[PATCH v6 37/37] memprofiling: Documentation

Suren Baghdasaryan
2024-03-21T16:38:30Z

From: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@linux.dev>

Provide documentation for memory allocation profiling.

Signed-off-by: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@linux.dev>
Signed-off-by: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
---
Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst | 100 ++++++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/mm/index.rst | 1 +
2 files changed, 101 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst b/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d3b733b41ae6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+===========================
+MEMORY ALLOCATION PROFILING
+===========================
+
+Low overhead (suitable for production) accounting of all memory allocations,
+tracked by file and line number.
+
+Usage:
+kconfig options:
+- CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING
+
+- CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT
+
+- CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING_DEBUG
+ adds warnings for allocations that weren't accounted because of a
+ missing annotation
+
+Boot parameter:
+ sysctl.vm.mem_profiling=0|1|never
+
+ When set to "never", memory allocation profiling overhead is minimized and it
+ cannot be enabled at runtime (sysctl becomes read-only).
+ When CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT=y, default value is "1".
+ When CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT=n, default value is "never".
+
+sysctl:
+ /proc/sys/vm/mem_profiling
+
+Runtime info:
+ /proc/allocinfo
+
+Example output::
+
+ root@moria-kvm:~# sort -g /proc/allocinfo|tail|numfmt --to=iec
+ 2.8M 22648 fs/kernfs/dir.c:615 func:__kernfs_new_node
+ 3.8M 953 mm/memory.c:4214 func:alloc_anon_folio
+ 4.0M 1010 drivers/staging/ctagmod/ctagmod.c:20 [ctagmod] func:ctagmod_start
+ 4.1M 4 net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_core.c:2567 func:nf_ct_alloc_hashtable
+ 6.0M 1532 mm/filemap.c:1919 func:__filemap_get_folio
+ 8.8M 2785 kernel/fork.c:307 func:alloc_thread_stack_node
+ 13M 234 block/blk-mq.c:3421 func:blk_mq_alloc_rqs
+ 14M 3520 mm/mm_init.c:2530 func:alloc_large_system_hash
+ 15M 3656 mm/readahead.c:247 func:page_cache_ra_unbounded
+ 55M 4887 mm/slub.c:2259 func:alloc_slab_page
+ 122M 31168 mm/page_ext.c:270 func:alloc_page_ext
+
+===================
+Theory of operation
+===================
+
+Memory allocation profiling builds off of code tagging, which is a library for
+declaring static structs (that typically describe a file and line number in
+some way, hence code tagging) and then finding and operating on them at runtime,
+- i.e. iterating over them to print them in debugfs/procfs.
+
+To add accounting for an allocation call, we replace it with a macro
+invocation, alloc_hooks(), that
+- declares a code tag
+- stashes a pointer to it in task_struct
+- calls the real allocation function
+- and finally, restores the task_struct alloc tag pointer to its previous value.
+
+This allows for alloc_hooks() calls to be nested, with the most recent one
+taking effect. This is important for allocations internal to the mm/ code that
+do not properly belong to the outer allocation context and should be counted
+separately: for example, slab object extension vectors, or when the slab
+allocates pages from the page allocator.
+
+Thus, proper usage requires determining which function in an allocation call
+stack should be tagged. There are many helper functions that essentially wrap
+e.g. kmalloc() and do a little more work, then are called in multiple places;
+we'll generally want the accounting to happen in the callers of these helpers,
+not in the helpers themselves.
+
+To fix up a given helper, for example foo(), do the following:
+- switch its allocation call to the _noprof() version, e.g. kmalloc_noprof()
+
+- rename it to foo_noprof()
+
+- define a macro version of foo() like so:
+
+ #define foo(...) alloc_hooks(foo_noprof(__VA_ARGS__))
+
+It's also possible to stash a pointer to an alloc tag in your own data structures.
+
+Do this when you're implementing a generic data structure that does allocations
+"on behalf of" some other code - for example, the rhashtable code. This way,
+instead of seeing a large line in /proc/allocinfo for rhashtable.c, we can
+break it out by rhashtable type.
+
+To do so:
+- Hook your data structure's init function, like any other allocation function.
+
+- Within your init function, use the convenience macro alloc_tag_record() to
+ record alloc tag in your data structure.
+
+- Then, use the following form for your allocations:
+ alloc_hooks_tag(ht->your_saved_tag, kmalloc_noprof(...))
diff --git a/Documentation/mm/index.rst b/Documentation/mm/index.rst
index 31d2ac306438..48b9b559ca7b 100644
--- a/Documentation/mm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/mm/index.rst
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ see the :doc:`admin guide <../admin-guide/mm/index>`.
page_cache
shmfs
oom
+ allocation-profiling

Legacy Documentation
====================
--
2.44.0.291.gc1ea87d7ee-goog