Re: [v5 4/4] mm, oom, docs: describe the cgroup-aware OOM killer

David Rientjes
2017-08-14T22:52:26Z

On Mon, 14 Aug 2017, Roman Gushchin wrote:

> diff --git a/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt b/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt
> index dec5afdaa36d..22108f31e09d 100644
> --- a/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt
> @@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ v1 is available under Documentation/cgroup-v1/.
> 5-2-1. Memory Interface Files
> 5-2-2. Usage Guidelines
> 5-2-3. Memory Ownership
> + 5-2-4. Cgroup-aware OOM Killer

Random curiousness, why cgroup-aware oom killer and not memcg-aware oom
killer?

> 5-3. IO
> 5-3-1. IO Interface Files
> 5-3-2. Writeback
> @@ -1002,6 +1003,37 @@ PAGE_SIZE multiple when read back.
> high limit is used and monitored properly, this limit's
> utility is limited to providing the final safety net.
>
> + memory.oom_kill_all_tasks
> +
> + A read-write single value file which exits on non-root

s/exits/exists/

> + cgroups. The default is "0".
> +
> + Defines whether the OOM killer should treat the cgroup
> + as a single entity during the victim selection.

Isn't this true independent of the memory.oom_kill_all_tasks setting?
The cgroup aware oom killer will consider memcg's as logical units when
deciding what to kill with or without memory.oom_kill_all_tasks, right?

I think you cover this fact in the cgroup aware oom killer section below
so this might result in confusion if described alongside a setting of
memory.oom_kill_all_tasks.

> +
> + If set, OOM killer will kill all belonging tasks in
> + corresponding cgroup is selected as an OOM victim.

Maybe

"If set, the OOM killer will kill all threads attached to the memcg if
selected as an OOM victim."

is better?

> +
> + Be default, OOM killer respect /proc/pid/oom_score_adj value
> + -1000, and will never kill the task, unless oom_kill_all_tasks
> + is set.
> +
> + memory.oom_priority
> +
> + A read-write single value file which exits on non-root

s/exits/exists/

> + cgroups. The default is "0".
> +
> + An integer number within the [-10000, 10000] range,
> + which defines the order in which the OOM killer selects victim
> + memory cgroups.
> +
> + OOM killer prefers memory cgroups with larger priority if they
> + are populated with elegible tasks.

s/elegible/eligible/

> +
> + The oom_priority value is compared within sibling cgroups.
> +
> + The root cgroup has the oom_priority 0, which cannot be changed.
> +
> memory.events
> A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
> The following entries are defined. Unless specified
> @@ -1206,6 +1238,36 @@ POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED to relinquish the ownership of memory areas
> belonging to the affected files to ensure correct memory ownership.
>
>
> +Cgroup-aware OOM Killer
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> +
> +Cgroup v2 memory controller implements a cgroup-aware OOM killer.
> +It means that it treats memory cgroups as first class OOM entities.
> +
> +Under OOM conditions the memory controller tries to make the best
> +choise of a victim, hierarchically looking for the largest memory
> +consumer. By default, it will look for the biggest task in the
> +biggest leaf cgroup.
> +
> +Be default, all cgroups have oom_priority 0, and OOM killer will
> +chose the largest cgroup recursively on each level. For non-root
> +cgroups it's possible to change the oom_priority, and it will cause
> +the OOM killer to look athe the priority value first, and compare
> +sizes only of cgroups with equal priority.

Maybe some description of "largest" would be helpful here? I think you
could briefly describe what is accounted for in the decisionmaking.

s/athe/at the/

Reading through this, it makes me wonder if doing s/cgroup/memcg/ over
most of it would be better.

> +
> +But a user can change this behavior by enabling the per-cgroup
> +oom_kill_all_tasks option. If set, it causes the OOM killer treat
> +the whole cgroup as an indivisible memory consumer. In case if it's
> +selected as on OOM victim, all belonging tasks will be killed.
> +
> +Tasks in the root cgroup are treated as independent memory consumers,
> +and are compared with other memory consumers (e.g. leaf cgroups).
> +The root cgroup doesn't support the oom_kill_all_tasks feature.
> +
> +This affects both system- and cgroup-wide OOMs. For a cgroup-wide OOM
> +the memory controller considers only cgroups belonging to the sub-tree
> +of the OOM'ing cgroup.
> +
> IO
> --