Thread (7 messages) 7 messages, 3 authors, 2012-03-05

Re: [PATCH] mm: SLAB Out-of-memory diagnostics

From: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Date: 2012-02-29 07:37:41
Also in: lkml

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012, Rafael Aquini wrote:
Following the example at mm/slub.c, add out-of-memory diagnostics to the SLAB
allocator to help on debugging OOM conditions. This patch also adds a new
sysctl, 'oom_dump_slabs_forced', that overrides the effect of __GFP_NOWARN page
allocation flag and forces the kernel to report every slab allocation failure.

An example print out looks like this:

  <snip page allocator out-of-memory message>
  SLAB: Unable to allocate memory on node 0 (gfp=0x11200)
     cache: bio-0, object size: 192, order: 0
     node0: slabs: 3/3, objs: 60/60, free: 0

Signed-off-by: Rafael Aquini <redacted>
---
 Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt |   23 ++++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/slab.h        |    2 +
 kernel/sysctl.c             |    9 +++++++
 mm/slab.c                   |   55 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 4 files changed, 88 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
No SLUB support for this?
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 96f0ee8..75bdf91 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -498,6 +498,29 @@ this is causing problems for your system/application.
 
 ==============================================================
 
+oom_dump_slabs_forced
+
+Overrides the effects of __GFP_NOWARN page allocation flag, thus forcing
+the system to print warnings about every allocation failure for the
+slab allocator, and helping on debugging certain OOM conditions.
+The print out is pretty similar, and complements data that is reported by
+the page allocator out-of-memory warning:
+
+<snip page allocator out-of-memory message>
+  SLAB: Unable to allocate memory on node 0 (gfp=0x11200)
+     cache: bio-0, object size: 192, order: 0
+     node0: slabs: 3/3, objs: 60/60, free: 0
+
+If this is set to zero, the default behavior is observed and warnings will only
+be printed out for allocation requests that didn't set the __GFP_NOWARN flag.
+
+When set to non-zero, this information is shown whenever the allocator finds
+itself failing to grant a request, regardless the __GFP_NOWARN flag status.
+
+The default value is 0 (disabled).
+
+==============================================================
+
Why do you want to add a sysctl for this? That'd be an ABI that we need to 
keep around forever.

Is there any reason we shouldn't just enable this unconditionally?

			Pekka

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in
the body to majordomo@kvack.org.  For more info on Linux MM,
see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ .
Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/
Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@kvack.org"> email@kvack.org </a>
Keyboard shortcuts
hback out one level
jnext message in thread
kprevious message in thread
ldrill in
Escclose help / fold thread tree
?toggle this help