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From: Nitin Gupta <nitingupta910@gmail.com>
To: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Cc: "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 3/3] ramzswap documentation
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:48:29 +0530	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <49C93205.2040209@vflare.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <49C92E14.5060802@vflare.org>

  Documentation/blockdev/00-INDEX     |    2 +
  Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt |   67 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
  Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt |    9 +++++
  3 files changed, 78 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

Documentation on how to use ramzswap module.

Signed-off-by: Nitin Gupta <ngupta@vflare.org>
---

diff --git a/Documentation/blockdev/00-INDEX b/Documentation/blockdev/00-INDEX
index 86f054c..8751488 100644
--- a/Documentation/blockdev/00-INDEX
+++ b/Documentation/blockdev/00-INDEX
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ README.DAC960
  	- info on Mylex DAC960/DAC1100 PCI RAID Controller Driver for Linux.
  cciss.txt
  	- info, major/minor #'s for Compaq's SMART Array Controllers.
+ramzswap.txt
+	- short guide on how to setup compressed RAM swap device.
  cpqarray.txt
  	- info on using Compaq's SMART2 Intelligent Disk Array Controllers.
  floppy.txt
diff --git a/Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt b/Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..11d48fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+ramzswap: Compressed RAM swap device
+------------------------------------
+
+Project home: http://code.google.com/p/compcache/
+
+This module creates RAM based block device (named ramzswap0) which acts
+as swap disk. Pages swapped to this disk are compressed and stored in
+memory itself.
+
+It uses these components:
+ - xvMalloc: memory allocator (xvmalloc.ko)
+ - LZO1X: de/compressor: (lzo_compress.ko, lzo_decompress.ko)
+
+Usage:
+ - modprobe ramzswap [memlimit_kb=<val>|disksize_kb=<val>] [backing_swap=<dev>]
+
+   memlimit_kb: This param is applicable only when backing_swap is given.
+	It is limit on amount compressed data stored in memory. Any
+	additional data is forwarded to backing_swap. It cannot be greater
+	than backing device size. If missing or 0, default value is used:
+	15% of RAM or backing device size, whichever is smaller.
+
+   disksize_kb: This param is applicable only when backing_swap is not given.
+	It is limit on amount of *uncompressed* worth of data stored in
+	memory. For e.g. disksize_kb=1024 means it can hold 1024kb worth of
+	uncompressed data even if this data compresses to just, say, 100kb.
+	If missing or 0, default value is used: 25% of RAM.
+
+   backing_swap: This is block device to be used as backing store for ramzswap.
+	It must be a valid swap partition. We move data to this device when we
+	encounter incompressible page or memlimit is reached. TODO: we may also
+	move some pages from ramzswap to this device in case system is really
+	low on memory.
+	This device is not directly visible to kernel as a swap device
+	(/proc/swaps will only show /dev/ramzswap0 and not this device).
+	Managing this backing device is the job of ramzswap module.
+
+Examples:
+	1) modprobe ramzswap memlimit_kb=10240 backing_swap=/dev/sda2
+	sets ramzswap limit as 10MB and /dev/sda2 as backing swap device.
+	NOTE: here /dev/sda2 is a valid swap partition.
+
+	2) modprobe ramzswap backing_swap=/dev/sda2
+	same as (1) but memlimit is set to default: 15% of RAM or size of
+	backing swap device, whichever is smaller.
+
+	3) modprobe ramzswap disksize_kb=10240
+	sets ramzswap disk size as 10MB.
+
+	4) modprobe ramzswap.ko
+	same as (3) but ramzswap disk size will be set to default:
+	25% of RAM size.
+
+	Once module is loaded, activate this swap with highest priority:
+	swapon /dev/ramzswap0 -p 100
+	(-p param set swap priority)
+
+Notes:
+ - ramzswap stats are exported via /proc/ramzswap
+ - If you give non-swap partition as backing_swap, nothing bad will happen -
+   swapon will simply fail to recognize /dev/ramzswap0 as swap partition.
+   So, in this case, unload the module and reload with correct backing_swap.
+
+Please report any problems to:
+
+Nitin Gupta
+ngupta@vflare.org
diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
index 54f21a5..90c0d87 100644
--- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -414,6 +414,15 @@ and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is defined in the file
  			possible to determine what the correct size should be.
  			This option provides an override for these situations.

+	ramzswap.memlimit_kb=
+			See Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt.
+
+	ramzswap.disksize_kb=
+			See Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt.
+
+	ramzswap.backing_swap=
+			See Documentation/blockdev/ramzswap.txt.
+
  	security=	[SECURITY] Choose a security module to enable at boot.
  			If this boot parameter is not specified, only the first
  			security module asking for security registration will be


  parent reply	other threads:[~2009-03-24 19:22 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-03-24 19:01 [PATCH 0/3] compressed in-memory swapping take3 Nitin Gupta
2009-03-24 19:11 ` [PATCH 1/3] xvmalloc memory allocator Nitin Gupta
2009-03-24 19:15 ` [PATCH 2/3] compressed RAM block device Nitin Gupta
2009-03-24 19:18 ` Nitin Gupta [this message]
2009-03-25 10:39 ` [PATCH 0/3] compressed in-memory swapping take3 Nitin Gupta
2009-03-27  1:03 ` Ed Tomlinson
2009-03-27 20:39   ` Nitin Gupta
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2009-03-29  3:43 [PATCH 0/3] compressed in-memory swapping take4 Nitin Gupta
2009-03-29  3:53 ` [PATCH 3/3] ramzswap documentation Nitin Gupta
2009-03-30 14:48 [PATCH 0/3] compressed in-memory swapping take5 Nitin Gupta
2009-03-30 14:54 ` [PATCH 3/3] ramzswap documentation Nitin Gupta

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