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SubjectRe: [PATCH v5 1/2] mm: limit growth of 3% hardcoded other user reserve
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 04:01:36PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 18:52:01 -0500 Andrew Shewmaker <agshew@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Add user_reserve_pages knob.
> >
> > Limit the growth of the memory reserved for other user
> > processes to min(3% current process, user_reserve_pages).
> >
> > user_reserve_pages defaults to min(3% free pages, 128MB)
> > I arrived at 128MB by taking that max VSZ of sshd, login,
> > bash, and top ... then adding the RSS of each.
> >
> > This only affects OVERCOMMIT_NEVER mode.
>
> Can we have a more complete changelog, please? One which describes, at
> great length, *why* we're doing this. Describe the problems you
> observed, the possible means of addressing them, why this means is
> considered best, etc.
>
> Also, there has been considerable discussion over this patchset and it
> is good to update the changelogs to reflect that discussion. Partly
> because other people will be asking the same questions when they see
> the patches and partly so that reviewers can understand how earlier
> objections/suggestions were addressed. Assume that your audience
> has not read this email thread!
>
> From a quick read of the code, it appears that the root-cant-log-in
> problem was addressed by simply leaving it up to the administrator,
> yes? If the administrator sets user_reserve_pages or
> admin_reserve_pages to zero then they risk hitting the root-cant-log-in
> problem, yes? If so then I guess this is an OK approach, but we should
> clearly describe the risks in the documentation.
>
> Finally, I am allergic to exported interfaces which deal in "pages".
> Because PAGE_SIZE can vary by a factor of 16 depending upon config (ie:
> architecture). The risk is that a setup script which works nicely on
> 4k x86_64 will waste memory when executed on a 64k PAGE_SIZE powerpc
> box. A smart programmer will recognize this and will adapt the setting
> using getpagesize(2), but if we define these things in "bytes" rather
> than "pages" then dumb programmers can use it too.

I'll get right on a version with an interface that uses kbytes, and
I'll put a lot more detail in the changelog. I'll also document how
I'm testing.

As long as admin_reserve_pages is set to at least 8MB for
OVERCOMMIT_GUESS or above 128MB for OVERCOMMIT_NEVER, I was able to
log in as root and kill processes. The root-cant-log-in problem
cannot be hit if user_reserve_pages is set to 0 because that
reserve only exists in OVERCOMMIT_NEVER mode.

Should I enforce a minimum for the admin reserve? 8MB/128MB for the
overcommit guess/never modes? I was hesitant to do that since my
numbers are based a full-featured distro's versions of login, bash,
etc. A more svelte distro based on BusyBox might want different
minimums.

I have a question concerning the variable names. Might a person
looking at the source be confused why admin_reserve_kbytes and
user_reserve_kbytes are not included in totalreserve_pages? Should
I use a word other than "reserve" in the names, like "safetynet"?
I can't think of anything better. Maybe it isn't a concern, but
I didn't want to cause confusion.

Thanks for the feedback!


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