4. Questions
1. Control Groups
-==========
+=================
1.1 What are cgroups ?
----------------------
Also lets say that the administrator would like to give enhanced network
access temporarily to a student's browser (since it is night and the user
-wants to do online gaming :) OR give one of the students simulation
+wants to do online gaming :)) OR give one of the students simulation
apps enhanced CPU power,
-With ability to write pids directly to resource classes, its just a
+With ability to write pids directly to resource classes, it's just a
matter of :
# echo pid > /mnt/network/<new_class>/tasks
containing the following files describing that cgroup:
- tasks: list of tasks (by pid) attached to that cgroup
- - notify_on_release flag: run /sbin/cgroup_release_agent on exit?
+ - releasable flag: cgroup currently removeable?
+ - notify_on_release flag: run the release agent on exit?
+ - release_agent: the path to use for release notifications (this file
+ exists in the top cgroup only)
Other subsystems such as cpusets may add additional files in each
-cgroup dir
+cgroup dir.
New cgroups are created using the mkdir system call or shell
command. The properties of a cgroup, such as its flags, are
To allow access from a cgroup to the css_sets (and hence tasks)
that comprise it, a set of cg_cgroup_link objects form a lattice;
each cg_cgroup_link is linked into a list of cg_cgroup_links for
-a single cgroup on its cont_link_list field, and a list of
+a single cgroup on its cgrp_link_list field, and a list of
cg_cgroup_links for a single css_set on its cg_link_list.
Thus the set of tasks in a cgroup can be listed by iterating over
1.4 What does notify_on_release do ?
------------------------------------
-*** notify_on_release is disabled in the current patch set. It will be
-*** reactivated in a future patch in a less-intrusive manner
-
If the notify_on_release flag is enabled (1) in a cgroup, then
whenever the last task in the cgroup leaves (exits or attaches to
some other cgroup) and the last child cgroup of that cgroup
In this directory you can find several files:
# ls
-notify_on_release release_agent tasks
-(plus whatever files are added by the attached subsystems)
+notify_on_release releasable tasks
+(plus whatever files added by the attached subsystems)
Now attach your shell to this cgroup:
# /bin/echo $$ > tasks
Other fields in the cgroup_subsys object include:
- subsys_id: a unique array index for the subsystem, indicating which
- entry in cgroup->subsys[] this subsystem should be
- managing. Initialized by cgroup_register_subsys(); prior to this
- it should be initialized to -1
+ entry in cgroup->subsys[] this subsystem should be managing.
-- hierarchy: an index indicating which hierarchy, if any, this
- subsystem is currently attached to. If this is -1, then the
- subsystem is not attached to any hierarchy, and all tasks should be
- considered to be members of the subsystem's top_cgroup. It should
- be initialized to -1.
+- name: should be initialized to a unique subsystem name. Should be
+ no longer than MAX_CGROUP_TYPE_NAMELEN.
-- name: should be initialized to a unique subsystem name prior to
- calling cgroup_register_subsystem. Should be no longer than
- MAX_CGROUP_TYPE_NAMELEN
+- early_init: indicate if the subsystem needs early initialization
+ at system boot.
Each cgroup object created by the system has an array of pointers,
indexed by subsystem id; this pointer is entirely managed by the
See kernel/cgroup.c for more details.
Subsystems can take/release the cgroup_mutex via the functions
-cgroup_lock()/cgroup_unlock(), and can
-take/release the callback_mutex via the functions
cgroup_lock()/cgroup_unlock().
Accessing a task's cgroup pointer may be done in the following ways:
- inside an rcu_read_lock() section via rcu_dereference()
3.3 Subsystem API
---------------------------
+-----------------
Each subsystem should:
methods are create/destroy. Any others that are null are presumed to
be successful no-ops.
-struct cgroup_subsys_state *create(struct cgroup *cont)
+struct cgroup_subsys_state *create(struct cgroup_subsys *ss,
+ struct cgroup *cgrp)
(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
Called to create a subsystem state object for a cgroup. The
it's the root of the hierarchy) and may be an appropriate place for
initialization code.
-void destroy(struct cgroup *cont)
+void destroy(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp)
(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
The cgroup system is about to destroy the passed cgroup; the subsystem
newly-created cgroup if an error occurs after this subsystem's
create() method has been called for the new cgroup).
-int can_attach(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cont,
+void pre_destroy(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp);
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called before checking the reference count on each subsystem. This may
+be useful for subsystems which have some extra references even if
+there are not tasks in the cgroup.
+
+int can_attach(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp,
struct task_struct *task)
(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
called on a fork. If this method returns 0 (success) then this should
remain valid while the caller holds cgroup_mutex.
-void attach(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cont,
- struct cgroup *old_cont, struct task_struct *task)
+void attach(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp,
+ struct cgroup *old_cgrp, struct task_struct *task)
Called after the task has been attached to the cgroup, to allow any
post-attachment activity that requires memory allocations or blocking.
void exit(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct task_struct *task)
-Called during task exit
+Called during task exit.
-int populate(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cont)
+int populate(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp)
Called after creation of a cgroup to allow a subsystem to populate
the cgroup directory with file entries. The subsystem should make
method can return an error code, the error code is currently not
always handled well.
-void post_clone(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cont)
+void post_clone(struct cgroup_subsys *ss, struct cgroup *cgrp)
Called at the end of cgroup_clone() to do any paramater
initialization which might be required before a task could attach. For