Re: [PATCH v2] docs: proc.rst: meminfo: briefly describe gaps in memory accounting

From: Alexey Dobriyan
Date: Tue Apr 20 2021 - 13:59:04 EST


On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 03:57:07PM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Tue 20-04-21 14:24:30, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 03:13:54PM +0300, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> > > Add a paragraph that explains that it may happen that the counters in
> > > /proc/meminfo do not add up to the overall memory usage.
> >
> > ... that is, the sum may be lower because memory is allocated for other
> > purposes that is not reported here, right?
>
> yes. Many direct page allocator users are not accounted in any of the
> existing counters.

Does virtio_balloon dereserve special mention?

>From inside VM memory borrowing looks like one giant memory leak resulting
in support tickets (not that people who file them read internal kernel
documentation...)