From 2a695ca412943b88abde5dda0d5b6876fd154ac8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mike Rapoport Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 09:40:26 +0300 Subject: [PATCH] docs/vm: ksm: update stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs description Make the description of stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs sysfs parameter less implementation aware and add a few words about this parameter in the "Design" section. Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet --- Documentation/vm/ksm.rst | 19 +++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/vm/ksm.rst b/Documentation/vm/ksm.rst index 00961b8..18d7c71 100644 --- a/Documentation/vm/ksm.rst +++ b/Documentation/vm/ksm.rst @@ -150,14 +150,12 @@ max_page_sharing traversals are always schedule friendly themselves. stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs - How frequently to walk the whole list of stable_node "dups" - linked in the stable_node "chains" in order to prune stale - stable_nodes. Smaller milllisecs values will free up the KSM - metadata with lower latency, but they will make ksmd use more - CPU during the scan. This only applies to the stable_node - chains so it's a noop if not a single KSM page hit the - ``max_page_sharing`` yet (there would be no stable_node chains in - such case). + specifies how frequently KSM checks the metadata of the pages + that hit the deduplication limit for stale information. + Smaller milllisecs values will free up the KSM metadata with + lower latency, but they will make ksmd use more CPU during the + scan. It's a noop if not a single KSM page hit the + ``max_page_sharing`` yet. The effectiveness of KSM and MADV_MERGEABLE is shown in ``/sys/kernel/mm/ksm/``: @@ -249,6 +247,11 @@ deduplication factor at the expense of slower worst case for rmap walks for any KSM page which can happen during swapping, compaction, NUMA balancing and page migration. +The whole list of stable_node "dups" linked in the stable_node +"chains" is scanned periodically in order to prune stale stable_nodes. +The frequency of such scans is defined by +``stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs`` sysfs tunable. + Reference --------- .. kernel-doc:: mm/ksm.c -- 2.7.4