Re: Hibernation considerations

[Nigel Cunningham <nigel@nigel.suspend2.net>]

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Hi.

On Sunday 15 July 2007 22:33:32 Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Since many alternative approaches to hibernation are now being considered 
and
> discussed, I thought it might be a good idea to list some things that in my 
not
> so humble opinion should be taken care of by any hibernation framework.  
They
> are listed below, not in any particular order, because I think they all are
> important.  Still, I might have forgotten something, so everyone with
> experience in implementing hibernation, especially Pavel and Nigel, please
> check if the list is complete.
> 
> (1) Filesystems mounted before the hibernation are untouchable
> 
>     When there's a memory snapshot, either in the form of a hibernation 
image,
>     or in the form of the "old" kernel and processes available to the "new"
>     kexeced kernel responsible for saving their memory, the filesystems 
mounted
>     before the hibernation should not be accessed, even for reading, because
>     that would cause their on-disk state to be inconsistent with the 
snapshot
>     and might lead to a filesystem corruption.
> 
> (2) Swap space in use before the hibernation must be handled with care
> 
>     If swap space is used for saving the memory snapshot, the 
snapshot-saving
>     application (or kernel) must be careful enough not to overwrite swap 
pages
>     that contain valid memory contents stored in there before the 
hibernation.
> 
> (3) There are memory regions that must not be saved or restored
> 
>     Some memory regions contain data that shouldn't be overwritten during 
the
>     restore, because that might lead to the system not working correctly
>     afterwards.  Also, on some systems there are valid 'struct pages'
>     structures that in fact corresond to memory holes and we should not 
attempt
>     to save those pages.
> 
> (4) The user should be able to limit the size of a hibernation image
> 
>     There are a couple of reasons of that.  For example, the storage space
>     used for saving the image may be smaller than the entire RAM or the user
>     may want the image to be saved quickier.
> 
> (5) Hibernation should be transparent from the applications' point of view
> 
>     Generally, applications should not notice that hibernation took place.
>     [Note that I don't regard all processes as applications and I think that
>     there may be processes which need to handle the hibernation in a special
>     way.]  Ideally, for example, if some audio is being played when a
>     hibernation starts, the audio player should be able to continue playing 
the
>     same audio after the restore from the point in which it has been
>     interrupted by the hibernation.  Also, the CPU affinities and similar
>     settings requested by the applications before a hibernation should be
>     binding after the restore.
> 
> (6) State of devices from before hibernation should be restored, if possible
> 
>     If possible, during a restore devices should be brought back to the same
>     state in which they were before the corresponding hibernation.  Of 
course
>     in some situations it might be impossible to do that (eg. the user
>     connected the hibernated system to a different IP subnet and then
>     restored), but as a general rule, we should do our best to restore the
>     state of devices, which is directly related to point (5) above.
> 
> (7) On ACPI systems special platform-related actions have to be carried out 
at
>     the right points, so that the platform works correctly after the restore
> 
>     The ACPI specification requires us to invoke some global ACPI methods
>     during the hibernation and during the restore.  Moreover, the ordering 
of
>     code related to these ACPI methods may not be arbitrary (eg. some of
>     them have to be executed after devices are put into low power states 
etc.).
> 
> (8) Hibernation and restore should not be too slow
> 
>     In my opinion, if more than one minute is needed to hibernate the system
>     with the help of certain hibernation framework, then this framework is 
not
>     very useful in practice.  It might be useful to perform some special 
tasks
>     (eg. moving a server to another place without taking it down), but it is
>     not very useful, for example, to notebook users.
> 
> (9) Hibernation framework should not be too difficult to set up
> 
>     It follows from my experience that if the users are required to do too 
much
>     work to set up a hibernation framework, they will not use it as long as
>     there are simpler alternatives (some of them will not use hibernation at
>     all if it's too difficult to get to work).  On the other hand, if the 
users
>     are provided with a working hibernation framework by their distribution
>     and they find it useful, they are not likely to use kernel.org kernels 
if
>     t's too difficult to replace the distribution kernel with a generic one 
due
>     to the hibernation framework's requirements.
> 
> All of the existing hibernation frameworks have been written with the above
> points in mind and that's why they are what they are.  In particular, the
> existence of the tasks freezer, hated by some people to the point of 
insanity,
> follows directly from points (1), (4) and (5).
> 
> In my opinion any hibernation framework that doesn't take the above
> requirements into account in any way will be a failure.  Moreover, the 
existing
> frameworks fail to follow some of them too, so I consider all of these
> frameworks as a work in progress.  For this reason, I will much more 
appreciate
> ideas allowing us to improve the existing frameworks in a more or less
> evolutionary way, then attempts to replace them all with something entirely
> new.

Sounds good to me. Nothing extra occurs immediately.

Regards,

Nigel
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