docs/vm: ksm: split userspace interface to admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst

Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

2 files changed, 190 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
index 6c8b554464bb..ad28644fee35 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ the Linux memory management.
 
    hugetlbpage
    idle_page_tracking
+   ksm
    pagemap
    soft-dirty
    userfaultfd
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..9303786632d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/ksm.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,189 @@
+.. _admin_guide_ksm:
+
+=======================
+Kernel Samepage Merging
+=======================
+
+Overview
+========
+
+KSM is a memory-saving de-duplication feature, enabled by CONFIG_KSM=y,
+added to the Linux kernel in 2.6.32.  See ``mm/ksm.c`` for its implementation,
+and http://lwn.net/Articles/306704/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/330589/
+
+KSM was originally developed for use with KVM (where it was known as
+Kernel Shared Memory), to fit more virtual machines into physical memory,
+by sharing the data common between them.  But it can be useful to any
+application which generates many instances of the same data.
+
+The KSM daemon ksmd periodically scans those areas of user memory
+which have been registered with it, looking for pages of identical
+content which can be replaced by a single write-protected page (which
+is automatically copied if a process later wants to update its
+content). The amount of pages that KSM daemon scans in a single pass
+and the time between the passes are configured using :ref:`sysfs
+intraface <ksm_sysfs>`
+
+KSM only merges anonymous (private) pages, never pagecache (file) pages.
+KSM's merged pages were originally locked into kernel memory, but can now
+be swapped out just like other user pages (but sharing is broken when they
+are swapped back in: ksmd must rediscover their identity and merge again).
+
+Controlling KSM with madvise
+============================
+
+KSM only operates on those areas of address space which an application
+has advised to be likely candidates for merging, by using the madvise(2)
+system call::
+
+	int madvise(addr, length, MADV_MERGEABLE)
+
+The app may call
+
+::
+
+	int madvise(addr, length, MADV_UNMERGEABLE)
+
+to cancel that advice and restore unshared pages: whereupon KSM
+unmerges whatever it merged in that range.  Note: this unmerging call
+may suddenly require more memory than is available - possibly failing
+with EAGAIN, but more probably arousing the Out-Of-Memory killer.
+
+If KSM is not configured into the running kernel, madvise MADV_MERGEABLE
+and MADV_UNMERGEABLE simply fail with EINVAL.  If the running kernel was
+built with CONFIG_KSM=y, those calls will normally succeed: even if the
+the KSM daemon is not currently running, MADV_MERGEABLE still registers
+the range for whenever the KSM daemon is started; even if the range
+cannot contain any pages which KSM could actually merge; even if
+MADV_UNMERGEABLE is applied to a range which was never MADV_MERGEABLE.
+
+If a region of memory must be split into at least one new MADV_MERGEABLE
+or MADV_UNMERGEABLE region, the madvise may return ENOMEM if the process
+will exceed ``vm.max_map_count`` (see Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt).
+
+Like other madvise calls, they are intended for use on mapped areas of
+the user address space: they will report ENOMEM if the specified range
+includes unmapped gaps (though working on the intervening mapped areas),
+and might fail with EAGAIN if not enough memory for internal structures.
+
+Applications should be considerate in their use of MADV_MERGEABLE,
+restricting its use to areas likely to benefit.  KSM's scans may use a lot
+of processing power: some installations will disable KSM for that reason.
+
+.. _ksm_sysfs:
+
+KSM daemon sysfs interface
+==========================
+
+The KSM daemon is controlled by sysfs files in ``/sys/kernel/mm/ksm/``,
+readable by all but writable only by root:
+
+pages_to_scan
+        how many pages to scan before ksmd goes to sleep
+        e.g. ``echo 100 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/pages_to_scan``.
+
+        Default: 100 (chosen for demonstration purposes)
+
+sleep_millisecs
+        how many milliseconds ksmd should sleep before next scan
+        e.g. ``echo 20 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/sleep_millisecs``
+
+        Default: 20 (chosen for demonstration purposes)
+
+merge_across_nodes
+        specifies if pages from different NUMA nodes can be merged.
+        When set to 0, ksm merges only pages which physically reside
+        in the memory area of same NUMA node. That brings lower
+        latency to access of shared pages. Systems with more nodes, at
+        significant NUMA distances, are likely to benefit from the
+        lower latency of setting 0. Smaller systems, which need to
+        minimize memory usage, are likely to benefit from the greater
+        sharing of setting 1 (default). You may wish to compare how
+        your system performs under each setting, before deciding on
+        which to use. ``merge_across_nodes`` setting can be changed only
+        when there are no ksm shared pages in the system: set run 2 to
+        unmerge pages first, then to 1 after changing
+        ``merge_across_nodes``, to remerge according to the new setting.
+
+        Default: 1 (merging across nodes as in earlier releases)
+
+run
+        * set to 0 to stop ksmd from running but keep merged pages,
+        * set to 1 to run ksmd e.g. ``echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/run``,
+        * set to 2 to stop ksmd and unmerge all pages currently merged, but
+	  leave mergeable areas registered for next run.
+
+        Default: 0 (must be changed to 1 to activate KSM, except if
+        CONFIG_SYSFS is disabled)
+
+use_zero_pages
+        specifies whether empty pages (i.e. allocated pages that only
+        contain zeroes) should be treated specially.  When set to 1,
+        empty pages are merged with the kernel zero page(s) instead of
+        with each other as it would happen normally. This can improve
+        the performance on architectures with coloured zero pages,
+        depending on the workload. Care should be taken when enabling
+        this setting, as it can potentially degrade the performance of
+        KSM for some workloads, for example if the checksums of pages
+        candidate for merging match the checksum of an empty
+        page. This setting can be changed at any time, it is only
+        effective for pages merged after the change.
+
+        Default: 0 (normal KSM behaviour as in earlier releases)
+
+max_page_sharing
+        Maximum sharing allowed for each KSM page. This enforces a
+        deduplication limit to avoid high latency for virtual memory
+        operations that involve traversal of the virtual mappings that
+        share the KSM page. The minimum value is 2 as a newly created
+        KSM page will have at least two sharers. The higher this value
+        the faster KSM will merge the memory and the higher the
+        deduplication factor will be, but the slower the worst case
+        virtual mappings traversal could be for any given KSM
+        page. Slowing down this traversal means there will be higher
+        latency for certain virtual memory operations happening during
+        swapping, compaction, NUMA balancing and page migration, in
+        turn decreasing responsiveness for the caller of those virtual
+        memory operations. The scheduler latency of other tasks not
+        involved with the VM operations doing the virtual mappings
+        traversal is not affected by this parameter as these
+        traversals are always schedule friendly themselves.
+
+stable_node_chains_prune_millisecs
+        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/``:
+
+pages_shared
+        how many shared pages are being used
+pages_sharing
+        how many more sites are sharing them i.e. how much saved
+pages_unshared
+        how many pages unique but repeatedly checked for merging
+pages_volatile
+        how many pages changing too fast to be placed in a tree
+full_scans
+        how many times all mergeable areas have been scanned
+stable_node_chains
+        the number of KSM pages that hit the ``max_page_sharing`` limit
+stable_node_dups
+        number of duplicated KSM pages
+
+A high ratio of ``pages_sharing`` to ``pages_shared`` indicates good
+sharing, but a high ratio of ``pages_unshared`` to ``pages_sharing``
+indicates wasted effort.  ``pages_volatile`` embraces several
+different kinds of activity, but a high proportion there would also
+indicate poor use of madvise MADV_MERGEABLE.
+
+The maximum possible ``pages_sharing/pages_shared`` ratio is limited by the
+``max_page_sharing`` tunable. To increase the ratio ``max_page_sharing`` must
+be increased accordingly.
+
+--
+Izik Eidus,
+Hugh Dickins, 17 Nov 2009