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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2021-09-08 12:55:35 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2021-09-08 12:55:35 -0700
commit2d338201d5311bcd79d42f66df4cecbcbc5f4f2c (patch)
tree75d87f65c31f4721ba6a5356d2a487af9e2961c3 /Documentation/vm/damon/faq.rst
parentcc09ee80c3b18ae1a897a30a17fe710b2b2f620a (diff)
parentb285437d1d929785a5bef3603da78d2cd5341893 (diff)
Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew)
Merge more updates from Andrew Morton: "147 patches, based on 7d2a07b769330c34b4deabeed939325c77a7ec2f. Subsystems affected by this patch series: mm (memory-hotplug, rmap, ioremap, highmem, cleanups, secretmem, kfence, damon, and vmscan), alpha, percpu, procfs, misc, core-kernel, MAINTAINERS, lib, checkpatch, epoll, init, nilfs2, coredump, fork, pids, criu, kconfig, selftests, ipc, and scripts" * emailed patches from Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>: (94 commits) scripts: check_extable: fix typo in user error message mm/workingset: correct kernel-doc notations ipc: replace costly bailout check in sysvipc_find_ipc() selftests/memfd: remove unused variable Kconfig.debug: drop selecting non-existing HARDLOCKUP_DETECTOR_ARCH configs: remove the obsolete CONFIG_INPUT_POLLDEV prctl: allow to setup brk for et_dyn executables pid: cleanup the stale comment mentioning pidmap_init(). kernel/fork.c: unexport get_{mm,task}_exe_file coredump: fix memleak in dump_vma_snapshot() fs/coredump.c: log if a core dump is aborted due to changed file permissions nilfs2: use refcount_dec_and_lock() to fix potential UAF nilfs2: fix memory leak in nilfs_sysfs_delete_snapshot_group nilfs2: fix memory leak in nilfs_sysfs_create_snapshot_group nilfs2: fix memory leak in nilfs_sysfs_delete_##name##_group nilfs2: fix memory leak in nilfs_sysfs_create_##name##_group nilfs2: fix NULL pointer in nilfs_##name##_attr_release nilfs2: fix memory leak in nilfs_sysfs_create_device_group trap: cleanup trap_init() init: move usermodehelper_enable() to populate_rootfs() ...
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+==========================
+Frequently Asked Questions
+==========================
+
+Why a new subsystem, instead of extending perf or other user space tools?
+=========================================================================
+
+First, because it needs to be lightweight as much as possible so that it can be
+used online, any unnecessary overhead such as kernel - user space context
+switching cost should be avoided. Second, DAMON aims to be used by other
+programs including the kernel. Therefore, having a dependency on specific
+tools like perf is not desirable. These are the two biggest reasons why DAMON
+is implemented in the kernel space.
+
+
+Can 'idle pages tracking' or 'perf mem' substitute DAMON?
+=========================================================
+
+Idle page tracking is a low level primitive for access check of the physical
+address space. 'perf mem' is similar, though it can use sampling to minimize
+the overhead. On the other hand, DAMON is a higher-level framework for the
+monitoring of various address spaces. It is focused on memory management
+optimization and provides sophisticated accuracy/overhead handling mechanisms.
+Therefore, 'idle pages tracking' and 'perf mem' could provide a subset of
+DAMON's output, but cannot substitute DAMON.
+
+
+Does DAMON support virtual memory only?
+=======================================
+
+No. The core of the DAMON is address space independent. The address space
+specific low level primitive parts including monitoring target regions
+constructions and actual access checks can be implemented and configured on the
+DAMON core by the users. In this way, DAMON users can monitor any address
+space with any access check technique.
+
+Nonetheless, DAMON provides vma tracking and PTE Accessed bit check based
+implementations of the address space dependent functions for the virtual memory
+by default, for a reference and convenient use. In near future, we will
+provide those for physical memory address space.
+
+
+Can I simply monitor page granularity?
+======================================
+
+Yes. You can do so by setting the ``min_nr_regions`` attribute higher than the
+working set size divided by the page size. Because the monitoring target
+regions size is forced to be ``>=page size``, the region split will make no
+effect.