Commit abffc020 authored by Andrea Righi's avatar Andrea Righi Committed by Linus Torvalds

doc: clarify the behaviour of dirty_ratio/dirty_bytes

When dirty_ratio or dirty_bytes is written the other parameter is disabled
and set to 0 (in dirty_bytes_handler() / dirty_ratio_handler()).

We do the same for dirty_background_ratio and dirty_background_bytes.

However, in the sysctl documentation, we say that the counterpart becomes
a function of the old value, that is not correct.

Clarify the documentation reporting the actual behaviour.
Reviewed-by: default avatarGreg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Acked-by: default avatarDavid Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrea Righi <arighi@develer.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
parent e45c9eff
...@@ -80,8 +80,10 @@ dirty_background_bytes ...@@ -80,8 +80,10 @@ dirty_background_bytes
Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback
daemon will start writeback. daemon will start writeback.
If dirty_background_bytes is written, dirty_background_ratio becomes a function Note: dirty_background_bytes is the counterpart of dirty_background_ratio. Only
of its value (dirty_background_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory). one of them may be specified at a time. When one sysctl is written it is
immediately taken into account to evaluate the dirty memory limits and the
other appears as 0 when read.
============================================================== ==============================================================
...@@ -97,8 +99,10 @@ dirty_bytes ...@@ -97,8 +99,10 @@ dirty_bytes
Contains the amount of dirty memory at which a process generating disk writes Contains the amount of dirty memory at which a process generating disk writes
will itself start writeback. will itself start writeback.
If dirty_bytes is written, dirty_ratio becomes a function of its value Note: dirty_bytes is the counterpart of dirty_ratio. Only one of them may be
(dirty_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory). specified at a time. When one sysctl is written it is immediately taken into
account to evaluate the dirty memory limits and the other appears as 0 when
read.
Note: the minimum value allowed for dirty_bytes is two pages (in bytes); any Note: the minimum value allowed for dirty_bytes is two pages (in bytes); any
value lower than this limit will be ignored and the old configuration will be value lower than this limit will be ignored and the old configuration will be
......
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