Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] mm/page_owner: Dump memcg information

[Roman Gushchin]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2022 at 05:38:07PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Wed 02-02-22 07:54:48, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 02, 2022 at 09:57:18AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > On Tue 01-02-22 11:41:19, Waiman Long wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > On 2/1/22 05:49, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > > > Could you be more specific? Offlined memcgs are still part of the
> > > > > hierarchy IIRC. So it shouldn't be much more than iterating the whole
> > > > > cgroup tree and collect interesting data about dead cgroups.
> > > > 
> > > > What I mean is that without piggybacking on top of page_owner, we will to
> > > > add a lot more code to collect and display those information which may have
> > > > some overhead of its own.
> > > 
> > > Yes, there is nothing like a free lunch. Page owner is certainly a tool
> > > that can be used. My main concern is that this tool doesn't really
> > > scale on large machines with a lots of memory. It will provide a very
> > > detailed information but I am not sure this is particularly helpful to
> > > most admins (why should people process tons of allocation backtraces in
> > > the first place). Wouldn't it be sufficient to have per dead memcg stats
> > > to see where the memory sits?
> > > 
> > > Accumulated offline memcgs is something that bothers more people and I
> > > am really wondering whether we can do more for those people to evaluate
> > > the current state.
> > 
> > Cgroup v2 has corresponding counters for years. Or do you mean something different?
> 
> Do we have anything more specific than nr_dying_descendants?

No, just nr_dying_descendants.

> I was thinking about an interface which would provide paths and stats for dead
> memcgs. But I have to confess I haven't really spent much time thinking
> about how much work that would be. I am by no means against adding memcg
> information to the page owner. I just think there must be a better way
> to present resource consumption by dead memcgs.

I'd go with a drgn script. I wrote a bunch of them some times ago and
can probably revive them and post here (will take few days).

I agree that the problem still exists and providing some tool around would be
useful.

Thanks!