linux.git/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt, branch v4.18

zram: introduce zram memory tracking

2018-06-08T00:34:34+00:00

zRam as swap is useful for small memory device. However, swap means
those pages on zram are mostly cold pages due to VM's LRU algorithm.
Especially, once init data for application are touched for launching,
they tend to be not accessed any more and finally swapped out. zRAM can
store such cold pages as compressed form but it's pointless to keep in
memory. Better idea is app developers free them directly rather than
remaining them on heap.

This patch tell us last access time of each block of zram via "cat
/sys/kernel/debug/zram/zram0/block_state".

The output is as follows,
300 75.033841 .wh
301 63.806904 s..
302 63.806919 ..h

First column is zram's block index and 3rh one represents symbol (s:
same page w: written page to backing store h: huge page) of the block
state. Second column represents usec time unit of the block was last
accessed. So above example means the 300th block is accessed at
75.033851 second and it was huge so it was written to the backing store.

Admin can leverage this information to catch cold|incompressible pages
of process with *pagemap* once part of heaps are swapped out.

I used the feature a few years ago to find memory hoggers in userspace
to notify them what memory they have wasted without touch for a long
time. With it, they could reduce unnecessary memory space. However, at
that time, I hacked up zram for the feature but now I need the feature
again so I decided it would be better to upstream rather than keeping it
alone. I hope I submit the userspace tool to use the feature soon.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix i386 printk warning]
[minchan@kernel.org: use ktime_get_boottime() instead of sched_clock()]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180420063525.GA253739@rodete-desktop-imager.corp.google.com
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: documentation tweak]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix i386 printk warning]
[minchan@kernel.org: fix compile warning]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180508104849.GA8209@rodete-desktop-imager.corp.google.com
[rdunlap@infradead.org: fix printk formats]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/3652ccb1-96ef-0b0b-05d1-f661d7733dcc@infradead.org
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180416090946.63057-5-minchan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap
Reviewed-by: Sergey Senozhatsky
Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: mark incompressible page as ZRAM_HUGE

2018-06-08T00:34:34+00:00

Mark incompressible pages so that we could investigate who is the owner
of the incompressible pages once the page is swapped out via using
upcoming zram memory tracker feature.

With it, we could prevent such pages to be swapped out by using mlock.
Otherwise we might remove them.

This patch exposes new stat for huge pages via mm_stat.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180416090946.63057-3-minchan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim 
Reviewed-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: add config and doc file for writeback feature

2017-09-07T00:27:25+00:00

This patch adds document and kconfig for using of writeback feature.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1498459987-24562-10-git-send-email-minchan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim 
Cc: Juneho Choi 
Cc: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: extend zero pages to same element pages

2017-02-25T01:46:56+00:00

The idea is that without doing more calculations we extend zero pages to
same element pages for zram.  zero page is special case of same element
page with zero element.

1. the test is done under android 7.0
2. startup too many applications circularly
3. sample the zero pages, same pages (none-zero element)
   and total pages in function page_zero_filled

the result is listed as below:

ZERO	SAME	TOTAL
36214	17842	598196

		ZERO/TOTAL	 SAME/TOTAL	  (ZERO+SAME)/TOTAL ZERO/SAME
AVERAGE	0.060631909	 0.024990816  0.085622726		2.663825038
STDEV	0.00674612	 0.005887625  0.009707034		2.115881328
MAX		0.069698422	 0.030046087  0.094975336		7.56043956
MIN		0.03959586	 0.007332205  0.056055193		1.928985507

from the above data, the benefit is about 2.5% and up to 3% of total
swapout pages.

The defect of the patch is that when we recovery a page from non-zero
element the operations are low efficient for partial read.

This patch extends zero_page to same_page so if there is any user to
have monitored zero_pages, he will be surprised if the number is
increased but it's not harmful, I believe.

[minchan@kernel.org: do not free same element pages in zram_meta_free]
  Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170207065741.GA2567@bbox
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1483692145-75357-1-git-send-email-zhouxianrong@huawei.com
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1486307804-27903-1-git-send-email-minchan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: zhouxianrong 
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim 
Cc: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Cc: Joonsoo Kim 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: remove obsolete sysfs attrs

2017-02-23T00:41:30+00:00

We had a deprecated_attr_warn() warning for 2 years and now the time has
come and we finally can do the cleanup.

The plan was as follows:

: per-stat sysfs attributes are considered to be deprecated.
: The basic strategy is:
: -- the existing RW nodes will be downgraded to WO nodes (in linux 4.11)
: -- deprecated RO sysfs nodes will eventually be removed (in linux 4.11)
:
: The list of deprecated attributes can be found here:
: Documentation/ABI/obsolete/sysfs-block-zram
:
: Basically, every attribute that has its own read accessible sysfs
: node (e.g. num_reads) *AND* is accessible via one of the stat files
: (zram/stat or zram/io_stat or zram/mm_stat) is considered
: to be deprecated.

The patch also removes `obsolete/sysfs-block-zram', clean ups
`testing/sysfs-block-zram' and tweaks zram.txt files.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170118035838.11090-1-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Acked-by: Minchan Kim 
Cc: Jonathan Corbet 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: cosmetic: cleanup documentation

2016-07-26T23:19:19+00:00

zram documentation is a mix of different styles: spaces, tabs, tabs +
spaces, etc.  Clean it up.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160531122017.2878-6-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Acked-by: Minchan Kim 
Cc: Joonsoo Kim 
Cc: Jonathan Corbet 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: use crypto api to check alg availability

2016-07-26T23:19:19+00:00

There is no way to get a string with all the crypto comp algorithms
supported by the crypto comp engine, so we need to maintain our own
backends list.  At the same time we additionally need to use
crypto_has_comp() to make sure that the user has requested a compression
algorithm that is recognized by the crypto comp engine.  Relying on
/proc/crypto is not an options here, because it does not show
not-yet-inserted compression modules.

Example:

 modprobe zram
 cat /proc/crypto | grep -i lz4
 modprobe lz4
 cat /proc/crypto | grep -i lz4
name         : lz4
driver       : lz4-generic
module       : lz4

So the user can't tell exactly if the lz4 is really supported from
/proc/crypto output, unless someone or something has loaded it.

This patch also adds crypto_has_comp() to zcomp_available_show().  We
store all the compression algorithms names in zcomp's `backends' array,
regardless the CONFIG_CRYPTO_FOO configuration, but show only those that
are also supported by crypto engine.  This helps user to know the exact
list of compression algorithms that can be used.

Example:
  module lz4 is not loaded yet, but is supported by the crypto
  engine. /proc/crypto has no information on this module, while
  zram's `comp_algorithm' lists it:

 cat /proc/crypto | grep -i lz4

 cat /sys/block/zram0/comp_algorithm
[lzo] lz4 deflate lz4hc 842

We still use the `backends' array to determine if the requested
compression backend is known to crypto api.  This array, however, may not
contain some entries, therefore as the last step we call crypto_has_comp()
function which attempts to insmod the requested compression algorithm to
determine if crypto api supports it.  The advantage of this method is that
now we permit the usage of out-of-tree crypto compression modules
(implementing S/W or H/W compression).

[sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com: zram-use-crypto-api-to-check-alg-availability-v3]
  Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160604024902.11778-4-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160531122017.2878-5-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Acked-by: Minchan Kim 
Cc: Joonsoo Kim 
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: introduce per-device debug_stat sysfs node

2016-05-21T00:58:30+00:00

debug_stat sysfs is read-only and represents various debugging data that
zram developers may need.  This file is not meant to be used by anyone
else: its content is not documented and will change any time w/o any
notice.  Therefore, the output of debug_stat file contains a version
string.  To avoid any confusion, we will increase the version number
every time we modify the output.

At the moment this file exports only one value -- the number of
re-compressions, IOW, the number of times compression fast path has
failed.  This stat is temporary any will be useful in case if any
per-cpu compression streams regressions will be reported.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160513230834.GB26763@bbox
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160511134553.12655-1-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: remove max_comp_streams internals

2016-05-21T00:58:30+00:00

Remove the internal part of max_comp_streams interface, since we
switched to per-cpu streams.  We will keep RW max_comp_streams attr
around, because:

a) we may (silently) switch back to idle compression streams list and
   don't want to disturb user space

b) max_comp_streams attr must wait for the next 'lay off cycle'; we
   give user space 2 years to adjust before we remove/downgrade the attr,
   and there are already several attrs scheduled for removal in 4.11, so
   it's too late for max_comp_streams.

This slightly change a user visible behaviour:

- First, reading from max_comp_stream file now will always return the
  number of online CPUs.

- Second, writing to max_comp_stream will not take any effect.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160503165546.25201-1-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Cc: Minchan Kim 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

zram: update documentation

2015-09-24T21:39:42+00:00

Several documentation changes.

First, we never mentioned any errors and never required any
error checks in documentation.

Second, mention that there is another way to configure and
manage zram devices -- zramctl, provided by util-linux.

Third, add a bit of clarification on why `mem_used_max' attr
is RW and correct some typos.

Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky 
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet