linux-kernel - [PATCH] docs: cgroup: mm: Document why inactive_X + active

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Date:   Mon, 11 Nov 2019 14:49:58 +0000
From:   Chris Down <chris@...isdown.name>
To:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
        Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>, Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, cgroups@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, kernel-team@...com
Subject: [PATCH] docs: cgroup: mm: Document why inactive_X + active_X may not
 equal X

This has confused a significant number of people using cgroups inside
Facebook, and some of those outside as well judging by posts like
this[0] (although it's not a problem unique to cgroup v2). If shmem
handling in particular becomes more coherent at some point in the future
-- although that seems unlikely now -- we can change the wording here.

[0]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/525092/10762

Signed-off-by: Chris Down <chris@...isdown.name>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
Cc: Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc: cgroups@...r.kernel.org
Cc: linux-mm@...ck.org
Cc: kernel-team@...com
---
 Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst | 7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst
index 0704552ed94f..0636bcb60b5a 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst
@@ -1289,7 +1289,12 @@ PAGE_SIZE multiple when read back.
 	  inactive_anon, active_anon, inactive_file, active_file, unevictable
 		Amount of memory, swap-backed and filesystem-backed,
 		on the internal memory management lists used by the
-		page reclaim algorithm
+		page reclaim algorithm.
+
+		As these represent internal list state (eg. shmem pages are on anon
+		memory management lists), inactive_foo + active_foo may not be equal to
+		the value for the foo counter, since the foo counter is type-based, not
+		list-based.
 
 	  slab_reclaimable
 		Part of "slab" that might be reclaimed, such as
-- 
2.24.0