Re: [PATCH 2.6.14-rc2] fix incorrect mm->hiwater_vm and mm->hiwater_rss

[Jay Lan <jlan@engr.sgi.com>]

Hugh Dickins wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005, Jay Lan wrote:
> 
>>Hugh Dickins wrote:
>>
>>>4. If you've noticed a regression, you must be one of the elite that
>>>knows
>>>what these counters are used for: nothing in the kernel.org tree does.
>>>Please add a comment saying what it is that uses them and how, so
>>>developers can make better judgements about how best to maintain them.
>>>
>>>5. Please add appropriate CONFIG, dummy macros etc., so that no time
>>>is wasted on these updates in all the vanilla systems which have no
>>>interest in them - but maybe Christoph already has that well in hand.
>>
>>It is used in enhanced system accounting. An obvious CONFIG would be
>>CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT.
>>
>>However, since the CONFIG flag is almost always Yes, people would need
>>to turn it off if they do not want system accounting. Would that be
>>OK?
> 
> 
> Christoph will know the issue better than I.  But I'd say no, that's
> not OK.  You have some out of tree "enhanced system accounting" which
> has been granted the privilege of hooks within the mainline kernel:
> they should be disabled unless a CONFIG option is switched on, which
> your accounting patch can do.  And the (mainline) Kconfig help entry
> for that CONFIG option should point us to the source of your package.

It is not really an issue of out-of-tree accounting package. The
system accounting is based on very old technology and needs improvement.
The issue we face is not an issue of one particular accounting package.

I think the best approach would be to wrap the mm usage accounting
in a new CONFIG_ENHANCED_SYS_ACCT and leave it OFF by default so that
people can still get the minimal accounting with
CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT.

- jay

> 
> Hugh
> -
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