Commit c1aee215 authored by Christoph Lameter's avatar Christoph Lameter Committed by Linus Torvalds

SLUB: More documentation

Update documentation to describe how to read a SLUB error report.
Add slub parameters to Documentation/kernel-parameters.
Signed-off-by: default avatarChristoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.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 9af20376
......@@ -1132,9 +1132,9 @@ and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is defined in the file
when set.
Format: <int>
noaliencache [MM, NUMA] Disables the allcoation of alien caches in
the slab allocator. Saves per-node memory, but will
impact performance on real NUMA hardware.
noaliencache [MM, NUMA, SLAB] Disables the allocation of alien
caches in the slab allocator. Saves per-node memory,
but will impact performance.
noalign [KNL,ARM]
......@@ -1613,6 +1613,37 @@ and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is defined in the file
slram= [HW,MTD]
slub_debug [MM, SLUB]
Enabling slub_debug allows one to determine the culprit
if slab objects become corrupted. Enabling slub_debug
creates guard zones around objects and poisons objects
when not in use. Also tracks the last alloc / free.
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
slub_max_order= [MM, SLUB]
Determines the maximum allowed order for slabs. Setting
this too high may cause fragmentation.
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
slub_min_objects= [MM, SLUB]
The minimum objects per slab. SLUB will increase the
slab order up to slub_max_order to generate a
sufficiently big slab to satisfy the number of objects.
The higher the number of objects the smaller the overhead
of tracking slabs.
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
slub_min_order= [MM, SLUB]
Determines the mininum page order for slabs. Must be
lower than slub_max_order
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
slub_nomerge [MM, SLUB]
Disable merging of slabs of similar size. May be
necessary if there is some reason to distinguish
allocs to different slabs.
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
smart2= [HW]
Format: <io1>[,<io2>[,...,<io8>]]
......
Short users guide for SLUB
--------------------------
First of all slub should transparently replace SLAB. If you enable
SLUB then everything should work the same (Note the word "should".
There is likely not much value in that word at this point).
The basic philosophy of SLUB is very different from SLAB. SLAB
requires rebuilding the kernel to activate debug options for all
SLABS. SLUB always includes full debugging but its off by default.
slab caches. SLUB always includes full debugging but it is off by default.
SLUB can enable debugging only for selected slabs in order to avoid
an impact on overall system performance which may make a bug more
difficult to find.
......@@ -76,13 +72,28 @@ of objects.
Careful with tracing: It may spew out lots of information and never stop if
used on the wrong slab.
SLAB Merging
Slab merging
------------
If no debugging is specified then SLUB may merge similar slabs together
If no debug options are specified then SLUB may merge similar slabs together
in order to reduce overhead and increase cache hotness of objects.
slabinfo -a displays which slabs were merged together.
Slab validation
---------------
SLUB can validate all object if the kernel was booted with slub_debug. In
order to do so you must have the slabinfo tool. Then you can do
slabinfo -v
which will test all objects. Output will be generated to the syslog.
This also works in a more limited way if boot was without slab debug.
In that case slabinfo -v simply tests all reachable objects. Usually
these are in the cpu slabs and the partial slabs. Full slabs are not
tracked by SLUB in a non debug situation.
Getting more performance
------------------------
......@@ -91,9 +102,9 @@ list_lock once in a while to deal with partial slabs. That overhead is
governed by the order of the allocation for each slab. The allocations
can be influenced by kernel parameters:
slub_min_objects=x (default 8)
slub_min_objects=x (default 4)
slub_min_order=x (default 0)
slub_max_order=x (default 4)
slub_max_order=x (default 1)
slub_min_objects allows to specify how many objects must at least fit
into one slab in order for the allocation order to be acceptable.
......@@ -109,5 +120,107 @@ longer be checked. This is useful to avoid SLUB trying to generate
super large order pages to fit slub_min_objects of a slab cache with
large object sizes into one high order page.
Christoph Lameter, <clameter@sgi.com>, April 10, 2007
SLUB Debug output
-----------------
Here is a sample of slub debug output:
*** SLUB kmalloc-8: Redzone Active@0xc90f6d20 slab 0xc528c530 offset=3360 flags=0x400000c3 inuse=61 freelist=0xc90f6d58
Bytes b4 0xc90f6d10: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a ........ZZZZZZZZ
Object 0xc90f6d20: 31 30 31 39 2e 30 30 35 1019.005
Redzone 0xc90f6d28: 00 cc cc cc .
FreePointer 0xc90f6d2c -> 0xc90f6d58
Last alloc: get_modalias+0x61/0xf5 jiffies_ago=53 cpu=1 pid=554
Filler 0xc90f6d50: 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a ZZZZZZZZ
[<c010523d>] dump_trace+0x63/0x1eb
[<c01053df>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x2f
[<c010601d>] show_trace+0x12/0x14
[<c0106035>] dump_stack+0x16/0x18
[<c017e0fa>] object_err+0x143/0x14b
[<c017e2cc>] check_object+0x66/0x234
[<c017eb43>] __slab_free+0x239/0x384
[<c017f446>] kfree+0xa6/0xc6
[<c02e2335>] get_modalias+0xb9/0xf5
[<c02e23b7>] dmi_dev_uevent+0x27/0x3c
[<c027866a>] dev_uevent+0x1ad/0x1da
[<c0205024>] kobject_uevent_env+0x20a/0x45b
[<c020527f>] kobject_uevent+0xa/0xf
[<c02779f1>] store_uevent+0x4f/0x58
[<c027758e>] dev_attr_store+0x29/0x2f
[<c01bec4f>] sysfs_write_file+0x16e/0x19c
[<c0183ba7>] vfs_write+0xd1/0x15a
[<c01841d7>] sys_write+0x3d/0x72
[<c0104112>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x99
[<b7f7b410>] 0xb7f7b410
=======================
@@@ SLUB kmalloc-8: Restoring redzone (0xcc) from 0xc90f6d28-0xc90f6d2b
If SLUB encounters a corrupted object then it will perform the following
actions:
1. Isolation and report of the issue
This will be a message in the system log starting with
*** SLUB <slab cache affected>: <What went wrong>@<object address>
offset=<offset of object into slab> flags=<slabflags>
inuse=<objects in use in this slab> freelist=<first free object in slab>
2. Report on how the problem was dealt with in order to ensure the continued
operation of the system.
These are messages in the system log beginning with
@@@ SLUB <slab cache affected>: <corrective action taken>
In the above sample SLUB found that the Redzone of an active object has
been overwritten. Here a string of 8 characters was written into a slab that
has the length of 8 characters. However, a 8 character string needs a
terminating 0. That zero has overwritten the first byte of the Redzone field.
After reporting the details of the issue encountered the @@@ SLUB message
tell us that SLUB has restored the redzone to its proper value and then
system operations continue.
Various types of lines can follow the @@@ SLUB line:
Bytes b4 <address> : <bytes>
Show a few bytes before the object where the problem was detected.
Can be useful if the corruption does not stop with the start of the
object.
Object <address> : <bytes>
The bytes of the object. If the object is inactive then the bytes
typically contain poisoning values. Any non-poison value shows a
corruption by a write after free.
Redzone <address> : <bytes>
The redzone following the object. The redzone is used to detect
writes after the object. All bytes should always have the same
value. If there is any deviation then it is due to a write after
the object boundary.
Freepointer
The pointer to the next free object in the slab. May become
corrupted if overwriting continues after the red zone.
Last alloc:
Last free:
Shows the address from which the object was allocated/freed last.
We note the pid, the time and the CPU that did so. This is usually
the most useful information to figure out where things went wrong.
Here get_modalias() did an kmalloc(8) instead of a kmalloc(9).
Filler <address> : <bytes>
Unused data to fill up the space in order to get the next object
properly aligned. In the debug case we make sure that there are
at least 4 bytes of filler. This allow for the detection of writes
before the object.
Following the filler will be a stackdump. That stackdump describes the
location where the error was detected. The cause of the corruption is more
likely to be found by looking at the information about the last alloc / free.
Christoph Lameter, <clameter@sgi.com>, May 23, 2007
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