linux/Documentation/sysctl
Michal Hocko 90daf3062f Revert "mm/page-writeback.c: print a warning if the vm dirtiness settings are illogical"
This reverts commit 0f6d24f878 ("mm/page-writeback.c: print a warning
if the vm dirtiness settings are illogical") because it causes false
positive warnings during OOM situations as noticed by Tetsuo Handa:

  Node 0 active_anon:3525940kB inactive_anon:8372kB active_file:216kB inactive_file:1872kB unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB mapped:2504kB dirty:52kB writeback:0kB shmem:8660kB shmem_thp: 0kB shmem_pmdmapped: 0kB anon_thp: 636928kB writeback_tmp:0kB unstable:0kB all_unreclaimable? yes
  Node 0 DMA free:14848kB min:284kB low:352kB high:420kB active_anon:992kB inactive_anon:0kB active_file:0kB inactive_file:0kB unevictable:0kB writepending:0kB present:15988kB managed:15904kB mlocked:0kB kernel_stack:0kB pagetables:24kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:0kB local_pcp:0kB free_cma:0kB
  lowmem_reserve[]: 0 2687 3645 3645
  Node 0 DMA32 free:53004kB min:49608kB low:62008kB high:74408kB active_anon:2712648kB inactive_anon:0kB active_file:0kB inactive_file:0kB unevictable:0kB writepending:0kB present:3129216kB managed:2773132kB mlocked:0kB kernel_stack:96kB pagetables:5096kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:0kB local_pcp:0kB free_cma:0kB
  lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 958 958
  Node 0 Normal free:17140kB min:17684kB low:22104kB high:26524kB active_anon:812300kB inactive_anon:8372kB active_file:1228kB inactive_file:1868kB unevictable:0kB writepending:52kB present:1048576kB managed:981224kB mlocked:0kB kernel_stack:3520kB pagetables:8552kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:120kB local_pcp:120kB free_cma:0kB
  lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0
  [...]
  Out of memory: Kill process 8459 (a.out) score 999 or sacrifice child
  Killed process 8459 (a.out) total-vm:4180kB, anon-rss:88kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB
  oom_reaper: reaped process 8459 (a.out), now anon-rss:0kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB
  vm direct limit must be set greater than background limit.

The problem is that both thresh and bg_thresh will be 0 if
available_memory is less than 4 pages when evaluating
global_dirtyable_memory.

While this might be worked around the whole point of the warning is
dubious at best.  We do rely on admins to do sensible things when
changing tunable knobs.  Dirty memory writeback knobs are not any
special in that regards so revert the warning rather than adding more
hacks to work this around.

Debugged by Yafang Shao.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20171127091939.tahb77nznytcxw55@dhcp22.suse.cz
Fixes: 0f6d24f878 ("mm/page-writeback.c: print a warning if the vm dirtiness settings are illogical")
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Reported-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
Cc: Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2017-11-29 18:40:43 -08:00
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
abi.txt
fs.txt docs: Update binfmt_misc links 2017-10-03 15:23:38 -06:00
kernel.txt Major additions: 2017-09-22 16:16:41 -10:00
net.txt bpf, doc: Add arm32 as arch supporting eBPF JIT 2017-08-23 22:40:12 -07:00
README docs: Update binfmt_misc links 2017-10-03 15:23:38 -06:00
sunrpc.txt
user.txt userns; Document per user per user namespace limits. 2016-09-22 12:52:03 -05:00
vm.txt Revert "mm/page-writeback.c: print a warning if the vm dirtiness settings are illogical" 2017-11-29 18:40:43 -08:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/admin-guide/binfmt-misc.rst>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management
user/		Per user per user namespace limits

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)