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authorPaul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>2006-01-08 01:01:51 -0800
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org>2006-01-08 20:13:43 -0800
commit90c9cc4043fd8454d11886379f841f70e176698e (patch)
treecec3cf3e440dd71aaec842e6f54fa3113284f8ba /Documentation/cpusets.txt
parentbd5e09cf7054878a3db6a8c8bab1c2fabcd4f072 (diff)
[PATCH] cpuset: remove marker_pid documentation
Remove documentation for the cpuset 'marker_pid' feature, that was in the patch "cpuset: change marker for relative numbering" That patch was previously pulled from *-mm at my (pj) request. Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/cpusets.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpusets.txt50
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 46 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/cpusets.txt b/Documentation/cpusets.txt
index ef83b2dd0cb..9e49b1c3572 100644
--- a/Documentation/cpusets.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cpusets.txt
@@ -16,9 +16,8 @@ CONTENTS:
1.3 How are cpusets implemented ?
1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ?
1.5 What does notify_on_release do ?
- 1.6 What is a marker_pid ?
- 1.7 What is memory_pressure ?
- 1.8 How do I use cpusets ?
+ 1.6 What is memory_pressure ?
+ 1.7 How do I use cpusets ?
2. Usage Examples and Syntax
2.1 Basic Usage
2.2 Adding/removing cpus
@@ -178,7 +177,6 @@ containing the following files describing that cpuset:
- mem_exclusive flag: is memory placement exclusive?
- tasks: list of tasks (by pid) attached to that cpuset
- notify_on_release flag: run /sbin/cpuset_release_agent on exit?
- - marker_pid: pid of user task in co-ordinated operation sequence
- memory_pressure: measure of how much paging pressure in cpuset
In addition, the root cpuset only has the following file:
@@ -260,47 +258,7 @@ boot is disabled (0). The default value of other cpusets at creation
is the current value of their parents notify_on_release setting.
-1.6 What is a marker_pid ?
---------------------------
-
-The marker_pid helps manage cpuset changes safely from user space.
-
-The interface presented to user space for cpusets uses system wide
-numbering of CPUs and Memory Nodes. It is the responsibility of
-user level code, presumably in a library, to present cpuset-relative
-numbering to applications when that would be more useful to them.
-
-However if a task is moved to a different cpuset, or if the 'cpus' or
-'mems' of a cpuset are changed, then we need a way for such library
-code to detect that its cpuset-relative numbering has changed, when
-expressed using system wide numbering.
-
-The kernel cannot safely allow user code to lock kernel resources.
-The kernel could deliver out-of-band notice of cpuset changes by
-such mechanisms as signals or usermodehelper callbacks, however
-this can't be synchronously delivered to library code linked in
-applications without intruding on the IPC mechanisms available to
-the app. The kernel could require user level code to do all the work,
-tracking the cpuset state before and during changes, to verify no
-unexpected change occurred, but this becomes an onerous task.
-
-The "marker_pid" cpuset field provides a simple way to make this task
-less onerous on user library code. A task writes its pid to a cpusets
-"marker_pid" at the start of a sequence of queries and updates,
-and check as it goes that the cpusets marker_pid doesn't change.
-The pread(2) system call does a seek and read in a single call.
-If the marker_pid changes, the user code should retry the required
-sequence of operations.
-
-Anytime that a task modifies the "cpus" or "mems" of a cpuset,
-unless it's pid is in the cpusets marker_pid field, the kernel zeros
-this field.
-
-The above was inspired by the load linked and store conditional
-(ll/sc) instructions in the MIPS II instruction set.
-
-
-1.7 What is memory_pressure ?
+1.6 What is memory_pressure ?
-----------------------------
The memory_pressure of a cpuset provides a simple per-cpuset metric
of the rate that the tasks in a cpuset are attempting to free up in
@@ -357,7 +315,7 @@ the tasks in the cpuset, in units of reclaims attempted per second,
times 1000.
-1.8 How do I use cpusets ?
+1.7 How do I use cpusets ?
--------------------------
In order to minimize the impact of cpusets on critical kernel