linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] simple_lmk: Introduce Simple Low Memory Killer for Android

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Date:   Mon, 11 Mar 2019 17:11:25 -0400
From:   Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>
To:     Sultan Alsawaf <sultan@...neltoast.com>
Cc:     Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Arve Hjønnevåg <arve@...roid.com>,
        Todd Kjos <tkjos@...roid.com>,
        Martijn Coenen <maco@...roid.com>,
        Christian Brauner <christian@...uner.io>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, devel@...verdev.osuosl.org,
        linux-mm <linux-mm@...ck.org>, Tim Murray <timmurray@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] simple_lmk: Introduce Simple Low Memory Killer for Android

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 01:46:26PM -0700, Sultan Alsawaf wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 01:10:36PM -0700, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> > The idea seems interesting although I need to think about this a bit
> > more. Killing processes based on failed page allocation might backfire
> > during transient spikes in memory usage.
> 
> This issue could be alleviated if tasks could be killed and have their pages
> reaped faster.

But the point is that a transient temporary memory spike should not be a
signal to kill _any_ process.  The reaction to kill shouldn't be so
spontaneous that unwanted tasks are killed because the system went into
panic mode. It should be averaged out which I believe is what PSI does.

thanks,

- Joel