diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt | 143 |
1 files changed, 126 insertions, 17 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt b/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt index 257e65714c6a..6e5c2bb222c3 100644 --- a/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt +++ b/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt @@ -156,19 +156,23 @@ Per-device statistics are exported as various nodes under /sys/block/zram<id>/ A brief description of exported device attributes. For more details please read Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram. -Name access description ----- ------ ----------- -disksize RW show and set the device's disk size -initstate RO shows the initialization state of the device -reset WO trigger device reset -mem_used_max WO reset the `mem_used_max' counter (see later) -mem_limit WO specifies the maximum amount of memory ZRAM can use - to store the compressed data -max_comp_streams RW the number of possible concurrent compress operations -comp_algorithm RW show and change the compression algorithm -compact WO trigger memory compaction -debug_stat RO this file is used for zram debugging purposes -backing_dev RW set up backend storage for zram to write out +Name access description +---- ------ ----------- +disksize RW show and set the device's disk size +initstate RO shows the initialization state of the device +reset WO trigger device reset +mem_used_max WO reset the `mem_used_max' counter (see later) +mem_limit WO specifies the maximum amount of memory ZRAM can use + to store the compressed data +writeback_limit WO specifies the maximum amount of write IO zram can + write out to backing device as 4KB unit +writeback_limit_enable RW show and set writeback_limit feature +max_comp_streams RW the number of possible concurrent compress operations +comp_algorithm RW show and change the compression algorithm +compact WO trigger memory compaction +debug_stat RO this file is used for zram debugging purposes +backing_dev RW set up backend storage for zram to write out +idle WO mark allocated slot as idle User space is advised to use the following files to read the device statistics. @@ -218,6 +222,18 @@ line of text and contains the following stats separated by whitespace: same_pages the number of same element filled pages written to this disk. No memory is allocated for such pages. pages_compacted the number of pages freed during compaction + huge_pages the number of incompressible pages + +File /sys/block/zram<id>/bd_stat + +The stat file represents device's backing device statistics. It consists of +a single line of text and contains the following stats separated by whitespace: + bd_count size of data written in backing device. + Unit: 4K bytes + bd_reads the number of reads from backing device + Unit: 4K bytes + bd_writes the number of writes to backing device + Unit: 4K bytes 9) Deactivate: swapoff /dev/zram0 @@ -236,11 +252,104 @@ line of text and contains the following stats separated by whitespace: = writeback -With incompressible pages, there is no memory saving with zram. -Instead, with CONFIG_ZRAM_WRITEBACK, zram can write incompressible page +With CONFIG_ZRAM_WRITEBACK, zram can write idle/incompressible page to backing storage rather than keeping it in memory. -User should set up backing device via /sys/block/zramX/backing_dev -before disksize setting. +To use the feature, admin should set up backing device via + + "echo /dev/sda5 > /sys/block/zramX/backing_dev" + +before disksize setting. It supports only partition at this moment. +If admin want to use incompressible page writeback, they could do via + + "echo huge > /sys/block/zramX/write" + +To use idle page writeback, first, user need to declare zram pages +as idle. + + "echo all > /sys/block/zramX/idle" + +From now on, any pages on zram are idle pages. The idle mark +will be removed until someone request access of the block. +IOW, unless there is access request, those pages are still idle pages. + +Admin can request writeback of those idle pages at right timing via + + "echo idle > /sys/block/zramX/writeback" + +With the command, zram writeback idle pages from memory to the storage. + +If there are lots of write IO with flash device, potentially, it has +flash wearout problem so that admin needs to design write limitation +to guarantee storage health for entire product life. + +To overcome the concern, zram supports "writeback_limit" feature. +The "writeback_limit_enable"'s default value is 0 so that it doesn't limit +any writeback. IOW, if admin want to apply writeback budget, he should +enable writeback_limit_enable via + + $ echo 1 > /sys/block/zramX/writeback_limit_enable + +Once writeback_limit_enable is set, zram doesn't allow any writeback +until admin set the budget via /sys/block/zramX/writeback_limit. + +(If admin doesn't enable writeback_limit_enable, writeback_limit's value +assigned via /sys/block/zramX/writeback_limit is meaninless.) + +If admin want to limit writeback as per-day 400M, he could do it +like below. + + $ MB_SHIFT=20 + $ 4K_SHIFT=12 + $ echo $((400<<MB_SHIFT>>4K_SHIFT)) > \ + /sys/block/zram0/writeback_limit. + $ echo 1 > /sys/block/zram0/writeback_limit_enable + +If admin want to allow further write again once the bugdet is exausted, +he could do it like below + + $ echo $((400<<MB_SHIFT>>4K_SHIFT)) > \ + /sys/block/zram0/writeback_limit + +If admin want to see remaining writeback budget since he set, + + $ cat /sys/block/zramX/writeback_limit + +If admin want to disable writeback limit, he could do + + $ echo 0 > /sys/block/zramX/writeback_limit_enable + +The writeback_limit count will reset whenever you reset zram(e.g., +system reboot, echo 1 > /sys/block/zramX/reset) so keeping how many of +writeback happened until you reset the zram to allocate extra writeback +budget in next setting is user's job. + +If admin want to measure writeback count in a certain period, he could +know it via /sys/block/zram0/bd_stat's 3rd column. + += memory tracking + +With CONFIG_ZRAM_MEMORY_TRACKING, user can know information of the +zram block. It could be useful to catch cold or incompressible +pages of the process with*pagemap. +If you enable the feature, you could see block state via +/sys/kernel/debug/zram/zram0/block_state". The output is as follows, + + 300 75.033841 .wh. + 301 63.806904 s... + 302 63.806919 ..hi + +First column is zram's block index. +Second column is access time since the system was booted +Third column is state of the block. +(s: same page +w: written page to backing store +h: huge page +i: idle page) + +First line of above example says 300th block is accessed at 75.033841sec +and the block's state is huge so it is written back to the backing +storage. It's a debugging feature so anyone shouldn't rely on it to work +properly. Nitin Gupta ngupta@vflare.org |