Date:	Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:56:43 -0400
From:	Oren Laadan <orenl@...columbia.edu>
To:	Matt Helsley <matthltc@...ibm.com>
CC:	Paul Menage <menage@...gle.com>,
	Linux Containers <containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	Cedric Le Goater <clg@...ibm.com>,
	Linux-Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-pm@...ts.linux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: [Devel] [RFC PATCH 0/4] Container Freezer: Reuse Suspend Freezer



Matt Helsley wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 16:49 -0700, Paul Menage wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 2:03 PM,  <matthltc@...ibm.com> wrote:
>>>    * "freezer.kill"
>>>
>>>      writing <n> will send signal number <n> to all tasks
>>>
>> My first thought (not having looked at the code yet) is that sending a
>> signal doesn't really have anything to do with freezing, so it
>> shouldn't be in the same subsystem. Maybe a separate subsystem called
>> "signal"?
>>
>> And more than that, it's not something that requires any particular
>> per-process state, so there's no reason that the subsystem that
>> provides the "kill" functionality shouldn't be able to be mounted in
>> multiple hierarchies.
>>
>> How about if I added support for stateless subsystems, that could
>> potentially be mounted in multiple hierarchies at once? They wouldn't
>> need an entry in the css set, since they have no state.
> 
> 	This seems reasonable to me. A quick look at Cedric's patches suggests
> there's no need for such cgroup subsystems to be tied together -- the
> signalling is all done internally to the freeze_task(), refrigerator(),
> and thaw_process() functions from what I recall.
> 
>>>  * Usage :
>>>
>>>    # mkdir /containers/freezer
>>>    # mount -t container -ofreezer freezer  /containers/freezer
>>>    # mkdir /containers/freezer/0
>>>    # echo $some_pid > /containers/freezer/0/tasks
>>>
>>>  to get status of the freezer subsystem :
>>>
>>>    # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.freeze
>>>    RUNNING
>>>
>>>  to freeze all tasks in the container :
>>>
>>>    # echo 1 > /containers/freezer/0/freezer.freeze
>>>    # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.freeze
>>>    FREEZING
>>>    # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.freeze
>>>    FROZEN
>> Could we separate this out into two files? One called "freeze" that's
>> a 0/1 for whether we're intending to freeze the subsystem, and one
>> called "frozen" that indicates whether it is frozen? And maybe a
>> "state" file to report the RUNNING/FREEZING/FROZEN distinction in a
>> human-readable way?
> 
> 3 files seems like overkill. I think making them human-readable is good
> and can be done with two files: "state" (read-only) and
> "state-next" (read/write). Transitions between RUNNING and FROZEN are
> obvious when state-next != state. I think the advantages are it's pretty
> human-readable, you don't need separate strings and files for the
> transitions, it's clear what's about to happen (IMHO), and it only
> requires 2 files. Some examples:
> 
> To initiate freezing:
> 
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state
> RUNNING
> # echo "FROZEN" > /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state
> RUNNING
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> FROZEN
> # sleep N
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state
> FROZEN
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> FROZEN
> 
> So to cancel freezing you might see something like:
> 
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state
> RUNNING
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> FROZEN
> # echo "RUNNING" > /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> # cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> RUNNING
> 
> If you wanted to know if a group was transitioning:
> 
> # diff /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next
> 
> Or:
> # current=`cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state`
> # next=`cat /containers/freezer/0/freezer.state-next`
> # [ "$current" != "$next" ] && echo "Transitioning"
> # [ "$current" == "RUNNING" -a "$next" == "FROZEN" ] && echo "Freezing"
> # [ "$current" == "FROZEN" -a "$next" == "RUNNING" ] && echo "Thawing"
> # [ "$current" == "RUNNING" -a "$next" == "RUNNING" ] && echo "No-op"
> # [ "$current" == "FROZEN" -a "$next" == "FROZEN" ] && echo "No-op"

First, I totally agree with Serge's comment (oh well, it's about my
own suggestion, so I must) - for checkpoint/restart we'll need more
states if we are to use the same subsystem.

Second, my gut feeling is that a single, atomic operation to get the
status is preferred over multiple (non-atomic) operations. In other
words, I suggest a single state file instead of two. You can encode
every possible transition in a single state. It's not that the kernel
doesn't know what's going on inside, so it can just as well report it
directly. I don't see the benefit of using two files.

Oren.

> 
> etc.
> 
> Cheers,
> 	-Matt Helsley
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org
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