Re: [PATCH v7 2/2] mm: replace hardcoded 3% with admin_reserve_pages knob

From: Andrew Shewmaker
Date: Fri Apr 05 2013 - 11:02:54 EST


On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:50 PM, Simon Jeons <simon.jeons@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> FAQ
>>
...
>> * How do you calculate a minimum useful reserve?
>>
>> A user or the admin needs enough memory to login and perform
>> recovery operations, which includes, at a minimum:
>>
>> sshd or login + bash (or some other shell) + top (or ps, kill, etc.)
>>
>> For overcommit 'guess', we can sum resident set sizes (RSS).
>> On x86_64 this is about 8MB.
>>
>> For overcommit 'never', we can take the max of their virtual sizes
>> (VSZ)
>> and add the sum of their RSS.
>> On x86_64 this is about 128MB.
>
>
> 1.Why has this different between guess and never?

The default, overcommit 'guess' mode, only needs a reserve for
what the recovery programs will typically use. Overcommit 'never'
mode will only successfully launch an app when it can fulfill all of
its requested memory allocations--even if the app only uses a
fraction of what it asks for.

> 2.You just test x86/x86_64, other platforms also will use memory overcommit,
> did you test them?

No, I haven't. Unfortunately, I don't currently have any other platforms to test
with. I'll see what I can do.

Thanks,

Andrew
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