Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] fadump: reduce memory consumption for capture kernel
From: Hari Bathini <hidden>
Date: 2017-04-07 17:42:15
Hi Michael, On Friday 07 April 2017 07:16 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:
Hari Bathini [off-list ref] writes:quoted
On Friday 07 April 2017 07:24 AM, Michael Ellerman wrote:quoted
My preference would be that the fadump kernel "just works". If it's using too much memory then the fadump kernel should do whatever it needs to use less memory, eg. shrinking nr_cpu_ids etc. Do we actually know *why* the fadump kernel is running out of memory? Obviously large numbers of CPUs is one of the main drivers (lots of stacks required). But other than that what is causing the memory pressure? I would like some data on that before we proceed.Almost the same amount of memory in comparison with the memory required to boot the production kernel but that is unwarranted for fadump (dump capture) kernel.That's not data! :)
I am collating the data. Sorry! I should have mentioned it :)
The dump kernel is booted with *much* less memory than the production kernel (that's the whole issue!) and so it doesn't need to create struct pages for all that memory, which means it should need less memory.
What I meant was, if we were to boot production kernel with mem=X, where X is the smallest possible value to boot the kernel without resulting in an OOM, fadump needed nearly the same amount to be reserved for it to capture dump without hitting an OOM. But this was an observation on system with not so much memory. Will try on a system with large memory and report back with data..
The vfs caches are also sized based on the available memory, so they should also shrink in the dump kernel. I want some actual numbers on what's driving the memory usage. I tried some of these parameters to see how much memory they would save:quoted
So, if parameters like cgroup_disable=memory,0 bytes saved.
Interesting.. was CONFIG_MEMCG set on the kernel?
quoted
transparent_hugepages=never,0 bytes saved.
Not surprising unless transparent hugepages were used
quoted
numa=off,64KB saved.
In the memory starved dump capture environment, every byte counts, I guess :) Also, depends on the numa config?
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
quoted
nr_cpus=1,3MB saved (vs 16 CPUs) Now maybe on your system those do save memory for some reason, but please prove it to me. Otherwise I'm inclined to merge:diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c index 8ff0dd4e77a7..03f1f253c372 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c@@ -79,8 +79,10 @@ int __init early_init_dt_scan_fw_dump(unsigned long node, * dump data waiting for us. */ fdm_active = of_get_flat_dt_prop(node, "ibm,kernel-dump", NULL); - if (fdm_active) + if (fdm_active) { fw_dump.dump_active = 1; + nr_cpu_ids = 1; + } /* Get the sizes required to store dump data for the firmware provided * dump sections.
Necessary but not sufficient is the point I am trying to make. Apparently not convincing enough. Will try and come back with relevant data :) Thanks Hari