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From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: "Moussa A. Ba" <moussa.a.ba@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rientjes@google.com,
	xiyou.wangcong@gmail.com, adobriyan@gmail.com, mpm@selenic.com,
	mel@csn.ul.ie, yinghan@google.com, npiggin@suse.de,
	jaredeh@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] pagemap clear_refs: modify to specify anon or mapped vma clearing
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:52:45 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20090728165245.65d5cb23.akpm@linux-foundation.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4A6F8115.7000500@gmail.com>

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:52:05 -0700
"Moussa A. Ba" <moussa.a.ba@gmail.com> wrote:

> This patch adds anonymous and file backed filters to the clear_refs interface.
> echo 1 > /proc/PID/clear_refs resets the bits on all pages
> echo 2 > /proc/PID/clear_refs resets the bits on anonymous pages only
> echo 3 > /proc/PID/clear_refs resets the bits on file backed pages only
> Any other value is ignored

The changelog is missing any rationale for making this change. 
Originally we were told that it "makes the clear_refs proc interface a
bit more versatile", but that's a bit thin.

How do we justify making this change to Linux?  What value does it
have?  Can you describe a usage scenario which would help people
understand the usefulness of the change?

Thanks.

  reply	other threads:[~2009-07-28 23:54 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-07-24  3:57 [PATCH 1/1] pagemap clear_refs: modify to specify anon or mapped vma clearing Moussa A. Ba
2009-07-24  8:39 ` Amerigo Wang
2009-07-24 18:00   ` Moussa Ba
2009-07-27 20:19   ` Moussa A. Ba
2009-07-27 20:30     ` Matt Mackall
2009-07-27 20:57     ` David Rientjes
2009-07-27 22:14       ` Moussa Ba
2009-07-27 22:20         ` Matt Mackall
2009-07-27 22:49         ` David Rientjes
2009-07-27 23:38           ` Moussa Ba
2009-07-27 23:42             ` Moussa Ba
2009-07-27 23:58             ` David Rientjes
2009-07-28  3:24               ` Amerigo Wang
2009-07-28 16:44               ` Moussa A. Ba
2009-07-28 21:01                 ` David Rientjes
2009-07-28 22:52                   ` Moussa A. Ba
2009-07-28 23:52                     ` Andrew Morton [this message]
2009-07-29  0:00                       ` Moussa Ba
2009-07-29 14:58                         ` Mel Gorman
2009-07-29 16:41                           ` Matt Mackall
2009-07-30 19:21                           ` Moussa Ba

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