multiple operations are specified as above, either they
410all succeed or fail. If multiple operations on the same controller
411are specified, the last one is effective.
412
413Enabling a controller in a cgroup indicates that the distribution of
414the target resource across its immediate children will be controlled.
415Consider the following sub-hierarchy. The enabled controllers are
633b11be 416listed in parentheses::
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417
418 A(cpu,memory) - B(memory) - C()
419 \ D()
420
421As A has "cpu" and "memory" enabled, A will control the distribution
422of CPU cycles and memory to its children, in this case, B. As B has
423"memory" enabled but not "CPU", C and D will compete freely on CPU
424cycles but their division of memory available to B will be controlled.
425
426As a controller regulates the distribution of the target resource to
427the cgroup's children, enabling it creates the controller's interface
428files in the child cgroups. In the above example, enabling "cpu" on B
429would create the "cpu." prefixed controller interface files in C and
430D. Likewise, disabling "memory" from B would remove the "memory."
431prefixed controller interface files from C and D. This means that the
432controller interface files - anything which doesn't start with
433"cgroup." are owned by the parent rather than the cgroup itself.
434
435
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436Top-down Constraint
437~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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438
439Resources are distributed top-down and a cgroup can further distribute
440a resource only if the resource has been distributed to it from the
441parent. This means that all non-root "cgroup.subtree_control" files
442can only contain controllers which are enabled in the parent's
443"cgroup.subtree_control" file. A controller can be enabled only if
444the parent has the controller enabled and a controller can't be
445disabled if one or more children have it enabled.
446
447
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448No Internal Process Constraint
449~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092 450
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451Non-root cgroups can distribute domain resources to their children
452only when they don't have any processes of their own. In other words,
453only domain cgroups which don't contain any processes can have domain
454controllers enabled in their "cgroup.subtree_control" files.
6c292092 455
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456This guarantees that, when a domain controller is looking at the part
457of the hierarchy which has it enabled, processes are always only on
458the leaves. This rules out situations where child cgroups compete
459against internal processes of the parent.
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460
461The root cgroup is exempt from this restriction. Root contains
462processes and anonymous resource consumption which can't be associated
463with any other cgroups and requires special treatment from most
464controllers. How resource consumption in the root cgroup is governed
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465is up to each controller (for more information on this topic please
466refer to the Non-normative information section in the Controllers
467chapter).
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468
469Note that the restriction doesn't get in the way if there is no
470enabled controller in the cgroup's "cgroup.subtree_control". This is
471important as otherwise it wouldn't be possible to create children of a
472populated cgroup. To control resource distribution of a cgroup, the
473cgroup must create children and transfer all its processes to the
474children before enabling controllers in its "cgroup.subtree_control"
475file.
476
477
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478Delegation
479----------
6c292092 480
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481Model of Delegation
482~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092 483
5136f636 484A cgroup can be delegated in two ways. First, to a less privileged
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485user by granting write access of the directory and its "cgroup.procs",
486"cgroup.threads" and "cgroup.subtree_control" files to the user.
487Second, if the "nsdelegate" mount option is set, automatically to a
488cgroup namespace on namespace creation.
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489
490Because the resource control interface files in a given directory
491control the distribution of the parent's resources, the delegatee
492shouldn't be allowed to write to them. For the first method, this is
493achieved by not granting access to these files. For the second, the
494kernel rejects writes to all files other than "cgroup.procs" and
495"cgroup.subtree_control" on a namespace root from inside the
496namespace.
497
498The end results are equivalent for both delegation types. Once
499delegated, the user can build sub-hierarchy under the directory,
500organize processes inside it as it sees fit and further distribute the
501resources it received from the parent. The limits and other settings
502of all resource controllers are hierarchical and regardless of what
503happens in the delegated sub-hierarchy, nothing can escape the
504resource restrictions imposed by the parent.
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505
506Currently, cgroup doesn't impose any restrictions on the number of
507cgroups in or nesting depth of a delegated sub-hierarchy; however,
508this may be limited explicitly in the future.
509
510
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511Delegation Containment
512~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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513
514A delegated sub-hierarchy is contained in the sense that processes
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515can't be moved into or out of the sub-hierarchy by the delegatee.
516
517For delegations to a less privileged user, this is achieved by
518requiring the following conditions for a process with a non-root euid
519to migrate a target process into a cgroup by writing its PID to the
520"cgroup.procs" file.
6c292092 521
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522- The writer must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file.
523
524- The writer must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
525 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
526
576dd464 527The above two constraints ensure that while a delegatee may migrate
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528processes around freely in the delegated sub-hierarchy it can't pull
529in from or push out to outside the sub-hierarchy.
530
531For an example, let's assume cgroups C0 and C1 have been delegated to
532user U0 who created C00, C01 under C0 and C10 under C1 as follows and
633b11be 533all processes under C0 and C1 belong to U0::
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534
535 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - C0 - C00
536 ~ cgroup ~ \ C01
537 ~ hierarchy ~
538 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - C1 - C10
539
540Let's also say U0 wants to write the PID of a process which is
541currently in C10 into "C00/cgroup.procs". U0 has write access to the
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542file; however, the common ancestor of the source cgroup C10 and the
543destination cgroup C00 is above the points of delegation and U0 would
544not have write access to its "cgroup.procs" files and thus the write
545will be denied with -EACCES.
6c292092 546
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547For delegations to namespaces, containment is achieved by requiring
548that both the source and destination cgroups are reachable from the
549namespace of the process which is attempting the migration. If either
550is not reachable, the migration is rejected with -ENOENT.
551
6c292092 552
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553Guidelines
554----------
6c292092 555
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556Organize Once and Control
557~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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558
559Migrating a process across cgroups is a relatively expensive operation
560and stateful resources such as memory are not moved together with the
561process. This is an explicit design decision as there often exist
562inherent trade-offs between migration and various hot paths in terms
563of synchronization cost.
564
565As such, migrating processes across cgroups frequently as a means to
566apply different resource restrictions is discouraged. A workload
567should be assigned to a cgroup according to the system's logical and
568resource structure once on start-up. Dynamic adjustments to resource
569distribution can be made by changing controller configuration through
570the interface files.
571
572
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573Avoid Name Collisions
574~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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575
576Interface files for a cgroup and its children cgroups occupy the same
577directory and it is possible to create children cgroups which collide
578with interface files.
579
580All cgroup core interface files are prefixed with "cgroup." and each
581controller's interface files are prefixed with the controller name and
582a dot. A controller's name is composed of lower case alphabets and
583'_'s but never begins with an '_' so it can be used as the prefix
584character for collision avoidance. Also, interface file names won't
585start or end with terms which are often used in categorizing workloads
586such as job, service, slice, unit or workload.
587
588cgroup doesn't do anything to prevent name collisions and it's the
589user's responsibility to avoid them.
590
591
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592Resource Distribution Models
593============================
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594
595cgroup controllers implement several resource distribution schemes
596depending on the resource type and expected use cases. This section
597describes major schemes in use along with their expected behaviors.
598
599
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600Weights
601-------
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602
603A parent's resource is distributed by adding up the weights of all
604active children and giving each the fraction matching the ratio of its
605weight against the sum. As only children which can make use of the
606resource at the moment participate in the distribution, this is
607work-conserving. Due to the dynamic nature, this model is usually
608used for stateless resources.
609
610All weights are in the range [1, 10000] with the default at 100. This
611allows symmetric multiplicative biases in both directions at fine
612enough granularity while staying in the intuitive range.
613
614As long as the weight is in range, all configuration combinations are
615valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
616process migrations.
617
618"cpu.weight" proportionally distributes CPU cycles to active children
619and is an example of this type.
620
621
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622.. _cgroupv2-limits-distributor:
623
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624Limits
625------
6c292092 626
dbeb56fe 627A child can only consume up to the configured amount of the resource.
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628Limits can be over-committed - the sum of the limits of children can
629exceed the amount of resource available to the parent.
630
631Limits are in the range [0, max] and defaults to "max", which is noop.
632
633As limits can be over-committed, all configuration combinations are
634valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
635process migrations.
636
637"io.max" limits the maximum BPS and/or IOPS that a cgroup can consume
638on an IO device and is an example of this type.
639
acbee592 640.. _cgroupv2-protections-distributor:
6c292092 641
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642Protections
643-----------
6c292092 644
dbeb56fe 645A cgroup is protected up to the configured amount of the resource
9783aa99 646as long as the usages of all its ancestors are under their
6c292092
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647protected levels. Protections can be hard guarantees or best effort
648soft boundaries. Protections can also be over-committed in which case
dbeb56fe 649only up to the amount available to the parent is protected among
6c292092
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650children.
651
652Protections are in the range [0, max] and defaults to 0, which is
653noop.
654
655As protections can be over-committed, all configuration combinations
656are valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
657process migrations.
658
659"memory.low" implements best-effort memory protection and is an
660example of this type.
661
662
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663Allocations
664-----------
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665
666A cgroup is exclusively allocated a certain amount of a finite
667resource. Allocations can't be over-committed - the sum of the
668allocations of children can not exceed the amount of resource
669available to the parent.
670
671Allocations are in the range [0, max] and defaults to 0, which is no
672resource.
673
674As allocations can't be over-committed, some configuration
675combinations are invalid and should be rejected. Also, if the
676resource is mandatory for execution of processes, process migrations
677may be rejected.
678
679"cpu.rt.max" hard-allocates realtime slices and is an example of this
680type.
681
682
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683Interface Files
684===============
6c292092 685
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686Format
687------
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688
689All interface files should be in one of the following formats whenever
633b11be 690possible::
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691
692 New-line separated values
693 (when only one value can be written at once)
694
695 VAL0\n
696 VAL1\n
697 ...
698
699 Space separated values
700 (when read-only or multiple values can be written at once)
701
702 VAL0 VAL1 ...\n
703
704 Flat keyed
705
706 KEY0 VAL0\n
707 KEY1 VAL1\n
708 ...
709
710 Nested keyed
711
712 KEY0 SUB_KEY0=VAL00 SUB_KEY1=VAL01...
713 KEY1 SUB_KEY0=VAL10 SUB_KEY1=VAL11...
714 ...
715
716For a writable file, the format for writing should generally match
717reading; however, controllers may allow omitting later fields or
718implement restricted shortcuts for most common use cases.
719
720For both flat and nested keyed files, only the values for a single key
721can be written at a time. For nested keyed files, the sub key pairs
722may be specified in any order and not all pairs have to be specified.
723
724
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725Conventions
726-----------
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727
728- Settings for a single feature should be contained in a single file.
729
730- The root cgroup should be exempt from resource control and thus
936f2a70 731 shouldn't have resource control interface files.
6c292092 732
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733- The default time unit is microseconds. If a different unit is ever
734 used, an explicit unit suffix must be present.
735
736- A parts-per quantity should use a percentage decimal with at least
737 two digit fractional part - e.g. 13.40.
738
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739- If a controller implements weight based resource distribution, its
740 interface file should be named "weight" and have the range [1,
741 10000] with 100 as the default. The values are chosen to allow
742 enough and symmetric bias in both directions while keeping it
743 intuitive (the default is 100%).
744
745- If a controller implements an absolute resource guarantee and/or
746 limit, the interface files should be named "min" and "max"
747 respectively. If a controller implements best effort resource
748 guarantee and/or limit, the interface files should be named "low"
749 and "high" respectively.
750
751 In the above four control files, the special token "max" should be
752 used to represent upward infinity for both reading and writing.
753
754- If a setting has a configurable default value and keyed specific
755 overrides, the default entry should be keyed with "default" and
756 appear as the first entry in the file.
757
758 The default value can be updated by writing either "default $VAL" or
759 "$VAL".
760
761 When writing to update a specific override, "default" can be used as
762 the value to indicate removal of the override. Override entries
763 with "default" as the value must not appear when read.
764
765 For example, a setting which is keyed by major:minor device numbers
633b11be 766 with integer values may look like the following::
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767
768 # cat cgroup-example-interface-file
769 default 150
770 8:0 300
771
633b11be 772 The default value can be updated by::
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773
774 # echo 125 > cgroup-example-interface-file
775
633b11be 776 or::
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777
778 # echo "default 125" > cgroup-example-interface-file
779
633b11be 780 An override can be set by::
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781
782 # echo "8:16 170" > cgroup-example-interface-file
783
633b11be 784 and cleared by::
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785
786 # echo "8:0 default" > cgroup-example-interface-file
787 # cat cgroup-example-interface-file
788 default 125
789 8:16 170
790
791- For events which are not very high frequency, an interface file
792 "events" should be created which lists event key value pairs.
793 Whenever a notifiable event happens, file modified event should be
794 generated on the file.
795
796
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797Core Interface Files
798--------------------
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799
800All cgroup core files are prefixed with "cgroup."
801
8cfd8147 802 cgroup.type
8cfd8147
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803 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
804 cgroups.
805
806 When read, it indicates the current type of the cgroup, which
807 can be one of the following values.
808
809 - "domain" : A normal valid domain cgroup.
810
811 - "domain threaded" : A threaded domain cgroup which is
812 serving as the root of a threaded subtree.
813
814 - "domain invalid" : A cgroup which is in an invalid state.
815 It can't be populated or have controllers enabled. It may
816 be allowed to become a threaded cgroup.
817
818 - "threaded" : A threaded cgroup which is a member of a
819 threaded subtree.
820
821 A cgroup can be turned into a threaded cgroup by writing
822 "threaded" to this file.
823
6c292092 824 cgroup.procs
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825 A read-write new-line separated values file which exists on
826 all cgroups.
827
828 When read, it lists the PIDs of all processes which belong to
829 the cgroup one-per-line. The PIDs are not ordered and the
830 same PID may show up more than once if the process got moved
831 to another cgroup and then back or the PID got recycled while
832 reading.
833
834 A PID can be written to migrate the process associated with
835 the PID to the cgroup. The writer should match all of the
836 following conditions.
837
6c292092 838 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file.
8cfd8147
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839
840 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
841 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
842
843 When delegating a sub-hierarchy, write access to this file
844 should be granted along with the containing directory.
845
846 In a threaded cgroup, reading this file fails with EOPNOTSUPP
847 as all the processes belong to the thread root. Writing is
848 supported and moves every thread of the process to the cgroup.
849
850 cgroup.threads
851 A read-write new-line separated values file which exists on
852 all cgroups.
853
854 When read, it lists the TIDs of all threads which belong to
855 the cgroup one-per-line. The TIDs are not ordered and the
856 same TID may show up more than once if the thread got moved to
857 another cgroup and then back or the TID got recycled while
858 reading.
859
860 A TID can be written to migrate the thread associated with the
861 TID to the cgroup. The writer should match all of the
862 following conditions.
863
864 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.threads" file.
865
866 - The cgroup that the thread is currently in must be in the
867 same resource domain as the destination cgroup.
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868
869 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
870 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
871
872 When delegating a sub-hierarchy, write access to this file
873 should be granted along with the containing directory.
874
875 cgroup.controllers
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876 A read-only space separated values file which exists on all
877 cgroups.
878
879 It shows space separated list of all controllers available to
880 the cgroup. The controllers are not ordered.
881
882 cgroup.subtree_control
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883 A read-write space separated values file which exists on all
884 cgroups. Starts out empty.
885
886 When read, it shows space separated list of the controllers
887 which are enabled to control resource distribution from the
888 cgroup to its children.
889
890 Space separated list of controllers prefixed with '+' or '-'
891 can be written to enable or disable controllers. A controller
892 name prefixed with '+' enables the controller and '-'
893 disables. If a controller appears more than once on the list,
894 the last one is effective. When multiple enable and disable
895 operations are specified, either all succeed or all fail.
896
897 cgroup.events
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898 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
899 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
900 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
901 modified event.
902
903 populated
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904 1 if the cgroup or its descendants contains any live
905 processes; otherwise, 0.
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906 frozen
907 1 if the cgroup is frozen; otherwise, 0.
6c292092 908
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909 cgroup.max.descendants
910 A read-write single value files. The default is "max".
911
912 Maximum allowed number of descent cgroups.
913 If the actual number of descendants is equal or larger,
914 an attempt to create a new cgroup in the hierarchy will fail.
915
916 cgroup.max.depth
917 A read-write single value files. The default is "max".
918
919 Maximum allowed descent depth below the current cgroup.
920 If the actual descent depth is equal or larger,
921 an attempt to create a new child cgroup will fail.
922
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RG
923 cgroup.stat
924 A read-only flat-keyed file with the following entries:
925
926 nr_descendants
927 Total number of visible descendant cgroups.
928
929 nr_dying_descendants
930 Total number of dying descendant cgroups. A cgroup becomes
931 dying after being deleted by a user. The cgroup will remain
932 in dying state for some time undefined time (which can depend
933 on system load) before being completely destroyed.
934
935 A process can't enter a dying cgroup under any circumstances,
936 a dying cgroup can't revive.
937
938 A dying cgroup can consume system resources not exceeding
939 limits, which were active at the moment of cgroup deletion.
940
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941 cgroup.freeze
942 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
943 Allowed values are "0" and "1". The default is "0".
944
945 Writing "1" to the file causes freezing of the cgroup and all
946 descendant cgroups. This means that all belonging processes will
947 be stopped and will not run until the cgroup will be explicitly
948 unfrozen. Freezing of the cgroup may take some time; when this action
949 is completed, the "frozen" value in the cgroup.events control file
950 will be updated to "1" and the corresponding notification will be
951 issued.
952
953 A cgroup can be frozen either by its own settings, or by settings
954 of any ancestor cgroups. If any of ancestor cgroups is frozen, the
955 cgroup will remain frozen.
956
957 Processes in the frozen cgroup can be killed by a fatal signal.
958 They also can enter and leave a frozen cgroup: either by an explicit
959 move by a user, or if freezing of the cgroup races with fork().
960 If a process is moved to a frozen cgroup, it stops. If a process is
961 moved out of a frozen cgroup, it becomes running.
962
963 Frozen status of a cgroup doesn't affect any cgroup tree operations:
964 it's possible to delete a frozen (and empty) cgroup, as well as
965 create new sub-cgroups.
6c292092 966
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CB
967 cgroup.kill
968 A write-only single value file which exists in non-root cgroups.
969 The only allowed value is "1".
970
971 Writing "1" to the file causes the cgroup and all descendant cgroups to
972 be killed. This means that all processes located in the affected cgroup
973 tree will be killed via SIGKILL.
974
975 Killing a cgroup tree will deal with concurrent forks appropriately and
976 is protected against migrations.
977
978 In a threaded cgroup, writing this file fails with EOPNOTSUPP as
979 killing cgroups is a process directed operation, i.e. it affects
980 the whole thread-group.
981
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CZ
982 cgroup.pressure
983 A read-write single value file that allowed values are "0" and "1".
984 The default is "1".
985
986 Writing "0" to the file will disable the cgroup PSI accounting.
987 Writing "1" to the file will re-enable the cgroup PSI accounting.
988
989 This control attribute is not hierarchical, so disable or enable PSI
990 accounting in a cgroup does not affect PSI accounting in descendants
991 and doesn't need pass enablement via ancestors from root.
992
993 The reason this control attribute exists is that PSI accounts stalls for
994 each cgroup separately and aggregates it at each level of the hierarchy.
995 This may cause non-negligible overhead for some workloads when under
996 deep level of the hierarchy, in which case this control attribute can
997 be used to disable PSI accounting in the non-leaf cgroups.
998
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999 irq.pressure
1000 A read-write nested-keyed file.
1001
1002 Shows pressure stall information for IRQ/SOFTIRQ. See
1003 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
1004
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1005Controllers
1006===========
6c292092 1007
e5ba9ea6
KK
1008.. _cgroup-v2-cpu:
1009
633b11be
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1010CPU
1011---
6c292092 1012
6c292092
TH
1013The "cpu" controllers regulates distribution of CPU cycles. This
1014controller implements weight and absolute bandwidth limit models for
1015normal scheduling policy and absolute bandwidth allocation model for
1016realtime scheduling policy.
1017
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PB
1018In all the above models, cycles distribution is defined only on a temporal
1019base and it does not account for the frequency at which tasks are executed.
1020The (optional) utilization clamping support allows to hint the schedutil
1021cpufreq governor about the minimum desired frequency which should always be
1022provided by a CPU, as well as the maximum desired frequency, which should not
1023be exceeded by a CPU.
1024
c2f31b79
TH
1025WARNING: cgroup2 doesn't yet support control of realtime processes and
1026the cpu controller can only be enabled when all RT processes are in
1027the root cgroup. Be aware that system management software may already
1028have placed RT processes into nonroot cgroups during the system boot
1029process, and these processes may need to be moved to the root cgroup
1030before the cpu controller can be enabled.
1031
6c292092 1032
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1033CPU Interface Files
1034~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1035
1036All time durations are in microseconds.
1037
1038 cpu.stat
936f2a70 1039 A read-only flat-keyed file.
d41bf8c9 1040 This file exists whether the controller is enabled or not.
6c292092 1041
d41bf8c9 1042 It always reports the following three stats:
6c292092 1043
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1044 - usage_usec
1045 - user_usec
1046 - system_usec
d41bf8c9
TH
1047
1048 and the following three when the controller is enabled:
1049
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MCC
1050 - nr_periods
1051 - nr_throttled
1052 - throttled_usec
d73df887
HC
1053 - nr_bursts
1054 - burst_usec
6c292092
TH
1055
1056 cpu.weight
6c292092
TH
1057 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1058 cgroups. The default is "100".
1059
1060 The weight in the range [1, 10000].
1061
0d593634
TH
1062 cpu.weight.nice
1063 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1064 cgroups. The default is "0".
1065
1066 The nice value is in the range [-20, 19].
1067
1068 This interface file is an alternative interface for
1069 "cpu.weight" and allows reading and setting weight using the
1070 same values used by nice(2). Because the range is smaller and
1071 granularity is coarser for the nice values, the read value is
1072 the closest approximation of the current weight.
1073
6c292092 1074 cpu.max
6c292092
TH
1075 A read-write two value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1076 The default is "max 100000".
1077
633b11be 1078 The maximum bandwidth limit. It's in the following format::
6c292092
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1079
1080 $MAX $PERIOD
1081
dbeb56fe 1082 which indicates that the group may consume up to $MAX in each
6c292092
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1083 $PERIOD duration. "max" for $MAX indicates no limit. If only
1084 one number is written, $MAX is updated.
1085
d73df887
HC
1086 cpu.max.burst
1087 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1088 cgroups. The default is "0".
1089
1090 The burst in the range [0, $MAX].
1091
2ce7135a 1092 cpu.pressure
74bdd45c 1093 A read-write nested-keyed file.
2ce7135a
JW
1094
1095 Shows pressure stall information for CPU. See
373e8ffa 1096 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
2ce7135a 1097
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1098 cpu.uclamp.min
1099 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1100 The default is "0", i.e. no utilization boosting.
1101
1102 The requested minimum utilization (protection) as a percentage
1103 rational number, e.g. 12.34 for 12.34%.
1104
1105 This interface allows reading and setting minimum utilization clamp
1106 values similar to the sched_setattr(2). This minimum utilization
1107 value is used to clamp the task specific minimum utilization clamp.
1108
1109 The requested minimum utilization (protection) is always capped by
1110 the current value for the maximum utilization (limit), i.e.
1111 `cpu.uclamp.max`.
1112
1113 cpu.uclamp.max
1114 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1115 The default is "max". i.e. no utilization capping
1116
1117 The requested maximum utilization (limit) as a percentage rational
1118 number, e.g. 98.76 for 98.76%.
1119
1120 This interface allows reading and setting maximum utilization clamp
1121 values similar to the sched_setattr(2). This maximum utilization
1122 value is used to clamp the task specific maximum utilization clamp.
1123
1124
6c292092 1125
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1126Memory
1127------
6c292092
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1128
1129The "memory" controller regulates distribution of memory. Memory is
1130stateful and implements both limit and protection models. Due to the
1131intertwining between memory usage and reclaim pressure and the
1132stateful nature of memory, the distribution model is relatively
1133complex.
1134
1135While not completely water-tight, all major memory usages by a given
1136cgroup are tracked so that the total memory consumption can be
1137accounted and controlled to a reasonable extent. Currently, the
1138following types of memory usages are tracked.
1139
1140- Userland memory - page cache and anonymous memory.
1141
1142- Kernel data structures such as dentries and inodes.
1143
1144- TCP socket buffers.
1145
1146The above list may expand in the future for better coverage.
1147
1148
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1149Memory Interface Files
1150~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1151
1152All memory amounts are in bytes. If a value which is not aligned to
1153PAGE_SIZE is written, the value may be rounded up to the closest
1154PAGE_SIZE multiple when read back.
1155
1156 memory.current
6c292092
TH
1157 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1158 cgroups.
1159
1160 The total amount of memory currently being used by the cgroup
1161 and its descendants.
1162
bf8d5d52
RG
1163 memory.min
1164 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1165 cgroups. The default is "0".
1166
1167 Hard memory protection. If the memory usage of a cgroup
1168 is within its effective min boundary, the cgroup's memory
1169 won't be reclaimed under any conditions. If there is no
1170 unprotected reclaimable memory available, OOM killer
9783aa99
CD
1171 is invoked. Above the effective min boundary (or
1172 effective low boundary if it is higher), pages are reclaimed
1173 proportionally to the overage, reducing reclaim pressure for
1174 smaller overages.
bf8d5d52 1175
d0c3bacb 1176 Effective min boundary is limited by memory.min values of
bf8d5d52
RG
1177 all ancestor cgroups. If there is memory.min overcommitment
1178 (child cgroup or cgroups are requiring more protected memory
1179 than parent will allow), then each child cgroup will get
1180 the part of parent's protection proportional to its
1181 actual memory usage below memory.min.
1182
1183 Putting more memory than generally available under this
1184 protection is discouraged and may lead to constant OOMs.
1185
1186 If a memory cgroup is not populated with processes,
1187 its memory.min is ignored.
1188
6c292092 1189 memory.low
6c292092
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1190 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1191 cgroups. The default is "0".
1192
7854207f
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1193 Best-effort memory protection. If the memory usage of a
1194 cgroup is within its effective low boundary, the cgroup's
6ee0fac1
JH
1195 memory won't be reclaimed unless there is no reclaimable
1196 memory available in unprotected cgroups.
822bbba0 1197 Above the effective low boundary (or
9783aa99
CD
1198 effective min boundary if it is higher), pages are reclaimed
1199 proportionally to the overage, reducing reclaim pressure for
1200 smaller overages.
7854207f
RG
1201
1202 Effective low boundary is limited by memory.low values of
1203 all ancestor cgroups. If there is memory.low overcommitment
bf8d5d52 1204 (child cgroup or cgroups are requiring more protected memory
7854207f 1205 than parent will allow), then each child cgroup will get
bf8d5d52 1206 the part of parent's protection proportional to its
7854207f 1207 actual memory usage below memory.low.
6c292092
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1208
1209 Putting more memory than generally available under this
1210 protection is discouraged.
1211
1212 memory.high
6c292092
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1213 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1214 cgroups. The default is "max".
1215
5647e53f 1216 Memory usage throttle limit. If a cgroup's usage goes
6c292092
TH
1217 over the high boundary, the processes of the cgroup are
1218 throttled and put under heavy reclaim pressure.
1219
1220 Going over the high limit never invokes the OOM killer and
5647e53f
DS
1221 under extreme conditions the limit may be breached. The high
1222 limit should be used in scenarios where an external process
1223 monitors the limited cgroup to alleviate heavy reclaim
1224 pressure.
6c292092
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1225
1226 memory.max
6c292092
TH
1227 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1228 cgroups. The default is "max".
1229
5647e53f
DS
1230 Memory usage hard limit. This is the main mechanism to limit
1231 memory usage of a cgroup. If a cgroup's memory usage reaches
1232 this limit and can't be reduced, the OOM killer is invoked in
1233 the cgroup. Under certain circumstances, the usage may go
1234 over the limit temporarily.
6c292092 1235
db33ec37
KK
1236 In default configuration regular 0-order allocations always
1237 succeed unless OOM killer chooses current task as a victim.
1238
1239 Some kinds of allocations don't invoke the OOM killer.
1240 Caller could retry them differently, return into userspace
1241 as -ENOMEM or silently ignore in cases like disk readahead.
1242
94968384
SB
1243 memory.reclaim
1244 A write-only nested-keyed file which exists for all cgroups.
1245
1246 This is a simple interface to trigger memory reclaim in the
1247 target cgroup.
1248
55ab834a
MH
1249 This file accepts a single key, the number of bytes to reclaim.
1250 No nested keys are currently supported.
94968384
SB
1251
1252 Example::
1253
1254 echo "1G" > memory.reclaim
1255
55ab834a
MH
1256 The interface can be later extended with nested keys to
1257 configure the reclaim behavior. For example, specify the
1258 type of memory to reclaim from (anon, file, ..).
1259
94968384
SB
1260 Please note that the kernel can over or under reclaim from
1261 the target cgroup. If less bytes are reclaimed than the
1262 specified amount, -EAGAIN is returned.
1263
73b73bac
YA
1264 Please note that the proactive reclaim (triggered by this
1265 interface) is not meant to indicate memory pressure on the
1266 memory cgroup. Therefore socket memory balancing triggered by
1267 the memory reclaim normally is not exercised in this case.
1268 This means that the networking layer will not adapt based on
1269 reclaim induced by memory.reclaim.
1270
8e20d4b3
GR
1271 memory.peak
1272 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1273 cgroups.
1274
1275 The max memory usage recorded for the cgroup and its
1276 descendants since the creation of the cgroup.
1277
3d8b38eb
RG
1278 memory.oom.group
1279 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1280 cgroups. The default value is "0".
1281
1282 Determines whether the cgroup should be treated as
1283 an indivisible workload by the OOM killer. If set,
1284 all tasks belonging to the cgroup or to its descendants
1285 (if the memory cgroup is not a leaf cgroup) are killed
1286 together or not at all. This can be used to avoid
1287 partial kills to guarantee workload integrity.
1288
1289 Tasks with the OOM protection (oom_score_adj set to -1000)
1290 are treated as an exception and are never killed.
1291
1292 If the OOM killer is invoked in a cgroup, it's not going
1293 to kill any tasks outside of this cgroup, regardless
1294 memory.oom.group values of ancestor cgroups.
1295
6c292092 1296 memory.events
6c292092
TH
1297 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1298 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
1299 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
1300 modified event.
1301
1e577f97
SB
1302 Note that all fields in this file are hierarchical and the
1303 file modified event can be generated due to an event down the
22b12557 1304 hierarchy. For the local events at the cgroup level see
1e577f97
SB
1305 memory.events.local.
1306
6c292092 1307 low
6c292092
TH
1308 The number of times the cgroup is reclaimed due to
1309 high memory pressure even though its usage is under
1310 the low boundary. This usually indicates that the low
1311 boundary is over-committed.
1312
1313 high
6c292092
TH
1314 The number of times processes of the cgroup are
1315 throttled and routed to perform direct memory reclaim
1316 because the high memory boundary was exceeded. For a
1317 cgroup whose memory usage is capped by the high limit
1318 rather than global memory pressure, this event's
1319 occurrences are expected.
1320
1321 max
6c292092
TH
1322 The number of times the cgroup's memory usage was
1323 about to go over the max boundary. If direct reclaim
8e675f7a 1324 fails to bring it down, the cgroup goes to OOM state.
6c292092
TH
1325
1326 oom
8e675f7a
KK
1327 The number of time the cgroup's memory usage was
1328 reached the limit and allocation was about to fail.
1329
7a1adfdd
RG
1330 This event is not raised if the OOM killer is not
1331 considered as an option, e.g. for failed high-order
db33ec37 1332 allocations or if caller asked to not retry attempts.
7a1adfdd 1333
8e675f7a 1334 oom_kill
8e675f7a
KK
1335 The number of processes belonging to this cgroup
1336 killed by any kind of OOM killer.
6c292092 1337
b6bf9abb
DS
1338 oom_group_kill
1339 The number of times a group OOM has occurred.
1340
1e577f97
SB
1341 memory.events.local
1342 Similar to memory.events but the fields in the file are local
1343 to the cgroup i.e. not hierarchical. The file modified event
1344 generated on this file reflects only the local events.
1345
587d9f72 1346 memory.stat
587d9f72
JW
1347 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1348
1349 This breaks down the cgroup's memory footprint into different
1350 types of memory, type-specific details, and other information
1351 on the state and past events of the memory management system.
1352
1353 All memory amounts are in bytes.
1354
1355 The entries are ordered to be human readable, and new entries
1356 can show up in the middle. Don't rely on items remaining in a
1357 fixed position; use the keys to look up specific values!
1358
a21e7bb3
KK
1359 If the entry has no per-node counter (or not show in the
1360 memory.numa_stat). We use 'npn' (non-per-node) as the tag
1361 to indicate that it will not show in the memory.numa_stat.
5f9a4f4a 1362
587d9f72 1363 anon
587d9f72
JW
1364 Amount of memory used in anonymous mappings such as
1365 brk(), sbrk(), and mmap(MAP_ANONYMOUS)
1366
1367 file
587d9f72
JW
1368 Amount of memory used to cache filesystem data,
1369 including tmpfs and shared memory.
1370
a8c49af3
YA
1371 kernel (npn)
1372 Amount of total kernel memory, including
1373 (kernel_stack, pagetables, percpu, vmalloc, slab) in
1374 addition to other kernel memory use cases.
1375
12580e4b 1376 kernel_stack
12580e4b
VD
1377 Amount of memory allocated to kernel stacks.
1378
f0c0c115
SB
1379 pagetables
1380 Amount of memory allocated for page tables.
1381
ebc97a52
YA
1382 sec_pagetables
1383 Amount of memory allocated for secondary page tables,
1384 this currently includes KVM mmu allocations on x86
1385 and arm64.
1386
a21e7bb3 1387 percpu (npn)
772616b0
RG
1388 Amount of memory used for storing per-cpu kernel
1389 data structures.
1390
a21e7bb3 1391 sock (npn)
4758e198
JW
1392 Amount of memory used in network transmission buffers
1393
4e5aa1f4
SB
1394 vmalloc (npn)
1395 Amount of memory used for vmap backed memory.
1396
9a4caf1e 1397 shmem
9a4caf1e
JW
1398 Amount of cached filesystem data that is swap-backed,
1399 such as tmpfs, shm segments, shared anonymous mmap()s
1400
f4840ccf
JW
1401 zswap
1402 Amount of memory consumed by the zswap compression backend.
1403
1404 zswapped
1405 Amount of application memory swapped out to zswap.
1406
587d9f72 1407 file_mapped
587d9f72
JW
1408 Amount of cached filesystem data mapped with mmap()
1409
1410 file_dirty
587d9f72
JW
1411 Amount of cached filesystem data that was modified but
1412 not yet written back to disk
1413
1414 file_writeback
587d9f72
JW
1415 Amount of cached filesystem data that was modified and
1416 is currently being written back to disk
1417
b6038942
SB
1418 swapcached
1419 Amount of swap cached in memory. The swapcache is accounted
1420 against both memory and swap usage.
1421
1ff9e6e1
CD
1422 anon_thp
1423 Amount of memory used in anonymous mappings backed by
1424 transparent hugepages
b8eddff8
JW
1425
1426 file_thp
1427 Amount of cached filesystem data backed by transparent
1428 hugepages
1429
1430 shmem_thp
1431 Amount of shm, tmpfs, shared anonymous mmap()s backed by
1432 transparent hugepages
1ff9e6e1 1433
633b11be 1434 inactive_anon, active_anon, inactive_file, active_file, unevictable
587d9f72
JW
1435 Amount of memory, swap-backed and filesystem-backed,
1436 on the internal memory management lists used by the
1603c8d1
CD
1437 page reclaim algorithm.
1438
1439 As these represent internal list state (eg. shmem pages are on anon
1440 memory management lists), inactive_foo + active_foo may not be equal to
1441 the value for the foo counter, since the foo counter is type-based, not
1442 list-based.
587d9f72 1443
27ee57c9 1444 slab_reclaimable
27ee57c9
VD
1445 Part of "slab" that might be reclaimed, such as
1446 dentries and inodes.
1447
1448 slab_unreclaimable
27ee57c9
VD
1449 Part of "slab" that cannot be reclaimed on memory
1450 pressure.
1451
a21e7bb3 1452 slab (npn)
5f9a4f4a
MS
1453 Amount of memory used for storing in-kernel data
1454 structures.
587d9f72 1455
8d3fe09d
MS
1456 workingset_refault_anon
1457 Number of refaults of previously evicted anonymous pages.
b340959e 1458
8d3fe09d
MS
1459 workingset_refault_file
1460 Number of refaults of previously evicted file pages.
b340959e 1461
8d3fe09d
MS
1462 workingset_activate_anon
1463 Number of refaulted anonymous pages that were immediately
1464 activated.
1465
1466 workingset_activate_file
1467 Number of refaulted file pages that were immediately activated.
1468
1469 workingset_restore_anon
1470 Number of restored anonymous pages which have been detected as
1471 an active workingset before they got reclaimed.
1472
1473 workingset_restore_file
1474 Number of restored file pages which have been detected as an
1475 active workingset before they got reclaimed.
a6f5576b 1476
b340959e 1477 workingset_nodereclaim
b340959e
RG
1478 Number of times a shadow node has been reclaimed
1479
673520f8
QZ
1480 pgscan (npn)
1481 Amount of scanned pages (in an inactive LRU list)
1482
1483 pgsteal (npn)
1484 Amount of reclaimed pages
1485
1486 pgscan_kswapd (npn)
1487 Amount of scanned pages by kswapd (in an inactive LRU list)
1488
1489 pgscan_direct (npn)
1490 Amount of scanned pages directly (in an inactive LRU list)
1491
57e9cc50
JW
1492 pgscan_khugepaged (npn)
1493 Amount of scanned pages by khugepaged (in an inactive LRU list)
1494
673520f8
QZ
1495 pgsteal_kswapd (npn)
1496 Amount of reclaimed pages by kswapd
1497
1498 pgsteal_direct (npn)
1499 Amount of reclaimed pages directly
1500
57e9cc50
JW
1501 pgsteal_khugepaged (npn)
1502 Amount of reclaimed pages by khugepaged
1503
a21e7bb3 1504 pgfault (npn)
5f9a4f4a
MS
1505 Total number of page faults incurred
1506
a21e7bb3 1507 pgmajfault (npn)
5f9a4f4a
MS
1508 Number of major page faults incurred
1509
a21e7bb3 1510 pgrefill (npn)
2262185c
RG
1511 Amount of scanned pages (in an active LRU list)
1512
a21e7bb3 1513 pgactivate (npn)
2262185c
RG
1514 Amount of pages moved to the active LRU list
1515
a21e7bb3 1516 pgdeactivate (npn)
03189e8e 1517 Amount of pages moved to the inactive LRU list
2262185c 1518
a21e7bb3 1519 pglazyfree (npn)
2262185c
RG
1520 Amount of pages postponed to be freed under memory pressure
1521
a21e7bb3 1522 pglazyfreed (npn)
2262185c
RG
1523 Amount of reclaimed lazyfree pages
1524
a21e7bb3 1525 thp_fault_alloc (npn)
1ff9e6e1 1526 Number of transparent hugepages which were allocated to satisfy
2a8bef32
YS
1527 a page fault. This counter is not present when CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
1528 is not set.
1ff9e6e1 1529
a21e7bb3 1530 thp_collapse_alloc (npn)
1ff9e6e1
CD
1531 Number of transparent hugepages which were allocated to allow
1532 collapsing an existing range of pages. This counter is not
1533 present when CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE is not set.
1534
5f9a4f4a
MS
1535 memory.numa_stat
1536 A read-only nested-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1537
1538 This breaks down the cgroup's memory footprint into different
1539 types of memory, type-specific details, and other information
1540 per node on the state of the memory management system.
1541
1542 This is useful for providing visibility into the NUMA locality
1543 information within an memcg since the pages are allowed to be
1544 allocated from any physical node. One of the use case is evaluating
1545 application performance by combining this information with the
1546 application's CPU allocation.
1547
1548 All memory amounts are in bytes.
1549
1550 The output format of memory.numa_stat is::
1551
1552 type N0=<bytes in node 0> N1=<bytes in node 1> ...
1553
1554 The entries are ordered to be human readable, and new entries
1555 can show up in the middle. Don't rely on items remaining in a
1556 fixed position; use the keys to look up specific values!
1557
1558 The entries can refer to the memory.stat.
1559
3e24b19d 1560 memory.swap.current
3e24b19d
VD
1561 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1562 cgroups.
1563
1564 The total amount of swap currently being used by the cgroup
1565 and its descendants.
1566
4b82ab4f
JK
1567 memory.swap.high
1568 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1569 cgroups. The default is "max".
1570
1571 Swap usage throttle limit. If a cgroup's swap usage exceeds
1572 this limit, all its further allocations will be throttled to
1573 allow userspace to implement custom out-of-memory procedures.
1574
1575 This limit marks a point of no return for the cgroup. It is NOT
1576 designed to manage the amount of swapping a workload does
1577 during regular operation. Compare to memory.swap.max, which
1578 prohibits swapping past a set amount, but lets the cgroup
1579 continue unimpeded as long as other memory can be reclaimed.
1580
1581 Healthy workloads are not expected to reach this limit.
1582
3e24b19d 1583 memory.swap.max
3e24b19d
VD
1584 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1585 cgroups. The default is "max".
1586
1587 Swap usage hard limit. If a cgroup's swap usage reaches this
2877cbe6 1588 limit, anonymous memory of the cgroup will not be swapped out.
3e24b19d 1589
f3a53a3a
TH
1590 memory.swap.events
1591 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1592 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
1593 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
1594 modified event.
1595
4b82ab4f
JK
1596 high
1597 The number of times the cgroup's swap usage was over
1598 the high threshold.
1599
f3a53a3a
TH
1600 max
1601 The number of times the cgroup's swap usage was about
1602 to go over the max boundary and swap allocation
1603 failed.
1604
1605 fail
1606 The number of times swap allocation failed either
1607 because of running out of swap system-wide or max
1608 limit.
1609
be09102b
TH
1610 When reduced under the current usage, the existing swap
1611 entries are reclaimed gradually and the swap usage may stay
1612 higher than the limit for an extended period of time. This
1613 reduces the impact on the workload and memory management.
1614
f4840ccf
JW
1615 memory.zswap.current
1616 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1617 cgroups.
1618
1619 The total amount of memory consumed by the zswap compression
1620 backend.
1621
1622 memory.zswap.max
1623 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1624 cgroups. The default is "max".
1625
1626 Zswap usage hard limit. If a cgroup's zswap pool reaches this
1627 limit, it will refuse to take any more stores before existing
1628 entries fault back in or are written out to disk.
1629
2ce7135a 1630 memory.pressure
74bdd45c 1631 A read-only nested-keyed file.
2ce7135a
JW
1632
1633 Shows pressure stall information for memory. See
373e8ffa 1634 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
2ce7135a 1635
6c292092 1636
633b11be
MCC
1637Usage Guidelines
1638~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1639
1640"memory.high" is the main mechanism to control memory usage.
1641Over-committing on high limit (sum of high limits > available memory)
1642and letting global memory pressure to distribute memory according to
1643usage is a viable strategy.
1644
1645Because breach of the high limit doesn't trigger the OOM killer but
1646throttles the offending cgroup, a management agent has ample
1647opportunities to monitor and take appropriate actions such as granting
1648more memory or terminating the workload.
1649
1650Determining whether a cgroup has enough memory is not trivial as
1651memory usage doesn't indicate whether the workload can benefit from
1652more memory. For example, a workload which writes data received from
1653network to a file can use all available memory but can also operate as
1654performant with a small amount of memory. A measure of memory
1655pressure - how much the workload is being impacted due to lack of
1656memory - is necessary to determine whether a workload needs more
1657memory; unfortunately, memory pressure monitoring mechanism isn't
1658implemented yet.
1659
1660
633b11be
MCC
1661Memory Ownership
1662~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1663
1664A memory area is charged to the cgroup which instantiated it and stays
1665charged to the cgroup until the area is released. Migrating a process
1666to a different cgroup doesn't move the memory usages that it
1667instantiated while in the previous cgroup to the new cgroup.
1668
1669A memory area may be used by processes belonging to different cgroups.
1670To which cgroup the area will be charged is in-deterministic; however,
1671over time, the memory area is likely to end up in a cgroup which has
1672enough memory allowance to avoid high reclaim pressure.
1673
1674If a cgroup sweeps a considerable amount of memory which is expected
1675to be accessed repeatedly by other cgroups, it may make sense to use
1676POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED to relinquish the ownership of memory areas
1677belonging to the affected files to ensure correct memory ownership.
1678
1679
633b11be
MCC
1680IO
1681--
6c292092
TH
1682
1683The "io" controller regulates the distribution of IO resources. This
1684controller implements both weight based and absolute bandwidth or IOPS
1685limit distribution; however, weight based distribution is available
1686only if cfq-iosched is in use and neither scheme is available for
1687blk-mq devices.
1688
1689
633b11be
MCC
1690IO Interface Files
1691~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1692
1693 io.stat
ef45fe47 1694 A read-only nested-keyed file.
6c292092
TH
1695
1696 Lines are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered.
1697 The following nested keys are defined.
1698
636620b6 1699 ====== =====================
6c292092
TH
1700 rbytes Bytes read
1701 wbytes Bytes written
1702 rios Number of read IOs
1703 wios Number of write IOs
636620b6
TH
1704 dbytes Bytes discarded
1705 dios Number of discard IOs
1706 ====== =====================
6c292092 1707
69654d37 1708 An example read output follows::
6c292092 1709
636620b6
TH
1710 8:16 rbytes=1459200 wbytes=314773504 rios=192 wios=353 dbytes=0 dios=0
1711 8:0 rbytes=90430464 wbytes=299008000 rios=8950 wios=1252 dbytes=50331648 dios=3021
6c292092 1712
7caa4715 1713 io.cost.qos
c4c6b86a 1714 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists only on the root
7caa4715
TH
1715 cgroup.
1716
1717 This file configures the Quality of Service of the IO cost
1718 model based controller (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOCOST) which
1719 currently implements "io.weight" proportional control. Lines
1720 are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The
1721 line for a given device is populated on the first write for
1722 the device on "io.cost.qos" or "io.cost.model". The following
1723 nested keys are defined.
1724
1725 ====== =====================================
1726 enable Weight-based control enable
1727 ctrl "auto" or "user"
1728 rpct Read latency percentile [0, 100]
1729 rlat Read latency threshold
1730 wpct Write latency percentile [0, 100]
1731 wlat Write latency threshold
1732 min Minimum scaling percentage [1, 10000]
1733 max Maximum scaling percentage [1, 10000]
1734 ====== =====================================
1735
1736 The controller is disabled by default and can be enabled by
1737 setting "enable" to 1. "rpct" and "wpct" parameters default
1738 to zero and the controller uses internal device saturation
1739 state to adjust the overall IO rate between "min" and "max".
1740
1741 When a better control quality is needed, latency QoS
1742 parameters can be configured. For example::
1743
1744 8:16 enable=1 ctrl=auto rpct=95.00 rlat=75000 wpct=95.00 wlat=150000 min=50.00 max=150.0
1745
1746 shows that on sdb, the controller is enabled, will consider
1747 the device saturated if the 95th percentile of read completion
1748 latencies is above 75ms or write 150ms, and adjust the overall
1749 IO issue rate between 50% and 150% accordingly.
1750
1751 The lower the saturation point, the better the latency QoS at
1752 the cost of aggregate bandwidth. The narrower the allowed
1753 adjustment range between "min" and "max", the more conformant
1754 to the cost model the IO behavior. Note that the IO issue
1755 base rate may be far off from 100% and setting "min" and "max"
1756 blindly can lead to a significant loss of device capacity or
1757 control quality. "min" and "max" are useful for regulating
1758 devices which show wide temporary behavior changes - e.g. a
1759 ssd which accepts writes at the line speed for a while and
1760 then completely stalls for multiple seconds.
1761
1762 When "ctrl" is "auto", the parameters are controlled by the
1763 kernel and may change automatically. Setting "ctrl" to "user"
1764 or setting any of the percentile and latency parameters puts
1765 it into "user" mode and disables the automatic changes. The
1766 automatic mode can be restored by setting "ctrl" to "auto".
1767
1768 io.cost.model
c4c6b86a 1769 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists only on the root
7caa4715
TH
1770 cgroup.
1771
1772 This file configures the cost model of the IO cost model based
1773 controller (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOCOST) which currently
1774 implements "io.weight" proportional control. Lines are keyed
1775 by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The line for a
1776 given device is populated on the first write for the device on
1777 "io.cost.qos" or "io.cost.model". The following nested keys
1778 are defined.
1779
1780 ===== ================================
1781 ctrl "auto" or "user"
1782 model The cost model in use - "linear"
1783 ===== ================================
1784
1785 When "ctrl" is "auto", the kernel may change all parameters
1786 dynamically. When "ctrl" is set to "user" or any other
1787 parameters are written to, "ctrl" become "user" and the
1788 automatic changes are disabled.
1789
1790 When "model" is "linear", the following model parameters are
1791 defined.
1792
1793 ============= ========================================
1794 [r|w]bps The maximum sequential IO throughput
1795 [r|w]seqiops The maximum 4k sequential IOs per second
1796 [r|w]randiops The maximum 4k random IOs per second
1797 ============= ========================================
1798
1799 From the above, the builtin linear model determines the base
1800 costs of a sequential and random IO and the cost coefficient
1801 for the IO size. While simple, this model can cover most
1802 common device classes acceptably.
1803
1804 The IO cost model isn't expected to be accurate in absolute
1805 sense and is scaled to the device behavior dynamically.
1806
8504dea7
TH
1807 If needed, tools/cgroup/iocost_coef_gen.py can be used to
1808 generate device-specific coefficients.
1809
6c292092 1810 io.weight
6c292092
TH
1811 A read-write flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1812 The default is "default 100".
1813
1814 The first line is the default weight applied to devices
1815 without specific override. The rest are overrides keyed by
1816 $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The weights are in
1817 the range [1, 10000] and specifies the relative amount IO time
1818 the cgroup can use in relation to its siblings.
1819
1820 The default weight can be updated by writing either "default
1821 $WEIGHT" or simply "$WEIGHT". Overrides can be set by writing
1822 "$MAJ:$MIN $WEIGHT" and unset by writing "$MAJ:$MIN default".
1823
633b11be 1824 An example read output follows::
6c292092
TH
1825
1826 default 100
1827 8:16 200
1828 8:0 50
1829
1830 io.max
6c292092
TH
1831 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists on non-root
1832 cgroups.
1833
1834 BPS and IOPS based IO limit. Lines are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN
1835 device numbers and not ordered. The following nested keys are
1836 defined.
1837
633b11be 1838 ===== ==================================
6c292092
TH
1839 rbps Max read bytes per second
1840 wbps Max write bytes per second
1841 riops Max read IO operations per second
1842 wiops Max write IO operations per second
633b11be 1843 ===== ==================================
6c292092
TH
1844
1845 When writing, any number of nested key-value pairs can be
1846 specified in any order. "max" can be specified as the value
1847 to remove a specific limit. If the same key is specified
1848 multiple times, the outcome is undefined.
1849
1850 BPS and IOPS are measured in each IO direction and IOs are
1851 delayed if limit is reached. Temporary bursts are allowed.
1852
633b11be 1853 Setting read limit at 2M BPS and write at 120 IOPS for 8:16::
6c292092
TH
1854
1855 echo "8:16 rbps=2097152 wiops=120" > io.max
1856
633b11be 1857 Reading returns the following::
6c292092
TH
1858
1859 8:16 rbps=2097152 wbps=max riops=max wiops=120
1860
633b11be 1861 Write IOPS limit can be removed by writing the following::
6c292092
TH
1862
1863 echo "8:16 wiops=max" > io.max
1864
633b11be 1865 Reading now returns the following::
6c292092
TH
1866
1867 8:16 rbps=2097152 wbps=max riops=max wiops=max
1868
2ce7135a 1869 io.pressure
74bdd45c 1870 A read-only nested-keyed file.
2ce7135a
JW
1871
1872 Shows pressure stall information for IO. See
373e8ffa 1873 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
2ce7135a 1874
6c292092 1875
633b11be
MCC
1876Writeback
1877~~~~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
1878
1879Page cache is dirtied through buffered writes and shared mmaps and
1880written asynchronously to the backing filesystem by the writeback
1881mechanism. Writeback sits between the memory and IO domains and
1882regulates the proportion of dirty memory by balancing dirtying and
1883write IOs.
1884
1885The io controller, in conjunction with the memory controller,
1886implements control of page cache writeback IOs. The memory controller
1887defines the memory domain that dirty memory ratio is calculated and
1888maintained for and the io controller defines the io domain which
1889writes out dirty pages for the memory domain. Both system-wide and
1890per-cgroup dirty memory states are examined and the more restrictive
1891of the two is enforced.
1892
1893cgroup writeback requires explicit support from the underlying
1b932b7d
ES
1894filesystem. Currently, cgroup writeback is implemented on ext2, ext4,
1895btrfs, f2fs, and xfs. On other filesystems, all writeback IOs are
1896attributed to the root cgroup.
6c292092
TH
1897
1898There are inherent differences in memory and writeback management
1899which affects how cgroup ownership is tracked. Memory is tracked per
1900page while writeback per inode. For the purpose of writeback, an
1901inode is assigned to a cgroup and all IO requests to write dirty pages
1902from the inode are attributed to that cgroup.
1903
1904As cgroup ownership for memory is tracked per page, there can be pages
1905which are associated with different cgroups than the one the inode is
1906associated with. These are called foreign pages. The writeback
1907constantly keeps track of foreign pages and, if a particular foreign
1908cgroup becomes the majority over a certain period of time, switches
1909the ownership of the inode to that cgroup.
1910
1911While this model is enough for most use cases where a given inode is
1912mostly dirtied by a single cgroup even when the main writing cgroup
1913changes over time, use cases where multiple cgroups write to a single
1914inode simultaneously are not supported well. In such circumstances, a
1915significant portion of IOs are likely to be attributed incorrectly.
1916As memory controller assigns page ownership on the first use and
1917doesn't update it until the page is released, even if writeback
1918strictly follows page ownership, multiple cgroups dirtying overlapping
1919areas wouldn't work as expected. It's recommended to avoid such usage
1920patterns.
1921
1922The sysctl knobs which affect writeback behavior are applied to cgroup
1923writeback as follows.
1924
633b11be 1925 vm.dirty_background_ratio, vm.dirty_ratio
6c292092
TH
1926 These ratios apply the same to cgroup writeback with the
1927 amount of available memory capped by limits imposed by the
1928 memory controller and system-wide clean memory.
1929
633b11be 1930 vm.dirty_background_bytes, vm.dirty_bytes
6c292092
TH
1931 For cgroup writeback, this is calculated into ratio against
1932 total available memory and applied the same way as
1933 vm.dirty[_background]_ratio.
1934
1935
b351f0c7
JB
1936IO Latency
1937~~~~~~~~~~
1938
1939This is a cgroup v2 controller for IO workload protection. You provide a group
1940with a latency target, and if the average latency exceeds that target the
1941controller will throttle any peers that have a lower latency target than the
1942protected workload.
1943
1944The limits are only applied at the peer level in the hierarchy. This means that
1945in the diagram below, only groups A, B, and C will influence each other, and
34b43446 1946groups D and F will influence each other. Group G will influence nobody::
b351f0c7
JB
1947
1948 [root]
1949 / | \
1950 A B C
1951 / \ |
1952 D F G
1953
1954
1955So the ideal way to configure this is to set io.latency in groups A, B, and C.
1956Generally you do not want to set a value lower than the latency your device
1957supports. Experiment to find the value that works best for your workload.
1958Start at higher than the expected latency for your device and watch the
c480bcf9
DZF
1959avg_lat value in io.stat for your workload group to get an idea of the
1960latency you see during normal operation. Use the avg_lat value as a basis for
1961your real setting, setting at 10-15% higher than the value in io.stat.
b351f0c7
JB
1962
1963How IO Latency Throttling Works
1964~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1965
1966io.latency is work conserving; so as long as everybody is meeting their latency
1967target the controller doesn't do anything. Once a group starts missing its
1968target it begins throttling any peer group that has a higher target than itself.
1969This throttling takes 2 forms:
1970
1971- Queue depth throttling. This is the number of outstanding IO's a group is
1972 allowed to have. We will clamp down relatively quickly, starting at no limit
1973 and going all the way down to 1 IO at a time.
1974
1975- Artificial delay induction. There are certain types of IO that cannot be
1976 throttled without possibly adversely affecting higher priority groups. This
1977 includes swapping and metadata IO. These types of IO are allowed to occur
1978 normally, however they are "charged" to the originating group. If the
1979 originating group is being throttled you will see the use_delay and delay
1980 fields in io.stat increase. The delay value is how many microseconds that are
1981 being added to any process that runs in this group. Because this number can
1982 grow quite large if there is a lot of swapping or metadata IO occurring we
1983 limit the individual delay events to 1 second at a time.
1984
1985Once the victimized group starts meeting its latency target again it will start
1986unthrottling any peer groups that were throttled previously. If the victimized
1987group simply stops doing IO the global counter will unthrottle appropriately.
1988
1989IO Latency Interface Files
1990~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1991
1992 io.latency
1993 This takes a similar format as the other controllers.
1994
a477b94d 1995 "MAJOR:MINOR target=<target time in microseconds>"
b351f0c7
JB
1996
1997 io.stat
1998 If the controller is enabled you will see extra stats in io.stat in
1999 addition to the normal ones.
2000
2001 depth
2002 This is the current queue depth for the group.
2003
2004 avg_lat
c480bcf9
DZF
2005 This is an exponential moving average with a decay rate of 1/exp
2006 bound by the sampling interval. The decay rate interval can be
2007 calculated by multiplying the win value in io.stat by the
2008 corresponding number of samples based on the win value.
2009
2010 win
2011 The sampling window size in milliseconds. This is the minimum
2012 duration of time between evaluation events. Windows only elapse
2013 with IO activity. Idle periods extend the most recent window.
b351f0c7 2014
556910e3
BVA
2015IO Priority
2016~~~~~~~~~~~
2017
2018A single attribute controls the behavior of the I/O priority cgroup policy,
2019namely the blkio.prio.class attribute. The following values are accepted for
2020that attribute:
2021
2022 no-change
2023 Do not modify the I/O priority class.
2024
2025 none-to-rt
2026 For requests that do not have an I/O priority class (NONE),
2027 change the I/O priority class into RT. Do not modify
2028 the I/O priority class of other requests.
2029
2030 restrict-to-be
2031 For requests that do not have an I/O priority class or that have I/O
2032 priority class RT, change it into BE. Do not modify the I/O priority
2033 class of requests that have priority class IDLE.
2034
2035 idle
2036 Change the I/O priority class of all requests into IDLE, the lowest
2037 I/O priority class.
2038
2039The following numerical values are associated with the I/O priority policies:
2040
2041+-------------+---+
2042| no-change | 0 |
2043+-------------+---+
2044| none-to-rt | 1 |
2045+-------------+---+
2046| rt-to-be | 2 |
2047+-------------+---+
2048| all-to-idle | 3 |
2049+-------------+---+
2050
2051The numerical value that corresponds to each I/O priority class is as follows:
2052
2053+-------------------------------+---+
2054| IOPRIO_CLASS_NONE | 0 |
2055+-------------------------------+---+
2056| IOPRIO_CLASS_RT (real-time) | 1 |
2057+-------------------------------+---+
2058| IOPRIO_CLASS_BE (best effort) | 2 |
2059+-------------------------------+---+
2060| IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE | 3 |
2061+-------------------------------+---+
2062
2063The algorithm to set the I/O priority class for a request is as follows:
2064
2065- Translate the I/O priority class policy into a number.
2066- Change the request I/O priority class into the maximum of the I/O priority
2067 class policy number and the numerical I/O priority class.
2068
633b11be
MCC
2069PID
2070---
20c56e59
HR
2071
2072The process number controller is used to allow a cgroup to stop any
2073new tasks from being fork()'d or clone()'d after a specified limit is
2074reached.
2075
2076The number of tasks in a cgroup can be exhausted in ways which other
2077controllers cannot prevent, thus warranting its own controller. For
2078example, a fork bomb is likely to exhaust the number of tasks before
2079hitting memory restrictions.
2080
2081Note that PIDs used in this controller refer to TIDs, process IDs as
2082used by the kernel.
2083
2084
633b11be
MCC
2085PID Interface Files
2086~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
20c56e59
HR
2087
2088 pids.max
312eb712
TK
2089 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
2090 cgroups. The default is "max".
20c56e59 2091
312eb712 2092 Hard limit of number of processes.
20c56e59
HR
2093
2094 pids.current
312eb712 2095 A read-only single value file which exists on all cgroups.
20c56e59 2096
312eb712
TK
2097 The number of processes currently in the cgroup and its
2098 descendants.
20c56e59
HR
2099
2100Organisational operations are not blocked by cgroup policies, so it is
2101possible to have pids.current > pids.max. This can be done by either
2102setting the limit to be smaller than pids.current, or attaching enough
2103processes to the cgroup such that pids.current is larger than
2104pids.max. However, it is not possible to violate a cgroup PID policy
2105through fork() or clone(). These will return -EAGAIN if the creation
2106of a new process would cause a cgroup policy to be violated.
2107
2108
4ec22e9c
WL
2109Cpuset
2110------
2111
2112The "cpuset" controller provides a mechanism for constraining
2113the CPU and memory node placement of tasks to only the resources
2114specified in the cpuset interface files in a task's current cgroup.
2115This is especially valuable on large NUMA systems where placing jobs
2116on properly sized subsets of the systems with careful processor and
2117memory placement to reduce cross-node memory access and contention
2118can improve overall system performance.
2119
2120The "cpuset" controller is hierarchical. That means the controller
2121cannot use CPUs or memory nodes not allowed in its parent.
2122
2123
2124Cpuset Interface Files
2125~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2126
2127 cpuset.cpus
2128 A read-write multiple values file which exists on non-root
2129 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2130
2131 It lists the requested CPUs to be used by tasks within this
2132 cgroup. The actual list of CPUs to be granted, however, is
2133 subjected to constraints imposed by its parent and can differ
2134 from the requested CPUs.
2135
2136 The CPU numbers are comma-separated numbers or ranges.
f3431ba7 2137 For example::
4ec22e9c
WL
2138
2139 # cat cpuset.cpus
2140 0-4,6,8-10
2141
2142 An empty value indicates that the cgroup is using the same
2143 setting as the nearest cgroup ancestor with a non-empty
2144 "cpuset.cpus" or all the available CPUs if none is found.
2145
2146 The value of "cpuset.cpus" stays constant until the next update
2147 and won't be affected by any CPU hotplug events.
2148
2149 cpuset.cpus.effective
5776cecc 2150 A read-only multiple values file which exists on all
4ec22e9c
WL
2151 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2152
2153 It lists the onlined CPUs that are actually granted to this
2154 cgroup by its parent. These CPUs are allowed to be used by
2155 tasks within the current cgroup.
2156
2157 If "cpuset.cpus" is empty, the "cpuset.cpus.effective" file shows
2158 all the CPUs from the parent cgroup that can be available to
2159 be used by this cgroup. Otherwise, it should be a subset of
2160 "cpuset.cpus" unless none of the CPUs listed in "cpuset.cpus"
2161 can be granted. In this case, it will be treated just like an
2162 empty "cpuset.cpus".
2163
2164 Its value will be affected by CPU hotplug events.
2165
2166 cpuset.mems
2167 A read-write multiple values file which exists on non-root
2168 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2169
2170 It lists the requested memory nodes to be used by tasks within
2171 this cgroup. The actual list of memory nodes granted, however,
2172 is subjected to constraints imposed by its parent and can differ
2173 from the requested memory nodes.
2174
2175 The memory node numbers are comma-separated numbers or ranges.
f3431ba7 2176 For example::
4ec22e9c
WL
2177
2178 # cat cpuset.mems
2179 0-1,3
2180
2181 An empty value indicates that the cgroup is using the same
2182 setting as the nearest cgroup ancestor with a non-empty
2183 "cpuset.mems" or all the available memory nodes if none
2184 is found.
2185
2186 The value of "cpuset.mems" stays constant until the next update
2187 and won't be affected by any memory nodes hotplug events.
2188
ee9707e8
WL
2189 Setting a non-empty value to "cpuset.mems" causes memory of
2190 tasks within the cgroup to be migrated to the designated nodes if
2191 they are currently using memory outside of the designated nodes.
2192
2193 There is a cost for this memory migration. The migration
2194 may not be complete and some memory pages may be left behind.
2195 So it is recommended that "cpuset.mems" should be set properly
2196 before spawning new tasks into the cpuset. Even if there is
2197 a need to change "cpuset.mems" with active tasks, it shouldn't
2198 be done frequently.
2199
4ec22e9c 2200 cpuset.mems.effective
5776cecc 2201 A read-only multiple values file which exists on all
4ec22e9c
WL
2202 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2203
2204 It lists the onlined memory nodes that are actually granted to
2205 this cgroup by its parent. These memory nodes are allowed to
2206 be used by tasks within the current cgroup.
2207
2208 If "cpuset.mems" is empty, it shows all the memory nodes from the
2209 parent cgroup that will be available to be used by this cgroup.
2210 Otherwise, it should be a subset of "cpuset.mems" unless none of
2211 the memory nodes listed in "cpuset.mems" can be granted. In this
2212 case, it will be treated just like an empty "cpuset.mems".
2213
2214 Its value will be affected by memory nodes hotplug events.
2215
b1e3aeb1 2216 cpuset.cpus.partition
90e92f2d
WL
2217 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
2218 cpuset-enabled cgroups. This flag is owned by the parent cgroup
2219 and is not delegatable.
2220
8a32d0fe 2221 It accepts only the following input values when written to.
90e92f2d 2222
8cbfdc24
WL
2223 ========== =====================================
2224 "member" Non-root member of a partition
2225 "root" Partition root
2226 "isolated" Partition root without load balancing
2227 ========== =====================================
2228
2229 The root cgroup is always a partition root and its state
2230 cannot be changed. All other non-root cgroups start out as
2231 "member".
2232
2233 When set to "root", the current cgroup is the root of a new
2234 partition or scheduling domain that comprises itself and all
2235 its descendants except those that are separate partition roots
2236 themselves and their descendants.
2237
2238 When set to "isolated", the CPUs in that partition root will
2239 be in an isolated state without any load balancing from the
2240 scheduler. Tasks placed in such a partition with multiple
2241 CPUs should be carefully distributed and bound to each of the
2242 individual CPUs for optimal performance.
2243
2244 The value shown in "cpuset.cpus.effective" of a partition root
2245 is the CPUs that the partition root can dedicate to a potential
2246 new child partition root. The new child subtracts available
2247 CPUs from its parent "cpuset.cpus.effective".
2248
2249 A partition root ("root" or "isolated") can be in one of the
2250 two possible states - valid or invalid. An invalid partition
2251 root is in a degraded state where some state information may
2252 be retained, but behaves more like a "member".
2253
2254 All possible state transitions among "member", "root" and
2255 "isolated" are allowed.
2256
2257 On read, the "cpuset.cpus.partition" file can show the following
2258 values.
2259
2260 ============================= =====================================
2261 "member" Non-root member of a partition
2262 "root" Partition root
2263 "isolated" Partition root without load balancing
2264 "root invalid (<reason>)" Invalid partition root
2265 "isolated invalid (<reason>)" Invalid isolated partition root
2266 ============================= =====================================
2267
2268 In the case of an invalid partition root, a descriptive string on
2269 why the partition is invalid is included within parentheses.
2270
2271 For a partition root to become valid, the following conditions
2272 must be met.
2273
2274 1) The "cpuset.cpus" is exclusive with its siblings , i.e. they
2275 are not shared by any of its siblings (exclusivity rule).
2276 2) The parent cgroup is a valid partition root.
2277 3) The "cpuset.cpus" is not empty and must contain at least
2278 one of the CPUs from parent's "cpuset.cpus", i.e. they overlap.
2279 4) The "cpuset.cpus.effective" cannot be empty unless there is
2280 no task associated with this partition.
2281
2282 External events like hotplug or changes to "cpuset.cpus" can
2283 cause a valid partition root to become invalid and vice versa.
2284 Note that a task cannot be moved to a cgroup with empty
2285 "cpuset.cpus.effective".
2286
2287 For a valid partition root with the sibling cpu exclusivity
2288 rule enabled, changes made to "cpuset.cpus" that violate the
2289 exclusivity rule will invalidate the partition as well as its
dbeb56fe 2290 sibling partitions with conflicting cpuset.cpus values. So
8cbfdc24
WL
2291 care must be taking in changing "cpuset.cpus".
2292
2293 A valid non-root parent partition may distribute out all its CPUs
2294 to its child partitions when there is no task associated with it.
2295
2296 Care must be taken to change a valid partition root to
2297 "member" as all its child partitions, if present, will become
2298 invalid causing disruption to tasks running in those child
2299 partitions. These inactivated partitions could be recovered if
2300 their parent is switched back to a partition root with a proper
2301 set of "cpuset.cpus".
2302
2303 Poll and inotify events are triggered whenever the state of
2304 "cpuset.cpus.partition" changes. That includes changes caused
2305 by write to "cpuset.cpus.partition", cpu hotplug or other
2306 changes that modify the validity status of the partition.
2307 This will allow user space agents to monitor unexpected changes
2308 to "cpuset.cpus.partition" without the need to do continuous
2309 polling.
90e92f2d 2310
4ec22e9c 2311
4ad5a321
RG
2312Device controller
2313-----------------
2314
2315Device controller manages access to device files. It includes both
2316creation of new device files (using mknod), and access to the
2317existing device files.
2318
2319Cgroup v2 device controller has no interface files and is implemented
2320on top of cgroup BPF. To control access to device files, a user may
c0002d11
A
2321create bpf programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE and attach
2322them to cgroups with BPF_CGROUP_DEVICE flag. On an attempt to access a
2323device file, corresponding BPF programs will be executed, and depending
2324on the return value the attempt will succeed or fail with -EPERM.
2325
2326A BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE program takes a pointer to the
2327bpf_cgroup_dev_ctx structure, which describes the device access attempt:
2328access type (mknod/read/write) and device (type, major and minor numbers).
2329If the program returns 0, the attempt fails with -EPERM, otherwise it
2330succeeds.
2331
2332An example of BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE program may be found in
2333tools/testing/selftests/bpf/progs/dev_cgroup.c in the kernel source tree.
4ad5a321
RG
2334
2335
633b11be
MCC
2336RDMA
2337----
968ebff1 2338
9c1e67f9 2339The "rdma" controller regulates the distribution and accounting of
aefea466 2340RDMA resources.
9c1e67f9 2341
633b11be
MCC
2342RDMA Interface Files
2343~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9c1e67f9
PP
2344
2345 rdma.max
2346 A readwrite nested-keyed file that exists for all the cgroups
2347 except root that describes current configured resource limit
2348 for a RDMA/IB device.
2349
2350 Lines are keyed by device name and are not ordered.
2351 Each line contains space separated resource name and its configured
2352 limit that can be distributed.
2353
2354 The following nested keys are defined.
2355
633b11be 2356 ========== =============================
9c1e67f9
PP
2357 hca_handle Maximum number of HCA Handles
2358 hca_object Maximum number of HCA Objects
633b11be 2359 ========== =============================
9c1e67f9 2360
633b11be 2361 An example for mlx4 and ocrdma device follows::
9c1e67f9
PP
2362
2363 mlx4_0 hca_handle=2 hca_object=2000
2364 ocrdma1 hca_handle=3 hca_object=max
2365
2366 rdma.current
2367 A read-only file that describes current resource usage.
2368 It exists for all the cgroup except root.
2369
633b11be 2370 An example for mlx4 and ocrdma device follows::
9c1e67f9
PP
2371
2372 mlx4_0 hca_handle=1 hca_object=20
2373 ocrdma1 hca_handle=1 hca_object=23
2374
faced7e0
GS
2375HugeTLB
2376-------
2377
2378The HugeTLB controller allows to limit the HugeTLB usage per control group and
2379enforces the controller limit during page fault.
2380
2381HugeTLB Interface Files
2382~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2383
2384 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.current
2385 Show current usage for "hugepagesize" hugetlb. It exists for all
2386 the cgroup except root.
2387
2388 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.max
2389 Set/show the hard limit of "hugepagesize" hugetlb usage.
2390 The default value is "max". It exists for all the cgroup except root.
2391
2392 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events
2393 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
2394
2395 max
2396 The number of allocation failure due to HugeTLB limit
2397
2398 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events.local
2399 Similar to hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events but the fields in the file
2400 are local to the cgroup i.e. not hierarchical. The file modified event
2401 generated on this file reflects only the local events.
9c1e67f9 2402
f4776199
MA
2403 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.numa_stat
2404 Similar to memory.numa_stat, it shows the numa information of the
2405 hugetlb pages of <hugepagesize> in this cgroup. Only active in
2406 use hugetlb pages are included. The per-node values are in bytes.
2407
633b11be
MCC
2408Misc
2409----
63f1ca59 2410
25259fc9
VS
2411The Miscellaneous cgroup provides the resource limiting and tracking
2412mechanism for the scalar resources which cannot be abstracted like the other
2413cgroup resources. Controller is enabled by the CONFIG_CGROUP_MISC config
2414option.
2415
2416A resource can be added to the controller via enum misc_res_type{} in the
2417include/linux/misc_cgroup.h file and the corresponding name via misc_res_name[]
2418in the kernel/cgroup/misc.c file. Provider of the resource must set its
2419capacity prior to using the resource by calling misc_cg_set_capacity().
2420
2421Once a capacity is set then the resource usage can be updated using charge and
2422uncharge APIs. All of the APIs to interact with misc controller are in
2423include/linux/misc_cgroup.h.
2424
2425Misc Interface Files
2426~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2427
2428Miscellaneous controller provides 3 interface files. If two misc resources (res_a and res_b) are registered then:
2429
2430 misc.capacity
2431 A read-only flat-keyed file shown only in the root cgroup. It shows
2432 miscellaneous scalar resources available on the platform along with
2433 their quantities::
2434
2435 $ cat misc.capacity
2436 res_a 50
2437 res_b 10
2438
2439 misc.current
2440 A read-only flat-keyed file shown in the non-root cgroups. It shows
2441 the current usage of the resources in the cgroup and its children.::
2442
2443 $ cat misc.current
2444 res_a 3
2445 res_b 0
2446
2447 misc.max
2448 A read-write flat-keyed file shown in the non root cgroups. Allowed
2449 maximum usage of the resources in the cgroup and its children.::
2450
2451 $ cat misc.max
2452 res_a max
2453 res_b 4
2454
2455 Limit can be set by::
2456
2457 # echo res_a 1 > misc.max
2458
2459 Limit can be set to max by::
2460
2461 # echo res_a max > misc.max
2462
2463 Limits can be set higher than the capacity value in the misc.capacity
2464 file.
2465
4b53bb87
CX
2466 misc.events
2467 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups. The
2468 following entries are defined. Unless specified otherwise, a value
2469 change in this file generates a file modified event. All fields in
2470 this file are hierarchical.
2471
2472 max
2473 The number of times the cgroup's resource usage was
2474 about to go over the max boundary.
2475
25259fc9
VS
2476Migration and Ownership
2477~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2478
2479A miscellaneous scalar resource is charged to the cgroup in which it is used
2480first, and stays charged to that cgroup until that resource is freed. Migrating
2481a process to a different cgroup does not move the charge to the destination
2482cgroup where the process has moved.
2483
2484Others
2485------
2486
633b11be
MCC
2487perf_event
2488~~~~~~~~~~
968ebff1
TH
2489
2490perf_event controller, if not mounted on a legacy hierarchy, is
2491automatically enabled on the v2 hierarchy so that perf events can
2492always be filtered by cgroup v2 path. The controller can still be
2493moved to a legacy hierarchy after v2 hierarchy is populated.
2494
2495
c4e0842b
MS
2496Non-normative information
2497-------------------------
2498
2499This section contains information that isn't considered to be a part of
2500the stable kernel API and so is subject to change.
2501
2502
2503CPU controller root cgroup process behaviour
2504~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2505
2506When distributing CPU cycles in the root cgroup each thread in this
2507cgroup is treated as if it was hosted in a separate child cgroup of the
2508root cgroup. This child cgroup weight is dependent on its thread nice
2509level.
2510
2511For details of this mapping see sched_prio_to_weight array in
2512kernel/sched/core.c file (values from this array should be scaled
2513appropriately so the neutral - nice 0 - value is 100 instead of 1024).
2514
2515
2516IO controller root cgroup process behaviour
2517~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2518
2519Root cgroup processes are hosted in an implicit leaf child node.
2520When distributing IO resources this implicit child node is taken into
2521account as if it was a normal child cgroup of the root cgroup with a
2522weight value of 200.
2523
2524
633b11be
MCC
2525Namespace
2526=========
d4021f6c 2527
633b11be
MCC
2528Basics
2529------
d4021f6c
SH
2530
2531cgroup namespace provides a mechanism to virtualize the view of the
2532"/proc/$PID/cgroup" file and cgroup mounts. The CLONE_NEWCGROUP clone
2533flag can be used with clone(2) and unshare(2) to create a new cgroup
2534namespace. The process running inside the cgroup namespace will have
2535its "/proc/$PID/cgroup" output restricted to cgroupns root. The
2536cgroupns root is the cgroup of the process at the time of creation of
2537the cgroup namespace.
2538
2539Without cgroup namespace, the "/proc/$PID/cgroup" file shows the
2540complete path of the cgroup of a process. In a container setup where
2541a set of cgroups and namespaces are intended to isolate processes the
2542"/proc/$PID/cgroup" file may leak potential system level information
7361ec68 2543to the isolated processes. For example::
d4021f6c
SH
2544
2545 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2546 0::/batchjobs/container_id1
2547
2548The path '/batchjobs/container_id1' can be considered as system-data
2549and undesirable to expose to the isolated processes. cgroup namespace
2550can be used to restrict visibility of this path. For example, before
633b11be 2551creating a cgroup namespace, one would see::
d4021f6c
SH
2552
2553 # ls -l /proc/self/ns/cgroup
2554 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2014-07-15 10:37 /proc/self/ns/cgroup -> cgroup:[4026531835]
2555 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2556 0::/batchjobs/container_id1
2557
633b11be 2558After unsharing a new namespace, the view changes::
d4021f6c
SH
2559
2560 # ls -l /proc/self/ns/cgroup
2561 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2014-07-15 10:35 /proc/self/ns/cgroup -> cgroup:[4026532183]
2562 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2563 0::/
2564
2565When some thread from a multi-threaded process unshares its cgroup
2566namespace, the new cgroupns gets applied to the entire process (all
2567the threads). This is natural for the v2 hierarchy; however, for the
2568legacy hierarchies, this may be unexpected.
2569
2570A cgroup namespace is alive as long as there are processes inside or
2571mounts pinning it. When the last usage goes away, the cgroup
2572namespace is destroyed. The cgroupns root and the actual cgroups
2573remain.
2574
2575
633b11be
MCC
2576The Root and Views
2577------------------
d4021f6c
SH
2578
2579The 'cgroupns root' for a cgroup namespace is the cgroup in which the
2580process calling unshare(2) is running. For example, if a process in
2581/batchjobs/container_id1 cgroup calls unshare, cgroup
2582/batchjobs/container_id1 becomes the cgroupns root. For the
2583init_cgroup_ns, this is the real root ('/') cgroup.
2584
2585The cgroupns root cgroup does not change even if the namespace creator
633b11be 2586process later moves to a different cgroup::
d4021f6c
SH
2587
2588 # ~/unshare -c # unshare cgroupns in some cgroup
2589 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2590 0::/
2591 # mkdir sub_cgrp_1
2592 # echo 0 > sub_cgrp_1/cgroup.procs
2593 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2594 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2595
2596Each process gets its namespace-specific view of "/proc/$PID/cgroup"
2597
2598Processes running inside the cgroup namespace will be able to see
2599cgroup paths (in /proc/self/cgroup) only inside their root cgroup.
633b11be 2600From within an unshared cgroupns::
d4021f6c
SH
2601
2602 # sleep 100000 &
2603 [1] 7353
2604 # echo 7353 > sub_cgrp_1/cgroup.procs
2605 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2606 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2607
2608From the initial cgroup namespace, the real cgroup path will be
633b11be 2609visible::
d4021f6c
SH
2610
2611 $ cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2612 0::/batchjobs/container_id1/sub_cgrp_1
2613
2614From a sibling cgroup namespace (that is, a namespace rooted at a
2615different cgroup), the cgroup path relative to its own cgroup
2616namespace root will be shown. For instance, if PID 7353's cgroup
633b11be 2617namespace root is at '/batchjobs/container_id2', then it will see::
d4021f6c
SH
2618
2619 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2620 0::/../container_id2/sub_cgrp_1
2621
2622Note that the relative path always starts with '/' to indicate that
2623its relative to the cgroup namespace root of the caller.
2624
2625
633b11be
MCC
2626Migration and setns(2)
2627----------------------
d4021f6c
SH
2628
2629Processes inside a cgroup namespace can move into and out of the
2630namespace root if they have proper access to external cgroups. For
2631example, from inside a namespace with cgroupns root at
2632/batchjobs/container_id1, and assuming that the global hierarchy is
633b11be 2633still accessible inside cgroupns::
d4021f6c
SH
2634
2635 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2636 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2637 # echo 7353 > batchjobs/container_id2/cgroup.procs
2638 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2639 0::/../container_id2
2640
2641Note that this kind of setup is not encouraged. A task inside cgroup
2642namespace should only be exposed to its own cgroupns hierarchy.
2643
2644setns(2) to another cgroup namespace is allowed when:
2645
2646(a) the process has CAP_SYS_ADMIN against its current user namespace
2647(b) the process has CAP_SYS_ADMIN against the target cgroup
2648 namespace's userns
2649
2650No implicit cgroup changes happen with attaching to another cgroup
2651namespace. It is expected that the someone moves the attaching
2652process under the target cgroup namespace root.
2653
2654
633b11be
MCC
2655Interaction with Other Namespaces
2656---------------------------------
d4021f6c
SH
2657
2658Namespace specific cgroup hierarchy can be mounted by a process
633b11be 2659running inside a non-init cgroup namespace::
d4021f6c
SH
2660
2661 # mount -t cgroup2 none $MOUNT_POINT
2662
2663This will mount the unified cgroup hierarchy with cgroupns root as the
2664filesystem root. The process needs CAP_SYS_ADMIN against its user and
2665mount namespaces.
2666
2667The virtualization of /proc/self/cgroup file combined with restricting
2668the view of cgroup hierarchy by namespace-private cgroupfs mount
2669provides a properly isolated cgroup view inside the container.
2670
2671
633b11be
MCC
2672Information on Kernel Programming
2673=================================
6c292092
TH
2674
2675This section contains kernel programming information in the areas
2676where interacting with cgroup is necessary. cgroup core and
2677controllers are not covered.
2678
2679
633b11be
MCC
2680Filesystem Support for Writeback
2681--------------------------------
6c292092
TH
2682
2683A filesystem can support cgroup writeback by updating
2684address_space_operations->writepage[s]() to annotate bio's using the
2685following two functions.
2686
2687 wbc_init_bio(@wbc, @bio)
6c292092 2688 Should be called for each bio carrying writeback data and
fd42df30
DZ
2689 associates the bio with the inode's owner cgroup and the
2690 corresponding request queue. This must be called after
2691 a queue (device) has been associated with the bio and
2692 before submission.
6c292092 2693
34e51a5e 2694 wbc_account_cgroup_owner(@wbc, @page, @bytes)
6c292092
TH
2695 Should be called for each data segment being written out.
2696 While this function doesn't care exactly when it's called
2697 during the writeback session, it's the easiest and most
2698 natural to call it as data segments are added to a bio.
2699
2700With writeback bio's annotated, cgroup support can be enabled per
2701super_block by setting SB_I_CGROUPWB in ->s_iflags. This allows for
2702selective disabling of cgroup writeback support which is helpful when
2703certain filesystem features, e.g. journaled data mode, are
2704incompatible.
2705
2706wbc_init_bio() binds the specified bio to its cgroup. Depending on
2707the configuration, the bio may be executed at a lower priority and if
2708the writeback session is holding shared resources, e.g. a journal
2709entry, may lead to priority inversion. There is no one easy solution
2710for the problem. Filesystems can try to work around specific problem
fd42df30 2711cases by skipping wbc_init_bio() and using bio_associate_blkg()
6c292092
TH
2712directly.
2713
2714
633b11be
MCC
2715Deprecated v1 Core Features
2716===========================
6c292092
TH
2717
2718- Multiple hierarchies including named ones are not supported.
2719
5136f636 2720- All v1 mount options are not supported.
6c292092
TH
2721
2722- The "tasks" file is removed and "cgroup.procs" is not sorted.
2723
2724- "cgroup.clone_children" is removed.
2725
2726- /proc/cgroups is meaningless for v2. Use "cgroup.controllers" file
2727 at the root instead.
2728
2729
633b11be
MCC
2730Issues with v1 and Rationales for v2
2731====================================
6c292092 2732
633b11be
MCC
2733Multiple Hierarchies
2734--------------------
6c292092
TH
2735
2736cgroup v1 allowed an arbitrary number of hierarchies and each
2737hierarchy could host any number of controllers. While this seemed to
2738provide a high level of flexibility, it wasn't useful in practice.
2739
2740For example, as there is only one instance of each controller, utility
2741type controllers such as freezer which can be useful in all
2742hierarchies could only be used in one. The issue is exacerbated by
2743the fact that controllers couldn't be moved to another hierarchy once
2744hierarchies were populated. Another issue was that all controllers
2745bound to a hierarchy were forced to have exactly the same view of the
2746hierarchy. It wasn't possible to vary the granularity depending on
2747the specific controller.
2748
2749In practice, these issues heavily limited which controllers could be
2750put on the same hierarchy and most configurations resorted to putting
2751each controller on its own hierarchy. Only closely related ones, such
2752as the cpu and cpuacct controllers, made sense to be put on the same
2753hierarchy. This often meant that userland ended up managing multiple
2754similar hierarchies repeating the same steps on each hierarchy
2755whenever a hierarchy management operation was necessary.
2756
2757Furthermore, support for multiple hierarchies came at a steep cost.
2758It greatly complicated cgroup core implementation but more importantly
2759the support for multiple hierarchies restricted how cgroup could be
2760used in general and what controllers was able to do.
2761
2762There was no limit on how many hierarchies there might be, which meant
2763that a thread's cgroup membership couldn't be described in finite
2764length. The key might contain any number of entries and was unlimited
2765in length, which made it highly awkward to manipulate and led to
2766addition of controllers which existed only to identify membership,
2767which in turn exacerbated the original problem of proliferating number
2768of hierarchies.
2769
2770Also, as a controller couldn't have any expectation regarding the
2771topologies of hierarchies other controllers might be on, each
2772controller had to assume that all other controllers were attached to
2773completely orthogonal hierarchies. This made it impossible, or at
2774least very cumbersome, for controllers to cooperate with each other.
2775
2776In most use cases, putting controllers on hierarchies which are
2777completely orthogonal to each other isn't necessary. What usually is
2778called for is the ability to have differing levels of granularity
2779depending on the specific controller. In other words, hierarchy may
2780be collapsed from leaf towards root when viewed from specific
2781controllers. For example, a given configuration might not care about
2782how memory is distributed beyond a certain level while still wanting
2783to control how CPU cycles are distributed.
2784
2785
633b11be
MCC
2786Thread Granularity
2787------------------
6c292092
TH
2788
2789cgroup v1 allowed threads of a process to belong to different cgroups.
2790This didn't make sense for some controllers and those controllers
2791ended up implementing different ways to ignore such situations but
2792much more importantly it blurred the line between API exposed to
2793individual applications and system management interface.
2794
2795Generally, in-process knowledge is available only to the process
2796itself; thus, unlike service-level organization of processes,
2797categorizing threads of a process requires active participation from
2798the application which owns the target process.
2799
2800cgroup v1 had an ambiguously defined delegation model which got abused
2801in combination with thread granularity. cgroups were delegated to
2802individual applications so that they can create and manage their own
2803sub-hierarchies and control resource distributions along them. This
2804effectively raised cgroup to the status of a syscall-like API exposed
2805to lay programs.
2806
2807First of all, cgroup has a fundamentally inadequate interface to be
2808exposed this way. For a process to access its own knobs, it has to
2809extract the path on the target hierarchy from /proc/self/cgroup,
2810construct the path by appending the name of the knob to the path, open
2811and then read and/or write to it. This is not only extremely clunky
2812and unusual but also inherently racy. There is no conventional way to
2813define transaction across the required steps and nothing can guarantee
2814that the process would actually be operating on its own sub-hierarchy.
2815
2816cgroup controllers implemented a number of knobs which would never be
2817accepted as public APIs because they were just adding control knobs to
2818system-management pseudo filesystem. cgroup ended up with interface
2819knobs which were not properly abstracted or refined and directly
2820revealed kernel internal details. These knobs got exposed to
2821individual applications through the ill-defined delegation mechanism
2822effectively abusing cgroup as a shortcut to implementing public APIs
2823without going through the required scrutiny.
2824
2825This was painful for both userland and kernel. Userland ended up with
2826misbehaving and poorly abstracted interfaces and kernel exposing and
2827locked into constructs inadvertently.
2828
2829
633b11be
MCC
2830Competition Between Inner Nodes and Threads
2831-------------------------------------------
6c292092
TH
2832
2833cgroup v1 allowed threads to be in any cgroups which created an
2834interesting problem where threads belonging to a parent cgroup and its
2835children cgroups competed for resources. This was nasty as two
2836different types of entities competed and there was no obvious way to
2837settle it. Different controllers did different things.
2838
2839The cpu controller considered threads and cgroups as equivalents and
2840mapped nice levels to cgroup weights. This worked for some cases but
2841fell flat when children wanted to be allocated specific ratios of CPU
2842cycles and the number of internal threads fluctuated - the ratios
2843constantly changed as the number of competing entities fluctuated.
2844There also were other issues. The mapping from nice level to weight
2845wasn't obvious or universal, and there were various other knobs which
2846simply weren't available for threads.
2847
2848The io controller implicitly created a hidden leaf node for each
2849cgroup to host the threads. The hidden leaf had its own copies of all
633b11be 2850the knobs with ``leaf_`` prefixed. While this allowed equivalent
6c292092
TH
2851control over internal threads, it was with serious drawbacks. It
2852always added an extra layer of nesting which wouldn't be necessary
2853otherwise, made the interface messy and significantly complicated the
2854implementation.
2855
2856The memory controller didn't have a way to control what happened
2857between internal tasks and child cgroups and the behavior was not
2858clearly defined. There were attempts to add ad-hoc behaviors and
2859knobs to tailor the behavior to specific workloads which would have
2860led to problems extremely difficult to resolve in the long term.
2861
2862Multiple controllers struggled with internal tasks and came up with
2863different ways to deal with it; unfortunately, all the approaches were
2864severely flawed and, furthermore, the widely different behaviors
2865made cgroup as a whole highly inconsistent.
2866
2867This clearly is a problem which needs to be addressed from cgroup core
2868in a uniform way.
2869
2870
633b11be
MCC
2871Other Interface Issues
2872----------------------
6c292092
TH
2873
2874cgroup v1 grew without oversight and developed a large number of
2875idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. One issue on the cgroup core side
2876was how an empty cgroup was notified - a userland helper binary was
2877forked and executed for each event. The event delivery wasn't
2878recursive or delegatable. The limitations of the mechanism also led
2879to in-kernel event delivery filtering mechanism further complicating
2880the interface.
2881
2882Controller interfaces were problematic too. An extreme example is
2883controllers completely ignoring hierarchical organization and treating
2884all cgroups as if they were all located directly under the root
2885cgroup. Some controllers exposed a large amount of inconsistent
2886implementation details to userland.
2887
2888There also was no consistency across controllers. When a new cgroup
2889was created, some controllers defaulted to not imposing extra
2890restrictions while others disallowed any resource usage until
2891explicitly configured. Configuration knobs for the same type of
2892control used widely differing naming schemes and formats. Statistics
2893and information knobs were named arbitrarily and used different
2894formats and units even in the same controller.
2895
2896cgroup v2 establishes common conventions where appropriate and updates
2897controllers so that they expose minimal and consistent interfaces.
2898
2899
633b11be
MCC
2900Controller Issues and Remedies
2901------------------------------
6c292092 2902
633b11be
MCC
2903Memory
2904~~~~~~
6c292092
TH
2905
2906The original lower boundary, the soft limit, is defined as a limit
2907that is per default unset. As a result, the set of cgroups that
2908global reclaim prefers is opt-in, rather than opt-out. The costs for
2909optimizing these mostly negative lookups are so high that the
2910implementation, despite its enormous size, does not even provide the
2911basic desirable behavior. First off, the soft limit has no
2912hierarchical meaning. All configured groups are organized in a global
2913rbtree and treated like equal peers, regardless where they are located
2914in the hierarchy. This makes subtree delegation impossible. Second,
2915the soft limit reclaim pass is so aggressive that it not just
2916introduces high allocation latencies into the system, but also impacts
2917system performance due to overreclaim, to the point where the feature
2918becomes self-defeating.
2919
2920The memory.low boundary on the other hand is a top-down allocated
9783aa99
CD
2921reserve. A cgroup enjoys reclaim protection when it's within its
2922effective low, which makes delegation of subtrees possible. It also
2923enjoys having reclaim pressure proportional to its overage when
2924above its effective low.
6c292092
TH
2925
2926The original high boundary, the hard limit, is defined as a strict
2927limit that can not budge, even if the OOM killer has to be called.
2928But this generally goes against the goal of making the most out of the
2929available memory. The memory consumption of workloads varies during
2930runtime, and that requires users to overcommit. But doing that with a
2931strict upper limit requires either a fairly accurate prediction of the
2932working set size or adding slack to the limit. Since working set size
2933estimation is hard and error prone, and getting it wrong results in
2934OOM kills, most users tend to err on the side of a looser limit and
2935end up wasting precious resources.
2936
2937The memory.high boundary on the other hand can be set much more
2938conservatively. When hit, it throttles allocations by forcing them
2939into direct reclaim to work off the excess, but it never invokes the
2940OOM killer. As a result, a high boundary that is chosen too
2941aggressively will not terminate the processes, but instead it will
2942lead to gradual performance degradation. The user can monitor this
2943and make corrections until the minimal memory footprint that still
2944gives acceptable performance is found.
2945
2946In extreme cases, with many concurrent allocations and a complete
2947breakdown of reclaim progress within the group, the high boundary can
2948be exceeded. But even then it's mostly better to satisfy the
2949allocation from the slack available in other groups or the rest of the
2950system than killing the group. Otherwise, memory.max is there to
2951limit this type of spillover and ultimately contain buggy or even
2952malicious applications.
3e24b19d 2953
b6e6edcf
JW
2954Setting the original memory.limit_in_bytes below the current usage was
2955subject to a race condition, where concurrent charges could cause the
2956limit setting to fail. memory.max on the other hand will first set the
2957limit to prevent new charges, and then reclaim and OOM kill until the
2958new limit is met - or the task writing to memory.max is killed.
2959
3e24b19d
VD
2960The combined memory+swap accounting and limiting is replaced by real
2961control over swap space.
2962
2963The main argument for a combined memory+swap facility in the original
2964cgroup design was that global or parental pressure would always be
2965able to swap all anonymous memory of a child group, regardless of the
2966child's own (possibly untrusted) configuration. However, untrusted
2967groups can sabotage swapping by other means - such as referencing its
2968anonymous memory in a tight loop - and an admin can not assume full
2969swappability when overcommitting untrusted jobs.
2970
2971For trusted jobs, on the other hand, a combined counter is not an
2972intuitive userspace interface, and it flies in the face of the idea
2973that cgroup controllers should account and limit specific physical
2974resources. Swap space is a resource like all others in the system,
2975and that's why unified hierarchy allows distributing it separately.