0001 .. _cgroup-v2:
0002
0003 ================
0004 Control Group v2
0005 ================
0006
0007 :Date: October, 2015
0008 :Author: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
0009
0010 This is the authoritative documentation on the design, interface and
0011 conventions of cgroup v2. It describes all userland-visible aspects
0012 of cgroup including core and specific controller behaviors. All
0013 future changes must be reflected in this document. Documentation for
0014 v1 is available under :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/index.rst <cgroup-v1>`.
0015
0016 .. CONTENTS
0017
0018 1. Introduction
0019 1-1. Terminology
0020 1-2. What is cgroup?
0021 2. Basic Operations
0022 2-1. Mounting
0023 2-2. Organizing Processes and Threads
0024 2-2-1. Processes
0025 2-2-2. Threads
0026 2-3. [Un]populated Notification
0027 2-4. Controlling Controllers
0028 2-4-1. Enabling and Disabling
0029 2-4-2. Top-down Constraint
0030 2-4-3. No Internal Process Constraint
0031 2-5. Delegation
0032 2-5-1. Model of Delegation
0033 2-5-2. Delegation Containment
0034 2-6. Guidelines
0035 2-6-1. Organize Once and Control
0036 2-6-2. Avoid Name Collisions
0037 3. Resource Distribution Models
0038 3-1. Weights
0039 3-2. Limits
0040 3-3. Protections
0041 3-4. Allocations
0042 4. Interface Files
0043 4-1. Format
0044 4-2. Conventions
0045 4-3. Core Interface Files
0046 5. Controllers
0047 5-1. CPU
0048 5-1-1. CPU Interface Files
0049 5-2. Memory
0050 5-2-1. Memory Interface Files
0051 5-2-2. Usage Guidelines
0052 5-2-3. Memory Ownership
0053 5-3. IO
0054 5-3-1. IO Interface Files
0055 5-3-2. Writeback
0056 5-3-3. IO Latency
0057 5-3-3-1. How IO Latency Throttling Works
0058 5-3-3-2. IO Latency Interface Files
0059 5-3-4. IO Priority
0060 5-4. PID
0061 5-4-1. PID Interface Files
0062 5-5. Cpuset
0063 5.5-1. Cpuset Interface Files
0064 5-6. Device
0065 5-7. RDMA
0066 5-7-1. RDMA Interface Files
0067 5-8. HugeTLB
0068 5.8-1. HugeTLB Interface Files
0069 5-9. Misc
0070 5.9-1 Miscellaneous cgroup Interface Files
0071 5.9-2 Migration and Ownership
0072 5-10. Others
0073 5-10-1. perf_event
0074 5-N. Non-normative information
0075 5-N-1. CPU controller root cgroup process behaviour
0076 5-N-2. IO controller root cgroup process behaviour
0077 6. Namespace
0078 6-1. Basics
0079 6-2. The Root and Views
0080 6-3. Migration and setns(2)
0081 6-4. Interaction with Other Namespaces
0082 P. Information on Kernel Programming
0083 P-1. Filesystem Support for Writeback
0084 D. Deprecated v1 Core Features
0085 R. Issues with v1 and Rationales for v2
0086 R-1. Multiple Hierarchies
0087 R-2. Thread Granularity
0088 R-3. Competition Between Inner Nodes and Threads
0089 R-4. Other Interface Issues
0090 R-5. Controller Issues and Remedies
0091 R-5-1. Memory
0092
0093
0094 Introduction
0095 ============
0096
0097 Terminology
0098 -----------
0099
0100 "cgroup" stands for "control group" and is never capitalized. The
0101 singular form is used to designate the whole feature and also as a
0102 qualifier as in "cgroup controllers". When explicitly referring to
0103 multiple individual control groups, the plural form "cgroups" is used.
0104
0105
0106 What is cgroup?
0107 ---------------
0108
0109 cgroup is a mechanism to organize processes hierarchically and
0110 distribute system resources along the hierarchy in a controlled and
0111 configurable manner.
0112
0113 cgroup is largely composed of two parts - the core and controllers.
0114 cgroup core is primarily responsible for hierarchically organizing
0115 processes. A cgroup controller is usually responsible for
0116 distributing a specific type of system resource along the hierarchy
0117 although there are utility controllers which serve purposes other than
0118 resource distribution.
0119
0120 cgroups form a tree structure and every process in the system belongs
0121 to one and only one cgroup. All threads of a process belong to the
0122 same cgroup. On creation, all processes are put in the cgroup that
0123 the parent process belongs to at the time. A process can be migrated
0124 to another cgroup. Migration of a process doesn't affect already
0125 existing descendant processes.
0126
0127 Following certain structural constraints, controllers may be enabled or
0128 disabled selectively on a cgroup. All controller behaviors are
0129 hierarchical - if a controller is enabled on a cgroup, it affects all
0130 processes which belong to the cgroups consisting the inclusive
0131 sub-hierarchy of the cgroup. When a controller is enabled on a nested
0132 cgroup, it always restricts the resource distribution further. The
0133 restrictions set closer to the root in the hierarchy can not be
0134 overridden from further away.
0135
0136
0137 Basic Operations
0138 ================
0139
0140 Mounting
0141 --------
0142
0143 Unlike v1, cgroup v2 has only single hierarchy. The cgroup v2
0144 hierarchy can be mounted with the following mount command::
0145
0146 # mount -t cgroup2 none $MOUNT_POINT
0147
0148 cgroup2 filesystem has the magic number 0x63677270 ("cgrp"). All
0149 controllers which support v2 and are not bound to a v1 hierarchy are
0150 automatically bound to the v2 hierarchy and show up at the root.
0151 Controllers which are not in active use in the v2 hierarchy can be
0152 bound to other hierarchies. This allows mixing v2 hierarchy with the
0153 legacy v1 multiple hierarchies in a fully backward compatible way.
0154
0155 A controller can be moved across hierarchies only after the controller
0156 is no longer referenced in its current hierarchy. Because per-cgroup
0157 controller states are destroyed asynchronously and controllers may
0158 have lingering references, a controller may not show up immediately on
0159 the v2 hierarchy after the final umount of the previous hierarchy.
0160 Similarly, a controller should be fully disabled to be moved out of
0161 the unified hierarchy and it may take some time for the disabled
0162 controller to become available for other hierarchies; furthermore, due
0163 to inter-controller dependencies, other controllers may need to be
0164 disabled too.
0165
0166 While useful for development and manual configurations, moving
0167 controllers dynamically between the v2 and other hierarchies is
0168 strongly discouraged for production use. It is recommended to decide
0169 the hierarchies and controller associations before starting using the
0170 controllers after system boot.
0171
0172 During transition to v2, system management software might still
0173 automount the v1 cgroup filesystem and so hijack all controllers
0174 during boot, before manual intervention is possible. To make testing
0175 and experimenting easier, the kernel parameter cgroup_no_v1= allows
0176 disabling controllers in v1 and make them always available in v2.
0177
0178 cgroup v2 currently supports the following mount options.
0179
0180 nsdelegate
0181 Consider cgroup namespaces as delegation boundaries. This
0182 option is system wide and can only be set on mount or modified
0183 through remount from the init namespace. The mount option is
0184 ignored on non-init namespace mounts. Please refer to the
0185 Delegation section for details.
0186
0187 favordynmods
0188 Reduce the latencies of dynamic cgroup modifications such as
0189 task migrations and controller on/offs at the cost of making
0190 hot path operations such as forks and exits more expensive.
0191 The static usage pattern of creating a cgroup, enabling
0192 controllers, and then seeding it with CLONE_INTO_CGROUP is
0193 not affected by this option.
0194
0195 memory_localevents
0196 Only populate memory.events with data for the current cgroup,
0197 and not any subtrees. This is legacy behaviour, the default
0198 behaviour without this option is to include subtree counts.
0199 This option is system wide and can only be set on mount or
0200 modified through remount from the init namespace. The mount
0201 option is ignored on non-init namespace mounts.
0202
0203 memory_recursiveprot
0204 Recursively apply memory.min and memory.low protection to
0205 entire subtrees, without requiring explicit downward
0206 propagation into leaf cgroups. This allows protecting entire
0207 subtrees from one another, while retaining free competition
0208 within those subtrees. This should have been the default
0209 behavior but is a mount-option to avoid regressing setups
0210 relying on the original semantics (e.g. specifying bogusly
0211 high 'bypass' protection values at higher tree levels).
0212
0213
0214 Organizing Processes and Threads
0215 --------------------------------
0216
0217 Processes
0218 ~~~~~~~~~
0219
0220 Initially, only the root cgroup exists to which all processes belong.
0221 A child cgroup can be created by creating a sub-directory::
0222
0223 # mkdir $CGROUP_NAME
0224
0225 A given cgroup may have multiple child cgroups forming a tree
0226 structure. Each cgroup has a read-writable interface file
0227 "cgroup.procs". When read, it lists the PIDs of all processes which
0228 belong to the cgroup one-per-line. The PIDs are not ordered and the
0229 same PID may show up more than once if the process got moved to
0230 another cgroup and then back or the PID got recycled while reading.
0231
0232 A process can be migrated into a cgroup by writing its PID to the
0233 target cgroup's "cgroup.procs" file. Only one process can be migrated
0234 on a single write(2) call. If a process is composed of multiple
0235 threads, writing the PID of any thread migrates all threads of the
0236 process.
0237
0238 When a process forks a child process, the new process is born into the
0239 cgroup that the forking process belongs to at the time of the
0240 operation. After exit, a process stays associated with the cgroup
0241 that it belonged to at the time of exit until it's reaped; however, a
0242 zombie process does not appear in "cgroup.procs" and thus can't be
0243 moved to another cgroup.
0244
0245 A cgroup which doesn't have any children or live processes can be
0246 destroyed by removing the directory. Note that a cgroup which doesn't
0247 have any children and is associated only with zombie processes is
0248 considered empty and can be removed::
0249
0250 # rmdir $CGROUP_NAME
0251
0252 "/proc/$PID/cgroup" lists a process's cgroup membership. If legacy
0253 cgroup is in use in the system, this file may contain multiple lines,
0254 one for each hierarchy. The entry for cgroup v2 is always in the
0255 format "0::$PATH"::
0256
0257 # cat /proc/842/cgroup
0258 ...
0259 0::/test-cgroup/test-cgroup-nested
0260
0261 If the process becomes a zombie and the cgroup it was associated with
0262 is removed subsequently, " (deleted)" is appended to the path::
0263
0264 # cat /proc/842/cgroup
0265 ...
0266 0::/test-cgroup/test-cgroup-nested (deleted)
0267
0268
0269 Threads
0270 ~~~~~~~
0271
0272 cgroup v2 supports thread granularity for a subset of controllers to
0273 support use cases requiring hierarchical resource distribution across
0274 the threads of a group of processes. By default, all threads of a
0275 process belong to the same cgroup, which also serves as the resource
0276 domain to host resource consumptions which are not specific to a
0277 process or thread. The thread mode allows threads to be spread across
0278 a subtree while still maintaining the common resource domain for them.
0279
0280 Controllers which support thread mode are called threaded controllers.
0281 The ones which don't are called domain controllers.
0282
0283 Marking a cgroup threaded makes it join the resource domain of its
0284 parent as a threaded cgroup. The parent may be another threaded
0285 cgroup whose resource domain is further up in the hierarchy. The root
0286 of a threaded subtree, that is, the nearest ancestor which is not
0287 threaded, is called threaded domain or thread root interchangeably and
0288 serves as the resource domain for the entire subtree.
0289
0290 Inside a threaded subtree, threads of a process can be put in
0291 different cgroups and are not subject to the no internal process
0292 constraint - threaded controllers can be enabled on non-leaf cgroups
0293 whether they have threads in them or not.
0294
0295 As the threaded domain cgroup hosts all the domain resource
0296 consumptions of the subtree, it is considered to have internal
0297 resource consumptions whether there are processes in it or not and
0298 can't have populated child cgroups which aren't threaded. Because the
0299 root cgroup is not subject to no internal process constraint, it can
0300 serve both as a threaded domain and a parent to domain cgroups.
0301
0302 The current operation mode or type of the cgroup is shown in the
0303 "cgroup.type" file which indicates whether the cgroup is a normal
0304 domain, a domain which is serving as the domain of a threaded subtree,
0305 or a threaded cgroup.
0306
0307 On creation, a cgroup is always a domain cgroup and can be made
0308 threaded by writing "threaded" to the "cgroup.type" file. The
0309 operation is single direction::
0310
0311 # echo threaded > cgroup.type
0312
0313 Once threaded, the cgroup can't be made a domain again. To enable the
0314 thread mode, the following conditions must be met.
0315
0316 - As the cgroup will join the parent's resource domain. The parent
0317 must either be a valid (threaded) domain or a threaded cgroup.
0318
0319 - When the parent is an unthreaded domain, it must not have any domain
0320 controllers enabled or populated domain children. The root is
0321 exempt from this requirement.
0322
0323 Topology-wise, a cgroup can be in an invalid state. Please consider
0324 the following topology::
0325
0326 A (threaded domain) - B (threaded) - C (domain, just created)
0327
0328 C is created as a domain but isn't connected to a parent which can
0329 host child domains. C can't be used until it is turned into a
0330 threaded cgroup. "cgroup.type" file will report "domain (invalid)" in
0331 these cases. Operations which fail due to invalid topology use
0332 EOPNOTSUPP as the errno.
0333
0334 A domain cgroup is turned into a threaded domain when one of its child
0335 cgroup becomes threaded or threaded controllers are enabled in the
0336 "cgroup.subtree_control" file while there are processes in the cgroup.
0337 A threaded domain reverts to a normal domain when the conditions
0338 clear.
0339
0340 When read, "cgroup.threads" contains the list of the thread IDs of all
0341 threads in the cgroup. Except that the operations are per-thread
0342 instead of per-process, "cgroup.threads" has the same format and
0343 behaves the same way as "cgroup.procs". While "cgroup.threads" can be
0344 written to in any cgroup, as it can only move threads inside the same
0345 threaded domain, its operations are confined inside each threaded
0346 subtree.
0347
0348 The threaded domain cgroup serves as the resource domain for the whole
0349 subtree, and, while the threads can be scattered across the subtree,
0350 all the processes are considered to be in the threaded domain cgroup.
0351 "cgroup.procs" in a threaded domain cgroup contains the PIDs of all
0352 processes in the subtree and is not readable in the subtree proper.
0353 However, "cgroup.procs" can be written to from anywhere in the subtree
0354 to migrate all threads of the matching process to the cgroup.
0355
0356 Only threaded controllers can be enabled in a threaded subtree. When
0357 a threaded controller is enabled inside a threaded subtree, it only
0358 accounts for and controls resource consumptions associated with the
0359 threads in the cgroup and its descendants. All consumptions which
0360 aren't tied to a specific thread belong to the threaded domain cgroup.
0361
0362 Because a threaded subtree is exempt from no internal process
0363 constraint, a threaded controller must be able to handle competition
0364 between threads in a non-leaf cgroup and its child cgroups. Each
0365 threaded controller defines how such competitions are handled.
0366
0367
0368 [Un]populated Notification
0369 --------------------------
0370
0371 Each non-root cgroup has a "cgroup.events" file which contains
0372 "populated" field indicating whether the cgroup's sub-hierarchy has
0373 live processes in it. Its value is 0 if there is no live process in
0374 the cgroup and its descendants; otherwise, 1. poll and [id]notify
0375 events are triggered when the value changes. This can be used, for
0376 example, to start a clean-up operation after all processes of a given
0377 sub-hierarchy have exited. The populated state updates and
0378 notifications are recursive. Consider the following sub-hierarchy
0379 where the numbers in the parentheses represent the numbers of processes
0380 in each cgroup::
0381
0382 A(4) - B(0) - C(1)
0383 \ D(0)
0384
0385 A, B and C's "populated" fields would be 1 while D's 0. After the one
0386 process in C exits, B and C's "populated" fields would flip to "0" and
0387 file modified events will be generated on the "cgroup.events" files of
0388 both cgroups.
0389
0390
0391 Controlling Controllers
0392 -----------------------
0393
0394 Enabling and Disabling
0395 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0396
0397 Each cgroup has a "cgroup.controllers" file which lists all
0398 controllers available for the cgroup to enable::
0399
0400 # cat cgroup.controllers
0401 cpu io memory
0402
0403 No controller is enabled by default. Controllers can be enabled and
0404 disabled by writing to the "cgroup.subtree_control" file::
0405
0406 # echo "+cpu +memory -io" > cgroup.subtree_control
0407
0408 Only controllers which are listed in "cgroup.controllers" can be
0409 enabled. When multiple operations are specified as above, either they
0410 all succeed or fail. If multiple operations on the same controller
0411 are specified, the last one is effective.
0412
0413 Enabling a controller in a cgroup indicates that the distribution of
0414 the target resource across its immediate children will be controlled.
0415 Consider the following sub-hierarchy. The enabled controllers are
0416 listed in parentheses::
0417
0418 A(cpu,memory) - B(memory) - C()
0419 \ D()
0420
0421 As A has "cpu" and "memory" enabled, A will control the distribution
0422 of CPU cycles and memory to its children, in this case, B. As B has
0423 "memory" enabled but not "CPU", C and D will compete freely on CPU
0424 cycles but their division of memory available to B will be controlled.
0425
0426 As a controller regulates the distribution of the target resource to
0427 the cgroup's children, enabling it creates the controller's interface
0428 files in the child cgroups. In the above example, enabling "cpu" on B
0429 would create the "cpu." prefixed controller interface files in C and
0430 D. Likewise, disabling "memory" from B would remove the "memory."
0431 prefixed controller interface files from C and D. This means that the
0432 controller interface files - anything which doesn't start with
0433 "cgroup." are owned by the parent rather than the cgroup itself.
0434
0435
0436 Top-down Constraint
0437 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0438
0439 Resources are distributed top-down and a cgroup can further distribute
0440 a resource only if the resource has been distributed to it from the
0441 parent. This means that all non-root "cgroup.subtree_control" files
0442 can only contain controllers which are enabled in the parent's
0443 "cgroup.subtree_control" file. A controller can be enabled only if
0444 the parent has the controller enabled and a controller can't be
0445 disabled if one or more children have it enabled.
0446
0447
0448 No Internal Process Constraint
0449 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0450
0451 Non-root cgroups can distribute domain resources to their children
0452 only when they don't have any processes of their own. In other words,
0453 only domain cgroups which don't contain any processes can have domain
0454 controllers enabled in their "cgroup.subtree_control" files.
0455
0456 This guarantees that, when a domain controller is looking at the part
0457 of the hierarchy which has it enabled, processes are always only on
0458 the leaves. This rules out situations where child cgroups compete
0459 against internal processes of the parent.
0460
0461 The root cgroup is exempt from this restriction. Root contains
0462 processes and anonymous resource consumption which can't be associated
0463 with any other cgroups and requires special treatment from most
0464 controllers. How resource consumption in the root cgroup is governed
0465 is up to each controller (for more information on this topic please
0466 refer to the Non-normative information section in the Controllers
0467 chapter).
0468
0469 Note that the restriction doesn't get in the way if there is no
0470 enabled controller in the cgroup's "cgroup.subtree_control". This is
0471 important as otherwise it wouldn't be possible to create children of a
0472 populated cgroup. To control resource distribution of a cgroup, the
0473 cgroup must create children and transfer all its processes to the
0474 children before enabling controllers in its "cgroup.subtree_control"
0475 file.
0476
0477
0478 Delegation
0479 ----------
0480
0481 Model of Delegation
0482 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0483
0484 A cgroup can be delegated in two ways. First, to a less privileged
0485 user by granting write access of the directory and its "cgroup.procs",
0486 "cgroup.threads" and "cgroup.subtree_control" files to the user.
0487 Second, if the "nsdelegate" mount option is set, automatically to a
0488 cgroup namespace on namespace creation.
0489
0490 Because the resource control interface files in a given directory
0491 control the distribution of the parent's resources, the delegatee
0492 shouldn't be allowed to write to them. For the first method, this is
0493 achieved by not granting access to these files. For the second, the
0494 kernel rejects writes to all files other than "cgroup.procs" and
0495 "cgroup.subtree_control" on a namespace root from inside the
0496 namespace.
0497
0498 The end results are equivalent for both delegation types. Once
0499 delegated, the user can build sub-hierarchy under the directory,
0500 organize processes inside it as it sees fit and further distribute the
0501 resources it received from the parent. The limits and other settings
0502 of all resource controllers are hierarchical and regardless of what
0503 happens in the delegated sub-hierarchy, nothing can escape the
0504 resource restrictions imposed by the parent.
0505
0506 Currently, cgroup doesn't impose any restrictions on the number of
0507 cgroups in or nesting depth of a delegated sub-hierarchy; however,
0508 this may be limited explicitly in the future.
0509
0510
0511 Delegation Containment
0512 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0513
0514 A delegated sub-hierarchy is contained in the sense that processes
0515 can't be moved into or out of the sub-hierarchy by the delegatee.
0516
0517 For delegations to a less privileged user, this is achieved by
0518 requiring the following conditions for a process with a non-root euid
0519 to migrate a target process into a cgroup by writing its PID to the
0520 "cgroup.procs" file.
0521
0522 - The writer must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file.
0523
0524 - The writer must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
0525 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
0526
0527 The above two constraints ensure that while a delegatee may migrate
0528 processes around freely in the delegated sub-hierarchy it can't pull
0529 in from or push out to outside the sub-hierarchy.
0530
0531 For an example, let's assume cgroups C0 and C1 have been delegated to
0532 user U0 who created C00, C01 under C0 and C10 under C1 as follows and
0533 all processes under C0 and C1 belong to U0::
0534
0535 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - C0 - C00
0536 ~ cgroup ~ \ C01
0537 ~ hierarchy ~
0538 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - C1 - C10
0539
0540 Let's also say U0 wants to write the PID of a process which is
0541 currently in C10 into "C00/cgroup.procs". U0 has write access to the
0542 file; however, the common ancestor of the source cgroup C10 and the
0543 destination cgroup C00 is above the points of delegation and U0 would
0544 not have write access to its "cgroup.procs" files and thus the write
0545 will be denied with -EACCES.
0546
0547 For delegations to namespaces, containment is achieved by requiring
0548 that both the source and destination cgroups are reachable from the
0549 namespace of the process which is attempting the migration. If either
0550 is not reachable, the migration is rejected with -ENOENT.
0551
0552
0553 Guidelines
0554 ----------
0555
0556 Organize Once and Control
0557 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0558
0559 Migrating a process across cgroups is a relatively expensive operation
0560 and stateful resources such as memory are not moved together with the
0561 process. This is an explicit design decision as there often exist
0562 inherent trade-offs between migration and various hot paths in terms
0563 of synchronization cost.
0564
0565 As such, migrating processes across cgroups frequently as a means to
0566 apply different resource restrictions is discouraged. A workload
0567 should be assigned to a cgroup according to the system's logical and
0568 resource structure once on start-up. Dynamic adjustments to resource
0569 distribution can be made by changing controller configuration through
0570 the interface files.
0571
0572
0573 Avoid Name Collisions
0574 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0575
0576 Interface files for a cgroup and its children cgroups occupy the same
0577 directory and it is possible to create children cgroups which collide
0578 with interface files.
0579
0580 All cgroup core interface files are prefixed with "cgroup." and each
0581 controller's interface files are prefixed with the controller name and
0582 a dot. A controller's name is composed of lower case alphabets and
0583 '_'s but never begins with an '_' so it can be used as the prefix
0584 character for collision avoidance. Also, interface file names won't
0585 start or end with terms which are often used in categorizing workloads
0586 such as job, service, slice, unit or workload.
0587
0588 cgroup doesn't do anything to prevent name collisions and it's the
0589 user's responsibility to avoid them.
0590
0591
0592 Resource Distribution Models
0593 ============================
0594
0595 cgroup controllers implement several resource distribution schemes
0596 depending on the resource type and expected use cases. This section
0597 describes major schemes in use along with their expected behaviors.
0598
0599
0600 Weights
0601 -------
0602
0603 A parent's resource is distributed by adding up the weights of all
0604 active children and giving each the fraction matching the ratio of its
0605 weight against the sum. As only children which can make use of the
0606 resource at the moment participate in the distribution, this is
0607 work-conserving. Due to the dynamic nature, this model is usually
0608 used for stateless resources.
0609
0610 All weights are in the range [1, 10000] with the default at 100. This
0611 allows symmetric multiplicative biases in both directions at fine
0612 enough granularity while staying in the intuitive range.
0613
0614 As long as the weight is in range, all configuration combinations are
0615 valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
0616 process migrations.
0617
0618 "cpu.weight" proportionally distributes CPU cycles to active children
0619 and is an example of this type.
0620
0621
0622 Limits
0623 ------
0624
0625 A child can only consume upto the configured amount of the resource.
0626 Limits can be over-committed - the sum of the limits of children can
0627 exceed the amount of resource available to the parent.
0628
0629 Limits are in the range [0, max] and defaults to "max", which is noop.
0630
0631 As limits can be over-committed, all configuration combinations are
0632 valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
0633 process migrations.
0634
0635 "io.max" limits the maximum BPS and/or IOPS that a cgroup can consume
0636 on an IO device and is an example of this type.
0637
0638
0639 Protections
0640 -----------
0641
0642 A cgroup is protected upto the configured amount of the resource
0643 as long as the usages of all its ancestors are under their
0644 protected levels. Protections can be hard guarantees or best effort
0645 soft boundaries. Protections can also be over-committed in which case
0646 only upto the amount available to the parent is protected among
0647 children.
0648
0649 Protections are in the range [0, max] and defaults to 0, which is
0650 noop.
0651
0652 As protections can be over-committed, all configuration combinations
0653 are valid and there is no reason to reject configuration changes or
0654 process migrations.
0655
0656 "memory.low" implements best-effort memory protection and is an
0657 example of this type.
0658
0659
0660 Allocations
0661 -----------
0662
0663 A cgroup is exclusively allocated a certain amount of a finite
0664 resource. Allocations can't be over-committed - the sum of the
0665 allocations of children can not exceed the amount of resource
0666 available to the parent.
0667
0668 Allocations are in the range [0, max] and defaults to 0, which is no
0669 resource.
0670
0671 As allocations can't be over-committed, some configuration
0672 combinations are invalid and should be rejected. Also, if the
0673 resource is mandatory for execution of processes, process migrations
0674 may be rejected.
0675
0676 "cpu.rt.max" hard-allocates realtime slices and is an example of this
0677 type.
0678
0679
0680 Interface Files
0681 ===============
0682
0683 Format
0684 ------
0685
0686 All interface files should be in one of the following formats whenever
0687 possible::
0688
0689 New-line separated values
0690 (when only one value can be written at once)
0691
0692 VAL0\n
0693 VAL1\n
0694 ...
0695
0696 Space separated values
0697 (when read-only or multiple values can be written at once)
0698
0699 VAL0 VAL1 ...\n
0700
0701 Flat keyed
0702
0703 KEY0 VAL0\n
0704 KEY1 VAL1\n
0705 ...
0706
0707 Nested keyed
0708
0709 KEY0 SUB_KEY0=VAL00 SUB_KEY1=VAL01...
0710 KEY1 SUB_KEY0=VAL10 SUB_KEY1=VAL11...
0711 ...
0712
0713 For a writable file, the format for writing should generally match
0714 reading; however, controllers may allow omitting later fields or
0715 implement restricted shortcuts for most common use cases.
0716
0717 For both flat and nested keyed files, only the values for a single key
0718 can be written at a time. For nested keyed files, the sub key pairs
0719 may be specified in any order and not all pairs have to be specified.
0720
0721
0722 Conventions
0723 -----------
0724
0725 - Settings for a single feature should be contained in a single file.
0726
0727 - The root cgroup should be exempt from resource control and thus
0728 shouldn't have resource control interface files.
0729
0730 - The default time unit is microseconds. If a different unit is ever
0731 used, an explicit unit suffix must be present.
0732
0733 - A parts-per quantity should use a percentage decimal with at least
0734 two digit fractional part - e.g. 13.40.
0735
0736 - If a controller implements weight based resource distribution, its
0737 interface file should be named "weight" and have the range [1,
0738 10000] with 100 as the default. The values are chosen to allow
0739 enough and symmetric bias in both directions while keeping it
0740 intuitive (the default is 100%).
0741
0742 - If a controller implements an absolute resource guarantee and/or
0743 limit, the interface files should be named "min" and "max"
0744 respectively. If a controller implements best effort resource
0745 guarantee and/or limit, the interface files should be named "low"
0746 and "high" respectively.
0747
0748 In the above four control files, the special token "max" should be
0749 used to represent upward infinity for both reading and writing.
0750
0751 - If a setting has a configurable default value and keyed specific
0752 overrides, the default entry should be keyed with "default" and
0753 appear as the first entry in the file.
0754
0755 The default value can be updated by writing either "default $VAL" or
0756 "$VAL".
0757
0758 When writing to update a specific override, "default" can be used as
0759 the value to indicate removal of the override. Override entries
0760 with "default" as the value must not appear when read.
0761
0762 For example, a setting which is keyed by major:minor device numbers
0763 with integer values may look like the following::
0764
0765 # cat cgroup-example-interface-file
0766 default 150
0767 8:0 300
0768
0769 The default value can be updated by::
0770
0771 # echo 125 > cgroup-example-interface-file
0772
0773 or::
0774
0775 # echo "default 125" > cgroup-example-interface-file
0776
0777 An override can be set by::
0778
0779 # echo "8:16 170" > cgroup-example-interface-file
0780
0781 and cleared by::
0782
0783 # echo "8:0 default" > cgroup-example-interface-file
0784 # cat cgroup-example-interface-file
0785 default 125
0786 8:16 170
0787
0788 - For events which are not very high frequency, an interface file
0789 "events" should be created which lists event key value pairs.
0790 Whenever a notifiable event happens, file modified event should be
0791 generated on the file.
0792
0793
0794 Core Interface Files
0795 --------------------
0796
0797 All cgroup core files are prefixed with "cgroup."
0798
0799 cgroup.type
0800 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
0801 cgroups.
0802
0803 When read, it indicates the current type of the cgroup, which
0804 can be one of the following values.
0805
0806 - "domain" : A normal valid domain cgroup.
0807
0808 - "domain threaded" : A threaded domain cgroup which is
0809 serving as the root of a threaded subtree.
0810
0811 - "domain invalid" : A cgroup which is in an invalid state.
0812 It can't be populated or have controllers enabled. It may
0813 be allowed to become a threaded cgroup.
0814
0815 - "threaded" : A threaded cgroup which is a member of a
0816 threaded subtree.
0817
0818 A cgroup can be turned into a threaded cgroup by writing
0819 "threaded" to this file.
0820
0821 cgroup.procs
0822 A read-write new-line separated values file which exists on
0823 all cgroups.
0824
0825 When read, it lists the PIDs of all processes which belong to
0826 the cgroup one-per-line. The PIDs are not ordered and the
0827 same PID may show up more than once if the process got moved
0828 to another cgroup and then back or the PID got recycled while
0829 reading.
0830
0831 A PID can be written to migrate the process associated with
0832 the PID to the cgroup. The writer should match all of the
0833 following conditions.
0834
0835 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file.
0836
0837 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
0838 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
0839
0840 When delegating a sub-hierarchy, write access to this file
0841 should be granted along with the containing directory.
0842
0843 In a threaded cgroup, reading this file fails with EOPNOTSUPP
0844 as all the processes belong to the thread root. Writing is
0845 supported and moves every thread of the process to the cgroup.
0846
0847 cgroup.threads
0848 A read-write new-line separated values file which exists on
0849 all cgroups.
0850
0851 When read, it lists the TIDs of all threads which belong to
0852 the cgroup one-per-line. The TIDs are not ordered and the
0853 same TID may show up more than once if the thread got moved to
0854 another cgroup and then back or the TID got recycled while
0855 reading.
0856
0857 A TID can be written to migrate the thread associated with the
0858 TID to the cgroup. The writer should match all of the
0859 following conditions.
0860
0861 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.threads" file.
0862
0863 - The cgroup that the thread is currently in must be in the
0864 same resource domain as the destination cgroup.
0865
0866 - It must have write access to the "cgroup.procs" file of the
0867 common ancestor of the source and destination cgroups.
0868
0869 When delegating a sub-hierarchy, write access to this file
0870 should be granted along with the containing directory.
0871
0872 cgroup.controllers
0873 A read-only space separated values file which exists on all
0874 cgroups.
0875
0876 It shows space separated list of all controllers available to
0877 the cgroup. The controllers are not ordered.
0878
0879 cgroup.subtree_control
0880 A read-write space separated values file which exists on all
0881 cgroups. Starts out empty.
0882
0883 When read, it shows space separated list of the controllers
0884 which are enabled to control resource distribution from the
0885 cgroup to its children.
0886
0887 Space separated list of controllers prefixed with '+' or '-'
0888 can be written to enable or disable controllers. A controller
0889 name prefixed with '+' enables the controller and '-'
0890 disables. If a controller appears more than once on the list,
0891 the last one is effective. When multiple enable and disable
0892 operations are specified, either all succeed or all fail.
0893
0894 cgroup.events
0895 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
0896 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
0897 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
0898 modified event.
0899
0900 populated
0901 1 if the cgroup or its descendants contains any live
0902 processes; otherwise, 0.
0903 frozen
0904 1 if the cgroup is frozen; otherwise, 0.
0905
0906 cgroup.max.descendants
0907 A read-write single value files. The default is "max".
0908
0909 Maximum allowed number of descent cgroups.
0910 If the actual number of descendants is equal or larger,
0911 an attempt to create a new cgroup in the hierarchy will fail.
0912
0913 cgroup.max.depth
0914 A read-write single value files. The default is "max".
0915
0916 Maximum allowed descent depth below the current cgroup.
0917 If the actual descent depth is equal or larger,
0918 an attempt to create a new child cgroup will fail.
0919
0920 cgroup.stat
0921 A read-only flat-keyed file with the following entries:
0922
0923 nr_descendants
0924 Total number of visible descendant cgroups.
0925
0926 nr_dying_descendants
0927 Total number of dying descendant cgroups. A cgroup becomes
0928 dying after being deleted by a user. The cgroup will remain
0929 in dying state for some time undefined time (which can depend
0930 on system load) before being completely destroyed.
0931
0932 A process can't enter a dying cgroup under any circumstances,
0933 a dying cgroup can't revive.
0934
0935 A dying cgroup can consume system resources not exceeding
0936 limits, which were active at the moment of cgroup deletion.
0937
0938 cgroup.freeze
0939 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
0940 Allowed values are "0" and "1". The default is "0".
0941
0942 Writing "1" to the file causes freezing of the cgroup and all
0943 descendant cgroups. This means that all belonging processes will
0944 be stopped and will not run until the cgroup will be explicitly
0945 unfrozen. Freezing of the cgroup may take some time; when this action
0946 is completed, the "frozen" value in the cgroup.events control file
0947 will be updated to "1" and the corresponding notification will be
0948 issued.
0949
0950 A cgroup can be frozen either by its own settings, or by settings
0951 of any ancestor cgroups. If any of ancestor cgroups is frozen, the
0952 cgroup will remain frozen.
0953
0954 Processes in the frozen cgroup can be killed by a fatal signal.
0955 They also can enter and leave a frozen cgroup: either by an explicit
0956 move by a user, or if freezing of the cgroup races with fork().
0957 If a process is moved to a frozen cgroup, it stops. If a process is
0958 moved out of a frozen cgroup, it becomes running.
0959
0960 Frozen status of a cgroup doesn't affect any cgroup tree operations:
0961 it's possible to delete a frozen (and empty) cgroup, as well as
0962 create new sub-cgroups.
0963
0964 cgroup.kill
0965 A write-only single value file which exists in non-root cgroups.
0966 The only allowed value is "1".
0967
0968 Writing "1" to the file causes the cgroup and all descendant cgroups to
0969 be killed. This means that all processes located in the affected cgroup
0970 tree will be killed via SIGKILL.
0971
0972 Killing a cgroup tree will deal with concurrent forks appropriately and
0973 is protected against migrations.
0974
0975 In a threaded cgroup, writing this file fails with EOPNOTSUPP as
0976 killing cgroups is a process directed operation, i.e. it affects
0977 the whole thread-group.
0978
0979 Controllers
0980 ===========
0981
0982 .. _cgroup-v2-cpu:
0983
0984 CPU
0985 ---
0986
0987 The "cpu" controllers regulates distribution of CPU cycles. This
0988 controller implements weight and absolute bandwidth limit models for
0989 normal scheduling policy and absolute bandwidth allocation model for
0990 realtime scheduling policy.
0991
0992 In all the above models, cycles distribution is defined only on a temporal
0993 base and it does not account for the frequency at which tasks are executed.
0994 The (optional) utilization clamping support allows to hint the schedutil
0995 cpufreq governor about the minimum desired frequency which should always be
0996 provided by a CPU, as well as the maximum desired frequency, which should not
0997 be exceeded by a CPU.
0998
0999 WARNING: cgroup2 doesn't yet support control of realtime processes and
1000 the cpu controller can only be enabled when all RT processes are in
1001 the root cgroup. Be aware that system management software may already
1002 have placed RT processes into nonroot cgroups during the system boot
1003 process, and these processes may need to be moved to the root cgroup
1004 before the cpu controller can be enabled.
1005
1006
1007 CPU Interface Files
1008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1009
1010 All time durations are in microseconds.
1011
1012 cpu.stat
1013 A read-only flat-keyed file.
1014 This file exists whether the controller is enabled or not.
1015
1016 It always reports the following three stats:
1017
1018 - usage_usec
1019 - user_usec
1020 - system_usec
1021
1022 and the following three when the controller is enabled:
1023
1024 - nr_periods
1025 - nr_throttled
1026 - throttled_usec
1027 - nr_bursts
1028 - burst_usec
1029
1030 cpu.weight
1031 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1032 cgroups. The default is "100".
1033
1034 The weight in the range [1, 10000].
1035
1036 cpu.weight.nice
1037 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1038 cgroups. The default is "0".
1039
1040 The nice value is in the range [-20, 19].
1041
1042 This interface file is an alternative interface for
1043 "cpu.weight" and allows reading and setting weight using the
1044 same values used by nice(2). Because the range is smaller and
1045 granularity is coarser for the nice values, the read value is
1046 the closest approximation of the current weight.
1047
1048 cpu.max
1049 A read-write two value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1050 The default is "max 100000".
1051
1052 The maximum bandwidth limit. It's in the following format::
1053
1054 $MAX $PERIOD
1055
1056 which indicates that the group may consume upto $MAX in each
1057 $PERIOD duration. "max" for $MAX indicates no limit. If only
1058 one number is written, $MAX is updated.
1059
1060 cpu.max.burst
1061 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1062 cgroups. The default is "0".
1063
1064 The burst in the range [0, $MAX].
1065
1066 cpu.pressure
1067 A read-write nested-keyed file.
1068
1069 Shows pressure stall information for CPU. See
1070 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
1071
1072 cpu.uclamp.min
1073 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1074 The default is "0", i.e. no utilization boosting.
1075
1076 The requested minimum utilization (protection) as a percentage
1077 rational number, e.g. 12.34 for 12.34%.
1078
1079 This interface allows reading and setting minimum utilization clamp
1080 values similar to the sched_setattr(2). This minimum utilization
1081 value is used to clamp the task specific minimum utilization clamp.
1082
1083 The requested minimum utilization (protection) is always capped by
1084 the current value for the maximum utilization (limit), i.e.
1085 `cpu.uclamp.max`.
1086
1087 cpu.uclamp.max
1088 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1089 The default is "max". i.e. no utilization capping
1090
1091 The requested maximum utilization (limit) as a percentage rational
1092 number, e.g. 98.76 for 98.76%.
1093
1094 This interface allows reading and setting maximum utilization clamp
1095 values similar to the sched_setattr(2). This maximum utilization
1096 value is used to clamp the task specific maximum utilization clamp.
1097
1098
1099
1100 Memory
1101 ------
1102
1103 The "memory" controller regulates distribution of memory. Memory is
1104 stateful and implements both limit and protection models. Due to the
1105 intertwining between memory usage and reclaim pressure and the
1106 stateful nature of memory, the distribution model is relatively
1107 complex.
1108
1109 While not completely water-tight, all major memory usages by a given
1110 cgroup are tracked so that the total memory consumption can be
1111 accounted and controlled to a reasonable extent. Currently, the
1112 following types of memory usages are tracked.
1113
1114 - Userland memory - page cache and anonymous memory.
1115
1116 - Kernel data structures such as dentries and inodes.
1117
1118 - TCP socket buffers.
1119
1120 The above list may expand in the future for better coverage.
1121
1122
1123 Memory Interface Files
1124 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1125
1126 All memory amounts are in bytes. If a value which is not aligned to
1127 PAGE_SIZE is written, the value may be rounded up to the closest
1128 PAGE_SIZE multiple when read back.
1129
1130 memory.current
1131 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1132 cgroups.
1133
1134 The total amount of memory currently being used by the cgroup
1135 and its descendants.
1136
1137 memory.min
1138 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1139 cgroups. The default is "0".
1140
1141 Hard memory protection. If the memory usage of a cgroup
1142 is within its effective min boundary, the cgroup's memory
1143 won't be reclaimed under any conditions. If there is no
1144 unprotected reclaimable memory available, OOM killer
1145 is invoked. Above the effective min boundary (or
1146 effective low boundary if it is higher), pages are reclaimed
1147 proportionally to the overage, reducing reclaim pressure for
1148 smaller overages.
1149
1150 Effective min boundary is limited by memory.min values of
1151 all ancestor cgroups. If there is memory.min overcommitment
1152 (child cgroup or cgroups are requiring more protected memory
1153 than parent will allow), then each child cgroup will get
1154 the part of parent's protection proportional to its
1155 actual memory usage below memory.min.
1156
1157 Putting more memory than generally available under this
1158 protection is discouraged and may lead to constant OOMs.
1159
1160 If a memory cgroup is not populated with processes,
1161 its memory.min is ignored.
1162
1163 memory.low
1164 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1165 cgroups. The default is "0".
1166
1167 Best-effort memory protection. If the memory usage of a
1168 cgroup is within its effective low boundary, the cgroup's
1169 memory won't be reclaimed unless there is no reclaimable
1170 memory available in unprotected cgroups.
1171 Above the effective low boundary (or
1172 effective min boundary if it is higher), pages are reclaimed
1173 proportionally to the overage, reducing reclaim pressure for
1174 smaller overages.
1175
1176 Effective low boundary is limited by memory.low values of
1177 all ancestor cgroups. If there is memory.low overcommitment
1178 (child cgroup or cgroups are requiring more protected memory
1179 than parent will allow), then each child cgroup will get
1180 the part of parent's protection proportional to its
1181 actual memory usage below memory.low.
1182
1183 Putting more memory than generally available under this
1184 protection is discouraged.
1185
1186 memory.high
1187 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1188 cgroups. The default is "max".
1189
1190 Memory usage throttle limit. This is the main mechanism to
1191 control memory usage of a cgroup. If a cgroup's usage goes
1192 over the high boundary, the processes of the cgroup are
1193 throttled and put under heavy reclaim pressure.
1194
1195 Going over the high limit never invokes the OOM killer and
1196 under extreme conditions the limit may be breached.
1197
1198 memory.max
1199 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1200 cgroups. The default is "max".
1201
1202 Memory usage hard limit. This is the final protection
1203 mechanism. If a cgroup's memory usage reaches this limit and
1204 can't be reduced, the OOM killer is invoked in the cgroup.
1205 Under certain circumstances, the usage may go over the limit
1206 temporarily.
1207
1208 In default configuration regular 0-order allocations always
1209 succeed unless OOM killer chooses current task as a victim.
1210
1211 Some kinds of allocations don't invoke the OOM killer.
1212 Caller could retry them differently, return into userspace
1213 as -ENOMEM or silently ignore in cases like disk readahead.
1214
1215 This is the ultimate protection mechanism. As long as the
1216 high limit is used and monitored properly, this limit's
1217 utility is limited to providing the final safety net.
1218
1219 memory.reclaim
1220 A write-only nested-keyed file which exists for all cgroups.
1221
1222 This is a simple interface to trigger memory reclaim in the
1223 target cgroup.
1224
1225 This file accepts a single key, the number of bytes to reclaim.
1226 No nested keys are currently supported.
1227
1228 Example::
1229
1230 echo "1G" > memory.reclaim
1231
1232 The interface can be later extended with nested keys to
1233 configure the reclaim behavior. For example, specify the
1234 type of memory to reclaim from (anon, file, ..).
1235
1236 Please note that the kernel can over or under reclaim from
1237 the target cgroup. If less bytes are reclaimed than the
1238 specified amount, -EAGAIN is returned.
1239
1240 Please note that the proactive reclaim (triggered by this
1241 interface) is not meant to indicate memory pressure on the
1242 memory cgroup. Therefore socket memory balancing triggered by
1243 the memory reclaim normally is not exercised in this case.
1244 This means that the networking layer will not adapt based on
1245 reclaim induced by memory.reclaim.
1246
1247 memory.peak
1248 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1249 cgroups.
1250
1251 The max memory usage recorded for the cgroup and its
1252 descendants since the creation of the cgroup.
1253
1254 memory.oom.group
1255 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1256 cgroups. The default value is "0".
1257
1258 Determines whether the cgroup should be treated as
1259 an indivisible workload by the OOM killer. If set,
1260 all tasks belonging to the cgroup or to its descendants
1261 (if the memory cgroup is not a leaf cgroup) are killed
1262 together or not at all. This can be used to avoid
1263 partial kills to guarantee workload integrity.
1264
1265 Tasks with the OOM protection (oom_score_adj set to -1000)
1266 are treated as an exception and are never killed.
1267
1268 If the OOM killer is invoked in a cgroup, it's not going
1269 to kill any tasks outside of this cgroup, regardless
1270 memory.oom.group values of ancestor cgroups.
1271
1272 memory.events
1273 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1274 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
1275 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
1276 modified event.
1277
1278 Note that all fields in this file are hierarchical and the
1279 file modified event can be generated due to an event down the
1280 hierarchy. For the local events at the cgroup level see
1281 memory.events.local.
1282
1283 low
1284 The number of times the cgroup is reclaimed due to
1285 high memory pressure even though its usage is under
1286 the low boundary. This usually indicates that the low
1287 boundary is over-committed.
1288
1289 high
1290 The number of times processes of the cgroup are
1291 throttled and routed to perform direct memory reclaim
1292 because the high memory boundary was exceeded. For a
1293 cgroup whose memory usage is capped by the high limit
1294 rather than global memory pressure, this event's
1295 occurrences are expected.
1296
1297 max
1298 The number of times the cgroup's memory usage was
1299 about to go over the max boundary. If direct reclaim
1300 fails to bring it down, the cgroup goes to OOM state.
1301
1302 oom
1303 The number of time the cgroup's memory usage was
1304 reached the limit and allocation was about to fail.
1305
1306 This event is not raised if the OOM killer is not
1307 considered as an option, e.g. for failed high-order
1308 allocations or if caller asked to not retry attempts.
1309
1310 oom_kill
1311 The number of processes belonging to this cgroup
1312 killed by any kind of OOM killer.
1313
1314 oom_group_kill
1315 The number of times a group OOM has occurred.
1316
1317 memory.events.local
1318 Similar to memory.events but the fields in the file are local
1319 to the cgroup i.e. not hierarchical. The file modified event
1320 generated on this file reflects only the local events.
1321
1322 memory.stat
1323 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1324
1325 This breaks down the cgroup's memory footprint into different
1326 types of memory, type-specific details, and other information
1327 on the state and past events of the memory management system.
1328
1329 All memory amounts are in bytes.
1330
1331 The entries are ordered to be human readable, and new entries
1332 can show up in the middle. Don't rely on items remaining in a
1333 fixed position; use the keys to look up specific values!
1334
1335 If the entry has no per-node counter (or not show in the
1336 memory.numa_stat). We use 'npn' (non-per-node) as the tag
1337 to indicate that it will not show in the memory.numa_stat.
1338
1339 anon
1340 Amount of memory used in anonymous mappings such as
1341 brk(), sbrk(), and mmap(MAP_ANONYMOUS)
1342
1343 file
1344 Amount of memory used to cache filesystem data,
1345 including tmpfs and shared memory.
1346
1347 kernel (npn)
1348 Amount of total kernel memory, including
1349 (kernel_stack, pagetables, percpu, vmalloc, slab) in
1350 addition to other kernel memory use cases.
1351
1352 kernel_stack
1353 Amount of memory allocated to kernel stacks.
1354
1355 pagetables
1356 Amount of memory allocated for page tables.
1357
1358 percpu (npn)
1359 Amount of memory used for storing per-cpu kernel
1360 data structures.
1361
1362 sock (npn)
1363 Amount of memory used in network transmission buffers
1364
1365 vmalloc (npn)
1366 Amount of memory used for vmap backed memory.
1367
1368 shmem
1369 Amount of cached filesystem data that is swap-backed,
1370 such as tmpfs, shm segments, shared anonymous mmap()s
1371
1372 zswap
1373 Amount of memory consumed by the zswap compression backend.
1374
1375 zswapped
1376 Amount of application memory swapped out to zswap.
1377
1378 file_mapped
1379 Amount of cached filesystem data mapped with mmap()
1380
1381 file_dirty
1382 Amount of cached filesystem data that was modified but
1383 not yet written back to disk
1384
1385 file_writeback
1386 Amount of cached filesystem data that was modified and
1387 is currently being written back to disk
1388
1389 swapcached
1390 Amount of swap cached in memory. The swapcache is accounted
1391 against both memory and swap usage.
1392
1393 anon_thp
1394 Amount of memory used in anonymous mappings backed by
1395 transparent hugepages
1396
1397 file_thp
1398 Amount of cached filesystem data backed by transparent
1399 hugepages
1400
1401 shmem_thp
1402 Amount of shm, tmpfs, shared anonymous mmap()s backed by
1403 transparent hugepages
1404
1405 inactive_anon, active_anon, inactive_file, active_file, unevictable
1406 Amount of memory, swap-backed and filesystem-backed,
1407 on the internal memory management lists used by the
1408 page reclaim algorithm.
1409
1410 As these represent internal list state (eg. shmem pages are on anon
1411 memory management lists), inactive_foo + active_foo may not be equal to
1412 the value for the foo counter, since the foo counter is type-based, not
1413 list-based.
1414
1415 slab_reclaimable
1416 Part of "slab" that might be reclaimed, such as
1417 dentries and inodes.
1418
1419 slab_unreclaimable
1420 Part of "slab" that cannot be reclaimed on memory
1421 pressure.
1422
1423 slab (npn)
1424 Amount of memory used for storing in-kernel data
1425 structures.
1426
1427 workingset_refault_anon
1428 Number of refaults of previously evicted anonymous pages.
1429
1430 workingset_refault_file
1431 Number of refaults of previously evicted file pages.
1432
1433 workingset_activate_anon
1434 Number of refaulted anonymous pages that were immediately
1435 activated.
1436
1437 workingset_activate_file
1438 Number of refaulted file pages that were immediately activated.
1439
1440 workingset_restore_anon
1441 Number of restored anonymous pages which have been detected as
1442 an active workingset before they got reclaimed.
1443
1444 workingset_restore_file
1445 Number of restored file pages which have been detected as an
1446 active workingset before they got reclaimed.
1447
1448 workingset_nodereclaim
1449 Number of times a shadow node has been reclaimed
1450
1451 pgscan (npn)
1452 Amount of scanned pages (in an inactive LRU list)
1453
1454 pgsteal (npn)
1455 Amount of reclaimed pages
1456
1457 pgscan_kswapd (npn)
1458 Amount of scanned pages by kswapd (in an inactive LRU list)
1459
1460 pgscan_direct (npn)
1461 Amount of scanned pages directly (in an inactive LRU list)
1462
1463 pgsteal_kswapd (npn)
1464 Amount of reclaimed pages by kswapd
1465
1466 pgsteal_direct (npn)
1467 Amount of reclaimed pages directly
1468
1469 pgfault (npn)
1470 Total number of page faults incurred
1471
1472 pgmajfault (npn)
1473 Number of major page faults incurred
1474
1475 pgrefill (npn)
1476 Amount of scanned pages (in an active LRU list)
1477
1478 pgactivate (npn)
1479 Amount of pages moved to the active LRU list
1480
1481 pgdeactivate (npn)
1482 Amount of pages moved to the inactive LRU list
1483
1484 pglazyfree (npn)
1485 Amount of pages postponed to be freed under memory pressure
1486
1487 pglazyfreed (npn)
1488 Amount of reclaimed lazyfree pages
1489
1490 thp_fault_alloc (npn)
1491 Number of transparent hugepages which were allocated to satisfy
1492 a page fault. This counter is not present when CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
1493 is not set.
1494
1495 thp_collapse_alloc (npn)
1496 Number of transparent hugepages which were allocated to allow
1497 collapsing an existing range of pages. This counter is not
1498 present when CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE is not set.
1499
1500 memory.numa_stat
1501 A read-only nested-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1502
1503 This breaks down the cgroup's memory footprint into different
1504 types of memory, type-specific details, and other information
1505 per node on the state of the memory management system.
1506
1507 This is useful for providing visibility into the NUMA locality
1508 information within an memcg since the pages are allowed to be
1509 allocated from any physical node. One of the use case is evaluating
1510 application performance by combining this information with the
1511 application's CPU allocation.
1512
1513 All memory amounts are in bytes.
1514
1515 The output format of memory.numa_stat is::
1516
1517 type N0=<bytes in node 0> N1=<bytes in node 1> ...
1518
1519 The entries are ordered to be human readable, and new entries
1520 can show up in the middle. Don't rely on items remaining in a
1521 fixed position; use the keys to look up specific values!
1522
1523 The entries can refer to the memory.stat.
1524
1525 memory.swap.current
1526 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1527 cgroups.
1528
1529 The total amount of swap currently being used by the cgroup
1530 and its descendants.
1531
1532 memory.swap.high
1533 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1534 cgroups. The default is "max".
1535
1536 Swap usage throttle limit. If a cgroup's swap usage exceeds
1537 this limit, all its further allocations will be throttled to
1538 allow userspace to implement custom out-of-memory procedures.
1539
1540 This limit marks a point of no return for the cgroup. It is NOT
1541 designed to manage the amount of swapping a workload does
1542 during regular operation. Compare to memory.swap.max, which
1543 prohibits swapping past a set amount, but lets the cgroup
1544 continue unimpeded as long as other memory can be reclaimed.
1545
1546 Healthy workloads are not expected to reach this limit.
1547
1548 memory.swap.max
1549 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1550 cgroups. The default is "max".
1551
1552 Swap usage hard limit. If a cgroup's swap usage reaches this
1553 limit, anonymous memory of the cgroup will not be swapped out.
1554
1555 memory.swap.events
1556 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1557 The following entries are defined. Unless specified
1558 otherwise, a value change in this file generates a file
1559 modified event.
1560
1561 high
1562 The number of times the cgroup's swap usage was over
1563 the high threshold.
1564
1565 max
1566 The number of times the cgroup's swap usage was about
1567 to go over the max boundary and swap allocation
1568 failed.
1569
1570 fail
1571 The number of times swap allocation failed either
1572 because of running out of swap system-wide or max
1573 limit.
1574
1575 When reduced under the current usage, the existing swap
1576 entries are reclaimed gradually and the swap usage may stay
1577 higher than the limit for an extended period of time. This
1578 reduces the impact on the workload and memory management.
1579
1580 memory.zswap.current
1581 A read-only single value file which exists on non-root
1582 cgroups.
1583
1584 The total amount of memory consumed by the zswap compression
1585 backend.
1586
1587 memory.zswap.max
1588 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
1589 cgroups. The default is "max".
1590
1591 Zswap usage hard limit. If a cgroup's zswap pool reaches this
1592 limit, it will refuse to take any more stores before existing
1593 entries fault back in or are written out to disk.
1594
1595 memory.pressure
1596 A read-only nested-keyed file.
1597
1598 Shows pressure stall information for memory. See
1599 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
1600
1601
1602 Usage Guidelines
1603 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1604
1605 "memory.high" is the main mechanism to control memory usage.
1606 Over-committing on high limit (sum of high limits > available memory)
1607 and letting global memory pressure to distribute memory according to
1608 usage is a viable strategy.
1609
1610 Because breach of the high limit doesn't trigger the OOM killer but
1611 throttles the offending cgroup, a management agent has ample
1612 opportunities to monitor and take appropriate actions such as granting
1613 more memory or terminating the workload.
1614
1615 Determining whether a cgroup has enough memory is not trivial as
1616 memory usage doesn't indicate whether the workload can benefit from
1617 more memory. For example, a workload which writes data received from
1618 network to a file can use all available memory but can also operate as
1619 performant with a small amount of memory. A measure of memory
1620 pressure - how much the workload is being impacted due to lack of
1621 memory - is necessary to determine whether a workload needs more
1622 memory; unfortunately, memory pressure monitoring mechanism isn't
1623 implemented yet.
1624
1625
1626 Memory Ownership
1627 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1628
1629 A memory area is charged to the cgroup which instantiated it and stays
1630 charged to the cgroup until the area is released. Migrating a process
1631 to a different cgroup doesn't move the memory usages that it
1632 instantiated while in the previous cgroup to the new cgroup.
1633
1634 A memory area may be used by processes belonging to different cgroups.
1635 To which cgroup the area will be charged is in-deterministic; however,
1636 over time, the memory area is likely to end up in a cgroup which has
1637 enough memory allowance to avoid high reclaim pressure.
1638
1639 If a cgroup sweeps a considerable amount of memory which is expected
1640 to be accessed repeatedly by other cgroups, it may make sense to use
1641 POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED to relinquish the ownership of memory areas
1642 belonging to the affected files to ensure correct memory ownership.
1643
1644
1645 IO
1646 --
1647
1648 The "io" controller regulates the distribution of IO resources. This
1649 controller implements both weight based and absolute bandwidth or IOPS
1650 limit distribution; however, weight based distribution is available
1651 only if cfq-iosched is in use and neither scheme is available for
1652 blk-mq devices.
1653
1654
1655 IO Interface Files
1656 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1657
1658 io.stat
1659 A read-only nested-keyed file.
1660
1661 Lines are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered.
1662 The following nested keys are defined.
1663
1664 ====== =====================
1665 rbytes Bytes read
1666 wbytes Bytes written
1667 rios Number of read IOs
1668 wios Number of write IOs
1669 dbytes Bytes discarded
1670 dios Number of discard IOs
1671 ====== =====================
1672
1673 An example read output follows::
1674
1675 8:16 rbytes=1459200 wbytes=314773504 rios=192 wios=353 dbytes=0 dios=0
1676 8:0 rbytes=90430464 wbytes=299008000 rios=8950 wios=1252 dbytes=50331648 dios=3021
1677
1678 io.cost.qos
1679 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists only on the root
1680 cgroup.
1681
1682 This file configures the Quality of Service of the IO cost
1683 model based controller (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOCOST) which
1684 currently implements "io.weight" proportional control. Lines
1685 are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The
1686 line for a given device is populated on the first write for
1687 the device on "io.cost.qos" or "io.cost.model". The following
1688 nested keys are defined.
1689
1690 ====== =====================================
1691 enable Weight-based control enable
1692 ctrl "auto" or "user"
1693 rpct Read latency percentile [0, 100]
1694 rlat Read latency threshold
1695 wpct Write latency percentile [0, 100]
1696 wlat Write latency threshold
1697 min Minimum scaling percentage [1, 10000]
1698 max Maximum scaling percentage [1, 10000]
1699 ====== =====================================
1700
1701 The controller is disabled by default and can be enabled by
1702 setting "enable" to 1. "rpct" and "wpct" parameters default
1703 to zero and the controller uses internal device saturation
1704 state to adjust the overall IO rate between "min" and "max".
1705
1706 When a better control quality is needed, latency QoS
1707 parameters can be configured. For example::
1708
1709 8:16 enable=1 ctrl=auto rpct=95.00 rlat=75000 wpct=95.00 wlat=150000 min=50.00 max=150.0
1710
1711 shows that on sdb, the controller is enabled, will consider
1712 the device saturated if the 95th percentile of read completion
1713 latencies is above 75ms or write 150ms, and adjust the overall
1714 IO issue rate between 50% and 150% accordingly.
1715
1716 The lower the saturation point, the better the latency QoS at
1717 the cost of aggregate bandwidth. The narrower the allowed
1718 adjustment range between "min" and "max", the more conformant
1719 to the cost model the IO behavior. Note that the IO issue
1720 base rate may be far off from 100% and setting "min" and "max"
1721 blindly can lead to a significant loss of device capacity or
1722 control quality. "min" and "max" are useful for regulating
1723 devices which show wide temporary behavior changes - e.g. a
1724 ssd which accepts writes at the line speed for a while and
1725 then completely stalls for multiple seconds.
1726
1727 When "ctrl" is "auto", the parameters are controlled by the
1728 kernel and may change automatically. Setting "ctrl" to "user"
1729 or setting any of the percentile and latency parameters puts
1730 it into "user" mode and disables the automatic changes. The
1731 automatic mode can be restored by setting "ctrl" to "auto".
1732
1733 io.cost.model
1734 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists only on the root
1735 cgroup.
1736
1737 This file configures the cost model of the IO cost model based
1738 controller (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOCOST) which currently
1739 implements "io.weight" proportional control. Lines are keyed
1740 by $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The line for a
1741 given device is populated on the first write for the device on
1742 "io.cost.qos" or "io.cost.model". The following nested keys
1743 are defined.
1744
1745 ===== ================================
1746 ctrl "auto" or "user"
1747 model The cost model in use - "linear"
1748 ===== ================================
1749
1750 When "ctrl" is "auto", the kernel may change all parameters
1751 dynamically. When "ctrl" is set to "user" or any other
1752 parameters are written to, "ctrl" become "user" and the
1753 automatic changes are disabled.
1754
1755 When "model" is "linear", the following model parameters are
1756 defined.
1757
1758 ============= ========================================
1759 [r|w]bps The maximum sequential IO throughput
1760 [r|w]seqiops The maximum 4k sequential IOs per second
1761 [r|w]randiops The maximum 4k random IOs per second
1762 ============= ========================================
1763
1764 From the above, the builtin linear model determines the base
1765 costs of a sequential and random IO and the cost coefficient
1766 for the IO size. While simple, this model can cover most
1767 common device classes acceptably.
1768
1769 The IO cost model isn't expected to be accurate in absolute
1770 sense and is scaled to the device behavior dynamically.
1771
1772 If needed, tools/cgroup/iocost_coef_gen.py can be used to
1773 generate device-specific coefficients.
1774
1775 io.weight
1776 A read-write flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
1777 The default is "default 100".
1778
1779 The first line is the default weight applied to devices
1780 without specific override. The rest are overrides keyed by
1781 $MAJ:$MIN device numbers and not ordered. The weights are in
1782 the range [1, 10000] and specifies the relative amount IO time
1783 the cgroup can use in relation to its siblings.
1784
1785 The default weight can be updated by writing either "default
1786 $WEIGHT" or simply "$WEIGHT". Overrides can be set by writing
1787 "$MAJ:$MIN $WEIGHT" and unset by writing "$MAJ:$MIN default".
1788
1789 An example read output follows::
1790
1791 default 100
1792 8:16 200
1793 8:0 50
1794
1795 io.max
1796 A read-write nested-keyed file which exists on non-root
1797 cgroups.
1798
1799 BPS and IOPS based IO limit. Lines are keyed by $MAJ:$MIN
1800 device numbers and not ordered. The following nested keys are
1801 defined.
1802
1803 ===== ==================================
1804 rbps Max read bytes per second
1805 wbps Max write bytes per second
1806 riops Max read IO operations per second
1807 wiops Max write IO operations per second
1808 ===== ==================================
1809
1810 When writing, any number of nested key-value pairs can be
1811 specified in any order. "max" can be specified as the value
1812 to remove a specific limit. If the same key is specified
1813 multiple times, the outcome is undefined.
1814
1815 BPS and IOPS are measured in each IO direction and IOs are
1816 delayed if limit is reached. Temporary bursts are allowed.
1817
1818 Setting read limit at 2M BPS and write at 120 IOPS for 8:16::
1819
1820 echo "8:16 rbps=2097152 wiops=120" > io.max
1821
1822 Reading returns the following::
1823
1824 8:16 rbps=2097152 wbps=max riops=max wiops=120
1825
1826 Write IOPS limit can be removed by writing the following::
1827
1828 echo "8:16 wiops=max" > io.max
1829
1830 Reading now returns the following::
1831
1832 8:16 rbps=2097152 wbps=max riops=max wiops=max
1833
1834 io.pressure
1835 A read-only nested-keyed file.
1836
1837 Shows pressure stall information for IO. See
1838 :ref:`Documentation/accounting/psi.rst <psi>` for details.
1839
1840
1841 Writeback
1842 ~~~~~~~~~
1843
1844 Page cache is dirtied through buffered writes and shared mmaps and
1845 written asynchronously to the backing filesystem by the writeback
1846 mechanism. Writeback sits between the memory and IO domains and
1847 regulates the proportion of dirty memory by balancing dirtying and
1848 write IOs.
1849
1850 The io controller, in conjunction with the memory controller,
1851 implements control of page cache writeback IOs. The memory controller
1852 defines the memory domain that dirty memory ratio is calculated and
1853 maintained for and the io controller defines the io domain which
1854 writes out dirty pages for the memory domain. Both system-wide and
1855 per-cgroup dirty memory states are examined and the more restrictive
1856 of the two is enforced.
1857
1858 cgroup writeback requires explicit support from the underlying
1859 filesystem. Currently, cgroup writeback is implemented on ext2, ext4,
1860 btrfs, f2fs, and xfs. On other filesystems, all writeback IOs are
1861 attributed to the root cgroup.
1862
1863 There are inherent differences in memory and writeback management
1864 which affects how cgroup ownership is tracked. Memory is tracked per
1865 page while writeback per inode. For the purpose of writeback, an
1866 inode is assigned to a cgroup and all IO requests to write dirty pages
1867 from the inode are attributed to that cgroup.
1868
1869 As cgroup ownership for memory is tracked per page, there can be pages
1870 which are associated with different cgroups than the one the inode is
1871 associated with. These are called foreign pages. The writeback
1872 constantly keeps track of foreign pages and, if a particular foreign
1873 cgroup becomes the majority over a certain period of time, switches
1874 the ownership of the inode to that cgroup.
1875
1876 While this model is enough for most use cases where a given inode is
1877 mostly dirtied by a single cgroup even when the main writing cgroup
1878 changes over time, use cases where multiple cgroups write to a single
1879 inode simultaneously are not supported well. In such circumstances, a
1880 significant portion of IOs are likely to be attributed incorrectly.
1881 As memory controller assigns page ownership on the first use and
1882 doesn't update it until the page is released, even if writeback
1883 strictly follows page ownership, multiple cgroups dirtying overlapping
1884 areas wouldn't work as expected. It's recommended to avoid such usage
1885 patterns.
1886
1887 The sysctl knobs which affect writeback behavior are applied to cgroup
1888 writeback as follows.
1889
1890 vm.dirty_background_ratio, vm.dirty_ratio
1891 These ratios apply the same to cgroup writeback with the
1892 amount of available memory capped by limits imposed by the
1893 memory controller and system-wide clean memory.
1894
1895 vm.dirty_background_bytes, vm.dirty_bytes
1896 For cgroup writeback, this is calculated into ratio against
1897 total available memory and applied the same way as
1898 vm.dirty[_background]_ratio.
1899
1900
1901 IO Latency
1902 ~~~~~~~~~~
1903
1904 This is a cgroup v2 controller for IO workload protection. You provide a group
1905 with a latency target, and if the average latency exceeds that target the
1906 controller will throttle any peers that have a lower latency target than the
1907 protected workload.
1908
1909 The limits are only applied at the peer level in the hierarchy. This means that
1910 in the diagram below, only groups A, B, and C will influence each other, and
1911 groups D and F will influence each other. Group G will influence nobody::
1912
1913 [root]
1914 / | \
1915 A B C
1916 / \ |
1917 D F G
1918
1919
1920 So the ideal way to configure this is to set io.latency in groups A, B, and C.
1921 Generally you do not want to set a value lower than the latency your device
1922 supports. Experiment to find the value that works best for your workload.
1923 Start at higher than the expected latency for your device and watch the
1924 avg_lat value in io.stat for your workload group to get an idea of the
1925 latency you see during normal operation. Use the avg_lat value as a basis for
1926 your real setting, setting at 10-15% higher than the value in io.stat.
1927
1928 How IO Latency Throttling Works
1929 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1930
1931 io.latency is work conserving; so as long as everybody is meeting their latency
1932 target the controller doesn't do anything. Once a group starts missing its
1933 target it begins throttling any peer group that has a higher target than itself.
1934 This throttling takes 2 forms:
1935
1936 - Queue depth throttling. This is the number of outstanding IO's a group is
1937 allowed to have. We will clamp down relatively quickly, starting at no limit
1938 and going all the way down to 1 IO at a time.
1939
1940 - Artificial delay induction. There are certain types of IO that cannot be
1941 throttled without possibly adversely affecting higher priority groups. This
1942 includes swapping and metadata IO. These types of IO are allowed to occur
1943 normally, however they are "charged" to the originating group. If the
1944 originating group is being throttled you will see the use_delay and delay
1945 fields in io.stat increase. The delay value is how many microseconds that are
1946 being added to any process that runs in this group. Because this number can
1947 grow quite large if there is a lot of swapping or metadata IO occurring we
1948 limit the individual delay events to 1 second at a time.
1949
1950 Once the victimized group starts meeting its latency target again it will start
1951 unthrottling any peer groups that were throttled previously. If the victimized
1952 group simply stops doing IO the global counter will unthrottle appropriately.
1953
1954 IO Latency Interface Files
1955 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1956
1957 io.latency
1958 This takes a similar format as the other controllers.
1959
1960 "MAJOR:MINOR target=<target time in microseconds>"
1961
1962 io.stat
1963 If the controller is enabled you will see extra stats in io.stat in
1964 addition to the normal ones.
1965
1966 depth
1967 This is the current queue depth for the group.
1968
1969 avg_lat
1970 This is an exponential moving average with a decay rate of 1/exp
1971 bound by the sampling interval. The decay rate interval can be
1972 calculated by multiplying the win value in io.stat by the
1973 corresponding number of samples based on the win value.
1974
1975 win
1976 The sampling window size in milliseconds. This is the minimum
1977 duration of time between evaluation events. Windows only elapse
1978 with IO activity. Idle periods extend the most recent window.
1979
1980 IO Priority
1981 ~~~~~~~~~~~
1982
1983 A single attribute controls the behavior of the I/O priority cgroup policy,
1984 namely the blkio.prio.class attribute. The following values are accepted for
1985 that attribute:
1986
1987 no-change
1988 Do not modify the I/O priority class.
1989
1990 none-to-rt
1991 For requests that do not have an I/O priority class (NONE),
1992 change the I/O priority class into RT. Do not modify
1993 the I/O priority class of other requests.
1994
1995 restrict-to-be
1996 For requests that do not have an I/O priority class or that have I/O
1997 priority class RT, change it into BE. Do not modify the I/O priority
1998 class of requests that have priority class IDLE.
1999
2000 idle
2001 Change the I/O priority class of all requests into IDLE, the lowest
2002 I/O priority class.
2003
2004 The following numerical values are associated with the I/O priority policies:
2005
2006 +-------------+---+
2007 | no-change | 0 |
2008 +-------------+---+
2009 | none-to-rt | 1 |
2010 +-------------+---+
2011 | rt-to-be | 2 |
2012 +-------------+---+
2013 | all-to-idle | 3 |
2014 +-------------+---+
2015
2016 The numerical value that corresponds to each I/O priority class is as follows:
2017
2018 +-------------------------------+---+
2019 | IOPRIO_CLASS_NONE | 0 |
2020 +-------------------------------+---+
2021 | IOPRIO_CLASS_RT (real-time) | 1 |
2022 +-------------------------------+---+
2023 | IOPRIO_CLASS_BE (best effort) | 2 |
2024 +-------------------------------+---+
2025 | IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE | 3 |
2026 +-------------------------------+---+
2027
2028 The algorithm to set the I/O priority class for a request is as follows:
2029
2030 - Translate the I/O priority class policy into a number.
2031 - Change the request I/O priority class into the maximum of the I/O priority
2032 class policy number and the numerical I/O priority class.
2033
2034 PID
2035 ---
2036
2037 The process number controller is used to allow a cgroup to stop any
2038 new tasks from being fork()'d or clone()'d after a specified limit is
2039 reached.
2040
2041 The number of tasks in a cgroup can be exhausted in ways which other
2042 controllers cannot prevent, thus warranting its own controller. For
2043 example, a fork bomb is likely to exhaust the number of tasks before
2044 hitting memory restrictions.
2045
2046 Note that PIDs used in this controller refer to TIDs, process IDs as
2047 used by the kernel.
2048
2049
2050 PID Interface Files
2051 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2052
2053 pids.max
2054 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
2055 cgroups. The default is "max".
2056
2057 Hard limit of number of processes.
2058
2059 pids.current
2060 A read-only single value file which exists on all cgroups.
2061
2062 The number of processes currently in the cgroup and its
2063 descendants.
2064
2065 Organisational operations are not blocked by cgroup policies, so it is
2066 possible to have pids.current > pids.max. This can be done by either
2067 setting the limit to be smaller than pids.current, or attaching enough
2068 processes to the cgroup such that pids.current is larger than
2069 pids.max. However, it is not possible to violate a cgroup PID policy
2070 through fork() or clone(). These will return -EAGAIN if the creation
2071 of a new process would cause a cgroup policy to be violated.
2072
2073
2074 Cpuset
2075 ------
2076
2077 The "cpuset" controller provides a mechanism for constraining
2078 the CPU and memory node placement of tasks to only the resources
2079 specified in the cpuset interface files in a task's current cgroup.
2080 This is especially valuable on large NUMA systems where placing jobs
2081 on properly sized subsets of the systems with careful processor and
2082 memory placement to reduce cross-node memory access and contention
2083 can improve overall system performance.
2084
2085 The "cpuset" controller is hierarchical. That means the controller
2086 cannot use CPUs or memory nodes not allowed in its parent.
2087
2088
2089 Cpuset Interface Files
2090 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2091
2092 cpuset.cpus
2093 A read-write multiple values file which exists on non-root
2094 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2095
2096 It lists the requested CPUs to be used by tasks within this
2097 cgroup. The actual list of CPUs to be granted, however, is
2098 subjected to constraints imposed by its parent and can differ
2099 from the requested CPUs.
2100
2101 The CPU numbers are comma-separated numbers or ranges.
2102 For example::
2103
2104 # cat cpuset.cpus
2105 0-4,6,8-10
2106
2107 An empty value indicates that the cgroup is using the same
2108 setting as the nearest cgroup ancestor with a non-empty
2109 "cpuset.cpus" or all the available CPUs if none is found.
2110
2111 The value of "cpuset.cpus" stays constant until the next update
2112 and won't be affected by any CPU hotplug events.
2113
2114 cpuset.cpus.effective
2115 A read-only multiple values file which exists on all
2116 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2117
2118 It lists the onlined CPUs that are actually granted to this
2119 cgroup by its parent. These CPUs are allowed to be used by
2120 tasks within the current cgroup.
2121
2122 If "cpuset.cpus" is empty, the "cpuset.cpus.effective" file shows
2123 all the CPUs from the parent cgroup that can be available to
2124 be used by this cgroup. Otherwise, it should be a subset of
2125 "cpuset.cpus" unless none of the CPUs listed in "cpuset.cpus"
2126 can be granted. In this case, it will be treated just like an
2127 empty "cpuset.cpus".
2128
2129 Its value will be affected by CPU hotplug events.
2130
2131 cpuset.mems
2132 A read-write multiple values file which exists on non-root
2133 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2134
2135 It lists the requested memory nodes to be used by tasks within
2136 this cgroup. The actual list of memory nodes granted, however,
2137 is subjected to constraints imposed by its parent and can differ
2138 from the requested memory nodes.
2139
2140 The memory node numbers are comma-separated numbers or ranges.
2141 For example::
2142
2143 # cat cpuset.mems
2144 0-1,3
2145
2146 An empty value indicates that the cgroup is using the same
2147 setting as the nearest cgroup ancestor with a non-empty
2148 "cpuset.mems" or all the available memory nodes if none
2149 is found.
2150
2151 The value of "cpuset.mems" stays constant until the next update
2152 and won't be affected by any memory nodes hotplug events.
2153
2154 Setting a non-empty value to "cpuset.mems" causes memory of
2155 tasks within the cgroup to be migrated to the designated nodes if
2156 they are currently using memory outside of the designated nodes.
2157
2158 There is a cost for this memory migration. The migration
2159 may not be complete and some memory pages may be left behind.
2160 So it is recommended that "cpuset.mems" should be set properly
2161 before spawning new tasks into the cpuset. Even if there is
2162 a need to change "cpuset.mems" with active tasks, it shouldn't
2163 be done frequently.
2164
2165 cpuset.mems.effective
2166 A read-only multiple values file which exists on all
2167 cpuset-enabled cgroups.
2168
2169 It lists the onlined memory nodes that are actually granted to
2170 this cgroup by its parent. These memory nodes are allowed to
2171 be used by tasks within the current cgroup.
2172
2173 If "cpuset.mems" is empty, it shows all the memory nodes from the
2174 parent cgroup that will be available to be used by this cgroup.
2175 Otherwise, it should be a subset of "cpuset.mems" unless none of
2176 the memory nodes listed in "cpuset.mems" can be granted. In this
2177 case, it will be treated just like an empty "cpuset.mems".
2178
2179 Its value will be affected by memory nodes hotplug events.
2180
2181 cpuset.cpus.partition
2182 A read-write single value file which exists on non-root
2183 cpuset-enabled cgroups. This flag is owned by the parent cgroup
2184 and is not delegatable.
2185
2186 It accepts only the following input values when written to.
2187
2188 ======== ================================
2189 "root" a partition root
2190 "member" a non-root member of a partition
2191 ======== ================================
2192
2193 When set to be a partition root, the current cgroup is the
2194 root of a new partition or scheduling domain that comprises
2195 itself and all its descendants except those that are separate
2196 partition roots themselves and their descendants. The root
2197 cgroup is always a partition root.
2198
2199 There are constraints on where a partition root can be set.
2200 It can only be set in a cgroup if all the following conditions
2201 are true.
2202
2203 1) The "cpuset.cpus" is not empty and the list of CPUs are
2204 exclusive, i.e. they are not shared by any of its siblings.
2205 2) The parent cgroup is a partition root.
2206 3) The "cpuset.cpus" is also a proper subset of the parent's
2207 "cpuset.cpus.effective".
2208 4) There is no child cgroups with cpuset enabled. This is for
2209 eliminating corner cases that have to be handled if such a
2210 condition is allowed.
2211
2212 Setting it to partition root will take the CPUs away from the
2213 effective CPUs of the parent cgroup. Once it is set, this
2214 file cannot be reverted back to "member" if there are any child
2215 cgroups with cpuset enabled.
2216
2217 A parent partition cannot distribute all its CPUs to its
2218 child partitions. There must be at least one cpu left in the
2219 parent partition.
2220
2221 Once becoming a partition root, changes to "cpuset.cpus" is
2222 generally allowed as long as the first condition above is true,
2223 the change will not take away all the CPUs from the parent
2224 partition and the new "cpuset.cpus" value is a superset of its
2225 children's "cpuset.cpus" values.
2226
2227 Sometimes, external factors like changes to ancestors'
2228 "cpuset.cpus" or cpu hotplug can cause the state of the partition
2229 root to change. On read, the "cpuset.sched.partition" file
2230 can show the following values.
2231
2232 ============== ==============================
2233 "member" Non-root member of a partition
2234 "root" Partition root
2235 "root invalid" Invalid partition root
2236 ============== ==============================
2237
2238 It is a partition root if the first 2 partition root conditions
2239 above are true and at least one CPU from "cpuset.cpus" is
2240 granted by the parent cgroup.
2241
2242 A partition root can become invalid if none of CPUs requested
2243 in "cpuset.cpus" can be granted by the parent cgroup or the
2244 parent cgroup is no longer a partition root itself. In this
2245 case, it is not a real partition even though the restriction
2246 of the first partition root condition above will still apply.
2247 The cpu affinity of all the tasks in the cgroup will then be
2248 associated with CPUs in the nearest ancestor partition.
2249
2250 An invalid partition root can be transitioned back to a
2251 real partition root if at least one of the requested CPUs
2252 can now be granted by its parent. In this case, the cpu
2253 affinity of all the tasks in the formerly invalid partition
2254 will be associated to the CPUs of the newly formed partition.
2255 Changing the partition state of an invalid partition root to
2256 "member" is always allowed even if child cpusets are present.
2257
2258
2259 Device controller
2260 -----------------
2261
2262 Device controller manages access to device files. It includes both
2263 creation of new device files (using mknod), and access to the
2264 existing device files.
2265
2266 Cgroup v2 device controller has no interface files and is implemented
2267 on top of cgroup BPF. To control access to device files, a user may
2268 create bpf programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE and attach
2269 them to cgroups with BPF_CGROUP_DEVICE flag. On an attempt to access a
2270 device file, corresponding BPF programs will be executed, and depending
2271 on the return value the attempt will succeed or fail with -EPERM.
2272
2273 A BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE program takes a pointer to the
2274 bpf_cgroup_dev_ctx structure, which describes the device access attempt:
2275 access type (mknod/read/write) and device (type, major and minor numbers).
2276 If the program returns 0, the attempt fails with -EPERM, otherwise it
2277 succeeds.
2278
2279 An example of BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_DEVICE program may be found in
2280 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/progs/dev_cgroup.c in the kernel source tree.
2281
2282
2283 RDMA
2284 ----
2285
2286 The "rdma" controller regulates the distribution and accounting of
2287 RDMA resources.
2288
2289 RDMA Interface Files
2290 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2291
2292 rdma.max
2293 A readwrite nested-keyed file that exists for all the cgroups
2294 except root that describes current configured resource limit
2295 for a RDMA/IB device.
2296
2297 Lines are keyed by device name and are not ordered.
2298 Each line contains space separated resource name and its configured
2299 limit that can be distributed.
2300
2301 The following nested keys are defined.
2302
2303 ========== =============================
2304 hca_handle Maximum number of HCA Handles
2305 hca_object Maximum number of HCA Objects
2306 ========== =============================
2307
2308 An example for mlx4 and ocrdma device follows::
2309
2310 mlx4_0 hca_handle=2 hca_object=2000
2311 ocrdma1 hca_handle=3 hca_object=max
2312
2313 rdma.current
2314 A read-only file that describes current resource usage.
2315 It exists for all the cgroup except root.
2316
2317 An example for mlx4 and ocrdma device follows::
2318
2319 mlx4_0 hca_handle=1 hca_object=20
2320 ocrdma1 hca_handle=1 hca_object=23
2321
2322 HugeTLB
2323 -------
2324
2325 The HugeTLB controller allows to limit the HugeTLB usage per control group and
2326 enforces the controller limit during page fault.
2327
2328 HugeTLB Interface Files
2329 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2330
2331 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.current
2332 Show current usage for "hugepagesize" hugetlb. It exists for all
2333 the cgroup except root.
2334
2335 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.max
2336 Set/show the hard limit of "hugepagesize" hugetlb usage.
2337 The default value is "max". It exists for all the cgroup except root.
2338
2339 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events
2340 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups.
2341
2342 max
2343 The number of allocation failure due to HugeTLB limit
2344
2345 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events.local
2346 Similar to hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.events but the fields in the file
2347 are local to the cgroup i.e. not hierarchical. The file modified event
2348 generated on this file reflects only the local events.
2349
2350 hugetlb.<hugepagesize>.numa_stat
2351 Similar to memory.numa_stat, it shows the numa information of the
2352 hugetlb pages of <hugepagesize> in this cgroup. Only active in
2353 use hugetlb pages are included. The per-node values are in bytes.
2354
2355 Misc
2356 ----
2357
2358 The Miscellaneous cgroup provides the resource limiting and tracking
2359 mechanism for the scalar resources which cannot be abstracted like the other
2360 cgroup resources. Controller is enabled by the CONFIG_CGROUP_MISC config
2361 option.
2362
2363 A resource can be added to the controller via enum misc_res_type{} in the
2364 include/linux/misc_cgroup.h file and the corresponding name via misc_res_name[]
2365 in the kernel/cgroup/misc.c file. Provider of the resource must set its
2366 capacity prior to using the resource by calling misc_cg_set_capacity().
2367
2368 Once a capacity is set then the resource usage can be updated using charge and
2369 uncharge APIs. All of the APIs to interact with misc controller are in
2370 include/linux/misc_cgroup.h.
2371
2372 Misc Interface Files
2373 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2374
2375 Miscellaneous controller provides 3 interface files. If two misc resources (res_a and res_b) are registered then:
2376
2377 misc.capacity
2378 A read-only flat-keyed file shown only in the root cgroup. It shows
2379 miscellaneous scalar resources available on the platform along with
2380 their quantities::
2381
2382 $ cat misc.capacity
2383 res_a 50
2384 res_b 10
2385
2386 misc.current
2387 A read-only flat-keyed file shown in the non-root cgroups. It shows
2388 the current usage of the resources in the cgroup and its children.::
2389
2390 $ cat misc.current
2391 res_a 3
2392 res_b 0
2393
2394 misc.max
2395 A read-write flat-keyed file shown in the non root cgroups. Allowed
2396 maximum usage of the resources in the cgroup and its children.::
2397
2398 $ cat misc.max
2399 res_a max
2400 res_b 4
2401
2402 Limit can be set by::
2403
2404 # echo res_a 1 > misc.max
2405
2406 Limit can be set to max by::
2407
2408 # echo res_a max > misc.max
2409
2410 Limits can be set higher than the capacity value in the misc.capacity
2411 file.
2412
2413 misc.events
2414 A read-only flat-keyed file which exists on non-root cgroups. The
2415 following entries are defined. Unless specified otherwise, a value
2416 change in this file generates a file modified event. All fields in
2417 this file are hierarchical.
2418
2419 max
2420 The number of times the cgroup's resource usage was
2421 about to go over the max boundary.
2422
2423 Migration and Ownership
2424 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2425
2426 A miscellaneous scalar resource is charged to the cgroup in which it is used
2427 first, and stays charged to that cgroup until that resource is freed. Migrating
2428 a process to a different cgroup does not move the charge to the destination
2429 cgroup where the process has moved.
2430
2431 Others
2432 ------
2433
2434 perf_event
2435 ~~~~~~~~~~
2436
2437 perf_event controller, if not mounted on a legacy hierarchy, is
2438 automatically enabled on the v2 hierarchy so that perf events can
2439 always be filtered by cgroup v2 path. The controller can still be
2440 moved to a legacy hierarchy after v2 hierarchy is populated.
2441
2442
2443 Non-normative information
2444 -------------------------
2445
2446 This section contains information that isn't considered to be a part of
2447 the stable kernel API and so is subject to change.
2448
2449
2450 CPU controller root cgroup process behaviour
2451 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2452
2453 When distributing CPU cycles in the root cgroup each thread in this
2454 cgroup is treated as if it was hosted in a separate child cgroup of the
2455 root cgroup. This child cgroup weight is dependent on its thread nice
2456 level.
2457
2458 For details of this mapping see sched_prio_to_weight array in
2459 kernel/sched/core.c file (values from this array should be scaled
2460 appropriately so the neutral - nice 0 - value is 100 instead of 1024).
2461
2462
2463 IO controller root cgroup process behaviour
2464 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2465
2466 Root cgroup processes are hosted in an implicit leaf child node.
2467 When distributing IO resources this implicit child node is taken into
2468 account as if it was a normal child cgroup of the root cgroup with a
2469 weight value of 200.
2470
2471
2472 Namespace
2473 =========
2474
2475 Basics
2476 ------
2477
2478 cgroup namespace provides a mechanism to virtualize the view of the
2479 "/proc/$PID/cgroup" file and cgroup mounts. The CLONE_NEWCGROUP clone
2480 flag can be used with clone(2) and unshare(2) to create a new cgroup
2481 namespace. The process running inside the cgroup namespace will have
2482 its "/proc/$PID/cgroup" output restricted to cgroupns root. The
2483 cgroupns root is the cgroup of the process at the time of creation of
2484 the cgroup namespace.
2485
2486 Without cgroup namespace, the "/proc/$PID/cgroup" file shows the
2487 complete path of the cgroup of a process. In a container setup where
2488 a set of cgroups and namespaces are intended to isolate processes the
2489 "/proc/$PID/cgroup" file may leak potential system level information
2490 to the isolated processes. For example::
2491
2492 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2493 0::/batchjobs/container_id1
2494
2495 The path '/batchjobs/container_id1' can be considered as system-data
2496 and undesirable to expose to the isolated processes. cgroup namespace
2497 can be used to restrict visibility of this path. For example, before
2498 creating a cgroup namespace, one would see::
2499
2500 # ls -l /proc/self/ns/cgroup
2501 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2014-07-15 10:37 /proc/self/ns/cgroup -> cgroup:[4026531835]
2502 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2503 0::/batchjobs/container_id1
2504
2505 After unsharing a new namespace, the view changes::
2506
2507 # ls -l /proc/self/ns/cgroup
2508 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2014-07-15 10:35 /proc/self/ns/cgroup -> cgroup:[4026532183]
2509 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2510 0::/
2511
2512 When some thread from a multi-threaded process unshares its cgroup
2513 namespace, the new cgroupns gets applied to the entire process (all
2514 the threads). This is natural for the v2 hierarchy; however, for the
2515 legacy hierarchies, this may be unexpected.
2516
2517 A cgroup namespace is alive as long as there are processes inside or
2518 mounts pinning it. When the last usage goes away, the cgroup
2519 namespace is destroyed. The cgroupns root and the actual cgroups
2520 remain.
2521
2522
2523 The Root and Views
2524 ------------------
2525
2526 The 'cgroupns root' for a cgroup namespace is the cgroup in which the
2527 process calling unshare(2) is running. For example, if a process in
2528 /batchjobs/container_id1 cgroup calls unshare, cgroup
2529 /batchjobs/container_id1 becomes the cgroupns root. For the
2530 init_cgroup_ns, this is the real root ('/') cgroup.
2531
2532 The cgroupns root cgroup does not change even if the namespace creator
2533 process later moves to a different cgroup::
2534
2535 # ~/unshare -c # unshare cgroupns in some cgroup
2536 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2537 0::/
2538 # mkdir sub_cgrp_1
2539 # echo 0 > sub_cgrp_1/cgroup.procs
2540 # cat /proc/self/cgroup
2541 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2542
2543 Each process gets its namespace-specific view of "/proc/$PID/cgroup"
2544
2545 Processes running inside the cgroup namespace will be able to see
2546 cgroup paths (in /proc/self/cgroup) only inside their root cgroup.
2547 From within an unshared cgroupns::
2548
2549 # sleep 100000 &
2550 [1] 7353
2551 # echo 7353 > sub_cgrp_1/cgroup.procs
2552 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2553 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2554
2555 From the initial cgroup namespace, the real cgroup path will be
2556 visible::
2557
2558 $ cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2559 0::/batchjobs/container_id1/sub_cgrp_1
2560
2561 From a sibling cgroup namespace (that is, a namespace rooted at a
2562 different cgroup), the cgroup path relative to its own cgroup
2563 namespace root will be shown. For instance, if PID 7353's cgroup
2564 namespace root is at '/batchjobs/container_id2', then it will see::
2565
2566 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2567 0::/../container_id2/sub_cgrp_1
2568
2569 Note that the relative path always starts with '/' to indicate that
2570 its relative to the cgroup namespace root of the caller.
2571
2572
2573 Migration and setns(2)
2574 ----------------------
2575
2576 Processes inside a cgroup namespace can move into and out of the
2577 namespace root if they have proper access to external cgroups. For
2578 example, from inside a namespace with cgroupns root at
2579 /batchjobs/container_id1, and assuming that the global hierarchy is
2580 still accessible inside cgroupns::
2581
2582 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2583 0::/sub_cgrp_1
2584 # echo 7353 > batchjobs/container_id2/cgroup.procs
2585 # cat /proc/7353/cgroup
2586 0::/../container_id2
2587
2588 Note that this kind of setup is not encouraged. A task inside cgroup
2589 namespace should only be exposed to its own cgroupns hierarchy.
2590
2591 setns(2) to another cgroup namespace is allowed when:
2592
2593 (a) the process has CAP_SYS_ADMIN against its current user namespace
2594 (b) the process has CAP_SYS_ADMIN against the target cgroup
2595 namespace's userns
2596
2597 No implicit cgroup changes happen with attaching to another cgroup
2598 namespace. It is expected that the someone moves the attaching
2599 process under the target cgroup namespace root.
2600
2601
2602 Interaction with Other Namespaces
2603 ---------------------------------
2604
2605 Namespace specific cgroup hierarchy can be mounted by a process
2606 running inside a non-init cgroup namespace::
2607
2608 # mount -t cgroup2 none $MOUNT_POINT
2609
2610 This will mount the unified cgroup hierarchy with cgroupns root as the
2611 filesystem root. The process needs CAP_SYS_ADMIN against its user and
2612 mount namespaces.
2613
2614 The virtualization of /proc/self/cgroup file combined with restricting
2615 the view of cgroup hierarchy by namespace-private cgroupfs mount
2616 provides a properly isolated cgroup view inside the container.
2617
2618
2619 Information on Kernel Programming
2620 =================================
2621
2622 This section contains kernel programming information in the areas
2623 where interacting with cgroup is necessary. cgroup core and
2624 controllers are not covered.
2625
2626
2627 Filesystem Support for Writeback
2628 --------------------------------
2629
2630 A filesystem can support cgroup writeback by updating
2631 address_space_operations->writepage[s]() to annotate bio's using the
2632 following two functions.
2633
2634 wbc_init_bio(@wbc, @bio)
2635 Should be called for each bio carrying writeback data and
2636 associates the bio with the inode's owner cgroup and the
2637 corresponding request queue. This must be called after
2638 a queue (device) has been associated with the bio and
2639 before submission.
2640
2641 wbc_account_cgroup_owner(@wbc, @page, @bytes)
2642 Should be called for each data segment being written out.
2643 While this function doesn't care exactly when it's called
2644 during the writeback session, it's the easiest and most
2645 natural to call it as data segments are added to a bio.
2646
2647 With writeback bio's annotated, cgroup support can be enabled per
2648 super_block by setting SB_I_CGROUPWB in ->s_iflags. This allows for
2649 selective disabling of cgroup writeback support which is helpful when
2650 certain filesystem features, e.g. journaled data mode, are
2651 incompatible.
2652
2653 wbc_init_bio() binds the specified bio to its cgroup. Depending on
2654 the configuration, the bio may be executed at a lower priority and if
2655 the writeback session is holding shared resources, e.g. a journal
2656 entry, may lead to priority inversion. There is no one easy solution
2657 for the problem. Filesystems can try to work around specific problem
2658 cases by skipping wbc_init_bio() and using bio_associate_blkg()
2659 directly.
2660
2661
2662 Deprecated v1 Core Features
2663 ===========================
2664
2665 - Multiple hierarchies including named ones are not supported.
2666
2667 - All v1 mount options are not supported.
2668
2669 - The "tasks" file is removed and "cgroup.procs" is not sorted.
2670
2671 - "cgroup.clone_children" is removed.
2672
2673 - /proc/cgroups is meaningless for v2. Use "cgroup.controllers" file
2674 at the root instead.
2675
2676
2677 Issues with v1 and Rationales for v2
2678 ====================================
2679
2680 Multiple Hierarchies
2681 --------------------
2682
2683 cgroup v1 allowed an arbitrary number of hierarchies and each
2684 hierarchy could host any number of controllers. While this seemed to
2685 provide a high level of flexibility, it wasn't useful in practice.
2686
2687 For example, as there is only one instance of each controller, utility
2688 type controllers such as freezer which can be useful in all
2689 hierarchies could only be used in one. The issue is exacerbated by
2690 the fact that controllers couldn't be moved to another hierarchy once
2691 hierarchies were populated. Another issue was that all controllers
2692 bound to a hierarchy were forced to have exactly the same view of the
2693 hierarchy. It wasn't possible to vary the granularity depending on
2694 the specific controller.
2695
2696 In practice, these issues heavily limited which controllers could be
2697 put on the same hierarchy and most configurations resorted to putting
2698 each controller on its own hierarchy. Only closely related ones, such
2699 as the cpu and cpuacct controllers, made sense to be put on the same
2700 hierarchy. This often meant that userland ended up managing multiple
2701 similar hierarchies repeating the same steps on each hierarchy
2702 whenever a hierarchy management operation was necessary.
2703
2704 Furthermore, support for multiple hierarchies came at a steep cost.
2705 It greatly complicated cgroup core implementation but more importantly
2706 the support for multiple hierarchies restricted how cgroup could be
2707 used in general and what controllers was able to do.
2708
2709 There was no limit on how many hierarchies there might be, which meant
2710 that a thread's cgroup membership couldn't be described in finite
2711 length. The key might contain any number of entries and was unlimited
2712 in length, which made it highly awkward to manipulate and led to
2713 addition of controllers which existed only to identify membership,
2714 which in turn exacerbated the original problem of proliferating number
2715 of hierarchies.
2716
2717 Also, as a controller couldn't have any expectation regarding the
2718 topologies of hierarchies other controllers might be on, each
2719 controller had to assume that all other controllers were attached to
2720 completely orthogonal hierarchies. This made it impossible, or at
2721 least very cumbersome, for controllers to cooperate with each other.
2722
2723 In most use cases, putting controllers on hierarchies which are
2724 completely orthogonal to each other isn't necessary. What usually is
2725 called for is the ability to have differing levels of granularity
2726 depending on the specific controller. In other words, hierarchy may
2727 be collapsed from leaf towards root when viewed from specific
2728 controllers. For example, a given configuration might not care about
2729 how memory is distributed beyond a certain level while still wanting
2730 to control how CPU cycles are distributed.
2731
2732
2733 Thread Granularity
2734 ------------------
2735
2736 cgroup v1 allowed threads of a process to belong to different cgroups.
2737 This didn't make sense for some controllers and those controllers
2738 ended up implementing different ways to ignore such situations but
2739 much more importantly it blurred the line between API exposed to
2740 individual applications and system management interface.
2741
2742 Generally, in-process knowledge is available only to the process
2743 itself; thus, unlike service-level organization of processes,
2744 categorizing threads of a process requires active participation from
2745 the application which owns the target process.
2746
2747 cgroup v1 had an ambiguously defined delegation model which got abused
2748 in combination with thread granularity. cgroups were delegated to
2749 individual applications so that they can create and manage their own
2750 sub-hierarchies and control resource distributions along them. This
2751 effectively raised cgroup to the status of a syscall-like API exposed
2752 to lay programs.
2753
2754 First of all, cgroup has a fundamentally inadequate interface to be
2755 exposed this way. For a process to access its own knobs, it has to
2756 extract the path on the target hierarchy from /proc/self/cgroup,
2757 construct the path by appending the name of the knob to the path, open
2758 and then read and/or write to it. This is not only extremely clunky
2759 and unusual but also inherently racy. There is no conventional way to
2760 define transaction across the required steps and nothing can guarantee
2761 that the process would actually be operating on its own sub-hierarchy.
2762
2763 cgroup controllers implemented a number of knobs which would never be
2764 accepted as public APIs because they were just adding control knobs to
2765 system-management pseudo filesystem. cgroup ended up with interface
2766 knobs which were not properly abstracted or refined and directly
2767 revealed kernel internal details. These knobs got exposed to
2768 individual applications through the ill-defined delegation mechanism
2769 effectively abusing cgroup as a shortcut to implementing public APIs
2770 without going through the required scrutiny.
2771
2772 This was painful for both userland and kernel. Userland ended up with
2773 misbehaving and poorly abstracted interfaces and kernel exposing and
2774 locked into constructs inadvertently.
2775
2776
2777 Competition Between Inner Nodes and Threads
2778 -------------------------------------------
2779
2780 cgroup v1 allowed threads to be in any cgroups which created an
2781 interesting problem where threads belonging to a parent cgroup and its
2782 children cgroups competed for resources. This was nasty as two
2783 different types of entities competed and there was no obvious way to
2784 settle it. Different controllers did different things.
2785
2786 The cpu controller considered threads and cgroups as equivalents and
2787 mapped nice levels to cgroup weights. This worked for some cases but
2788 fell flat when children wanted to be allocated specific ratios of CPU
2789 cycles and the number of internal threads fluctuated - the ratios
2790 constantly changed as the number of competing entities fluctuated.
2791 There also were other issues. The mapping from nice level to weight
2792 wasn't obvious or universal, and there were various other knobs which
2793 simply weren't available for threads.
2794
2795 The io controller implicitly created a hidden leaf node for each
2796 cgroup to host the threads. The hidden leaf had its own copies of all
2797 the knobs with ``leaf_`` prefixed. While this allowed equivalent
2798 control over internal threads, it was with serious drawbacks. It
2799 always added an extra layer of nesting which wouldn't be necessary
2800 otherwise, made the interface messy and significantly complicated the
2801 implementation.
2802
2803 The memory controller didn't have a way to control what happened
2804 between internal tasks and child cgroups and the behavior was not
2805 clearly defined. There were attempts to add ad-hoc behaviors and
2806 knobs to tailor the behavior to specific workloads which would have
2807 led to problems extremely difficult to resolve in the long term.
2808
2809 Multiple controllers struggled with internal tasks and came up with
2810 different ways to deal with it; unfortunately, all the approaches were
2811 severely flawed and, furthermore, the widely different behaviors
2812 made cgroup as a whole highly inconsistent.
2813
2814 This clearly is a problem which needs to be addressed from cgroup core
2815 in a uniform way.
2816
2817
2818 Other Interface Issues
2819 ----------------------
2820
2821 cgroup v1 grew without oversight and developed a large number of
2822 idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. One issue on the cgroup core side
2823 was how an empty cgroup was notified - a userland helper binary was
2824 forked and executed for each event. The event delivery wasn't
2825 recursive or delegatable. The limitations of the mechanism also led
2826 to in-kernel event delivery filtering mechanism further complicating
2827 the interface.
2828
2829 Controller interfaces were problematic too. An extreme example is
2830 controllers completely ignoring hierarchical organization and treating
2831 all cgroups as if they were all located directly under the root
2832 cgroup. Some controllers exposed a large amount of inconsistent
2833 implementation details to userland.
2834
2835 There also was no consistency across controllers. When a new cgroup
2836 was created, some controllers defaulted to not imposing extra
2837 restrictions while others disallowed any resource usage until
2838 explicitly configured. Configuration knobs for the same type of
2839 control used widely differing naming schemes and formats. Statistics
2840 and information knobs were named arbitrarily and used different
2841 formats and units even in the same controller.
2842
2843 cgroup v2 establishes common conventions where appropriate and updates
2844 controllers so that they expose minimal and consistent interfaces.
2845
2846
2847 Controller Issues and Remedies
2848 ------------------------------
2849
2850 Memory
2851 ~~~~~~
2852
2853 The original lower boundary, the soft limit, is defined as a limit
2854 that is per default unset. As a result, the set of cgroups that
2855 global reclaim prefers is opt-in, rather than opt-out. The costs for
2856 optimizing these mostly negative lookups are so high that the
2857 implementation, despite its enormous size, does not even provide the
2858 basic desirable behavior. First off, the soft limit has no
2859 hierarchical meaning. All configured groups are organized in a global
2860 rbtree and treated like equal peers, regardless where they are located
2861 in the hierarchy. This makes subtree delegation impossible. Second,
2862 the soft limit reclaim pass is so aggressive that it not just
2863 introduces high allocation latencies into the system, but also impacts
2864 system performance due to overreclaim, to the point where the feature
2865 becomes self-defeating.
2866
2867 The memory.low boundary on the other hand is a top-down allocated
2868 reserve. A cgroup enjoys reclaim protection when it's within its
2869 effective low, which makes delegation of subtrees possible. It also
2870 enjoys having reclaim pressure proportional to its overage when
2871 above its effective low.
2872
2873 The original high boundary, the hard limit, is defined as a strict
2874 limit that can not budge, even if the OOM killer has to be called.
2875 But this generally goes against the goal of making the most out of the
2876 available memory. The memory consumption of workloads varies during
2877 runtime, and that requires users to overcommit. But doing that with a
2878 strict upper limit requires either a fairly accurate prediction of the
2879 working set size or adding slack to the limit. Since working set size
2880 estimation is hard and error prone, and getting it wrong results in
2881 OOM kills, most users tend to err on the side of a looser limit and
2882 end up wasting precious resources.
2883
2884 The memory.high boundary on the other hand can be set much more
2885 conservatively. When hit, it throttles allocations by forcing them
2886 into direct reclaim to work off the excess, but it never invokes the
2887 OOM killer. As a result, a high boundary that is chosen too
2888 aggressively will not terminate the processes, but instead it will
2889 lead to gradual performance degradation. The user can monitor this
2890 and make corrections until the minimal memory footprint that still
2891 gives acceptable performance is found.
2892
2893 In extreme cases, with many concurrent allocations and a complete
2894 breakdown of reclaim progress within the group, the high boundary can
2895 be exceeded. But even then it's mostly better to satisfy the
2896 allocation from the slack available in other groups or the rest of the
2897 system than killing the group. Otherwise, memory.max is there to
2898 limit this type of spillover and ultimately contain buggy or even
2899 malicious applications.
2900
2901 Setting the original memory.limit_in_bytes below the current usage was
2902 subject to a race condition, where concurrent charges could cause the
2903 limit setting to fail. memory.max on the other hand will first set the
2904 limit to prevent new charges, and then reclaim and OOM kill until the
2905 new limit is met - or the task writing to memory.max is killed.
2906
2907 The combined memory+swap accounting and limiting is replaced by real
2908 control over swap space.
2909
2910 The main argument for a combined memory+swap facility in the original
2911 cgroup design was that global or parental pressure would always be
2912 able to swap all anonymous memory of a child group, regardless of the
2913 child's own (possibly untrusted) configuration. However, untrusted
2914 groups can sabotage swapping by other means - such as referencing its
2915 anonymous memory in a tight loop - and an admin can not assume full
2916 swappability when overcommitting untrusted jobs.
2917
2918 For trusted jobs, on the other hand, a combined counter is not an
2919 intuitive userspace interface, and it flies in the face of the idea
2920 that cgroup controllers should account and limit specific physical
2921 resources. Swap space is a resource like all others in the system,
2922 and that's why unified hierarchy allows distributing it separately.