X-Git-Url: http://git.onelab.eu/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=Documentation%2Fsysctl%2Fvm.txt;fp=Documentation%2Fsysctl%2Fvm.txt;h=a46c10fcddfcf17969d42fb472af306d9e9eab6f;hb=43bc926fffd92024b46cafaf7350d669ba9ca884;hp=2f1aae32a5d9dfc2c0f71bb0400ce4a714d49c07;hpb=cee37fe97739d85991964371c1f3a745c00dd236;p=linux-2.6.git

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 2f1aae32a..a46c10fcd 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -26,12 +26,15 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
 - min_free_kbytes
 - laptop_mode
 - block_dump
+- drop-caches
+- zone_reclaim_mode
+- zone_reclaim_interval
 
 ==============================================================
 
 dirty_ratio, dirty_background_ratio, dirty_expire_centisecs,
 dirty_writeback_centisecs, vfs_cache_pressure, laptop_mode,
-block_dump, swap_token_timeout:
+block_dump, swap_token_timeout, drop-caches:
 
 See Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
 
@@ -102,3 +105,76 @@ This is used to force the Linux VM to keep a minimum number
 of kilobytes free.  The VM uses this number to compute a pages_min
 value for each lowmem zone in the system.  Each lowmem zone gets 
 a number of reserved free pages based proportionally on its size.
+
+==============================================================
+
+percpu_pagelist_fraction
+
+This is the fraction of pages at most (high mark pcp->high) in each zone that
+are allocated for each per cpu page list.  The min value for this is 8.  It
+means that we don't allow more than 1/8th of pages in each zone to be
+allocated in any single per_cpu_pagelist.  This entry only changes the value
+of hot per cpu pagelists.  User can specify a number like 100 to allocate
+1/100th of each zone to each per cpu page list.
+
+The batch value of each per cpu pagelist is also updated as a result.  It is
+set to pcp->high/4.  The upper limit of batch is (PAGE_SHIFT * 8)
+
+The initial value is zero.  Kernel does not use this value at boot time to set
+the high water marks for each per cpu page list.
+
+===============================================================
+
+zone_reclaim_mode:
+
+Zone_reclaim_mode allows to set more or less agressive approaches to
+reclaim memory when a zone runs out of memory. If it is set to zero then no
+zone reclaim occurs. Allocations will be satisfied from other zones / nodes
+in the system.
+
+This is value ORed together of
+
+1	= Zone reclaim on
+2	= Zone reclaim writes dirty pages out
+4	= Zone reclaim swaps pages
+8	= Also do a global slab reclaim pass
+
+zone_reclaim_mode is set during bootup to 1 if it is determined that pages
+from remote zones will cause a measurable performance reduction. The
+page allocator will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page
+cache pages that are currently not used) before allocating off node pages.
+
+It may be beneficial to switch off zone reclaim if the system is
+used for a file server and all of memory should be used for caching files
+from disk. In that case the caching effect is more important than
+data locality.
+
+Allowing zone reclaim to write out pages stops processes that are
+writing large amounts of data from dirtying pages on other nodes. Zone
+reclaim will write out dirty pages if a zone fills up and so effectively
+throttle the process. This may decrease the performance of a single process
+since it cannot use all of system memory to buffer the outgoing writes
+anymore but it preserve the memory on other nodes so that the performance
+of other processes running on other nodes will not be affected.
+
+Allowing regular swap effectively restricts allocations to the local
+node unless explicitly overridden by memory policies or cpuset
+configurations.
+
+It may be advisable to allow slab reclaim if the system makes heavy
+use of files and builds up large slab caches. However, the slab
+shrink operation is global, may take a long time and free slabs
+in all nodes of the system.
+
+================================================================
+
+zone_reclaim_interval:
+
+The time allowed for off node allocations after zone reclaim
+has failed to reclaim enough pages to allow a local allocation.
+
+Time is set in seconds and set by default to 30 seconds.
+
+Reduce the interval if undesired off node allocations occur. However, too
+frequent scans will have a negative impact onoff node allocation performance.
+