library: properly handle memory used by tmpfs

tmpfs has become much more widely used since distributions use it for
/tmp (Fedora 18+). In /proc/meminfo, memory used by tmpfs is accounted
into "Cached" (aka "NR_FILE_PAGES",
 http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/mm/shmem.c#L301 ).

The tools just pass it on, so what top, free and vmstat report as
"cached" is the sum of page cache and tmpfs.

free has the extremely useful "-/+ buffers/cache" output. However, now
that tmpfs is accounted into "cached", those numbers are way off once
you have big files in /tmp.

Fortunately, kernel 2.6.32 introduces "Shmem", which makes tmpfs memory
usage accessible from userspace (
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4b02108ac1b3354a22b0d83c684797692efdc395 ).

This patch substracts Shmem from Cached to get the actual page cache
memory. This makes both issues mentioned above disappear. For older
kernels, Shmem is not available (hence zero) and this patch is no-op.

Additionally:
* Update the man pages of free and vmstat to explain what is happening
* Finally drop "MemShared" from the /proc/meminfo parser, it has been
  dead for 10+ years and is only causing confusion ( removed in kernel
  2.5.54, see
  https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git/commit/?id=fe04e9451e5a159247cf9f03c615a4273ac0c571 )
This commit is contained in:
Jakob Unterwurzacher 2014-02-18 22:12:21 +01:00 committed by Jaromir Capik
parent 24f1fbd9d0
commit 3569c0351f
4 changed files with 31 additions and 12 deletions

29
free.1
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@ -11,11 +11,30 @@ free \- Display amount of free and used memory in the system
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B free
displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the
system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel.
The shared memory column represents either the MemShared value (2.4 series
kernels) or the Shmem value (2.6 series kernels and later) taken from the
/proc/meminfo file. The value is zero if none of the entries is exported
by the kernel.
system, as well as the buffers and caches used by the kernel. The
information is gathered by parsing /proc/meminfo. The displayed
columns are:
.TP
\fBtotal\fR
Total installed memory (MemTotal and SwapTotal in /proc/meminfo)
.TP
\fBused\fR
Used memory (calculated as total - free)
.TP
\fBfree\fR
Unused memory (MemFree and SwapFree in /proc/meminfo)
.TP
\fBshared\fR
Memory used (mostly) by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo, available on
kernels 2.6.32, displayed as zero if not available)
.TP
\fBbuffers\fR
Memory used by kernel buffers (Buffers in /proc/meminfo)
.TP
\fBcached\fR
Memory used by the page cache (calculated as Cached - Shmem in
/proc/meminfo - the Cached value is actually the sum of page cache and
tmpfs memory)
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-bytes\fR

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@ -531,7 +531,6 @@ static int compare_mem_table_structs(const void *a, const void *b){
*
* MemTotal: 61768 kB old
* MemFree: 1436 kB old
* MemShared: 0 kB old (now always zero; not calculated)
* Buffers: 1312 kB old
* Cached: 20932 kB old
* Active: 12464 kB new
@ -560,7 +559,7 @@ static int compare_mem_table_structs(const void *a, const void *b){
* Hugepagesize: 4096 kB 2.5.??+
*/
/* obsolete since 2.6.x, but reused for shmem in 2.6.32+ */
/* Shmem in 2.6.32+ */
unsigned long kb_main_shared;
/* old but still kicking -- the important stuff */
unsigned long kb_main_buffers;
@ -631,14 +630,13 @@ void meminfo(void){
{"LowTotal", &kb_low_total},
{"Mapped", &kb_mapped}, // kB version of vmstat nr_mapped
{"MemFree", &kb_main_free}, // important
{"MemShared", &kb_main_shared}, // obsolete since kernel 2.6! (sharing the variable with Shmem replacement)
{"MemTotal", &kb_main_total}, // important
{"NFS_Unstable", &kb_nfs_unstable},
{"PageTables", &kb_pagetables}, // kB version of vmstat nr_page_table_pages
{"ReverseMaps", &nr_reversemaps}, // same as vmstat nr_page_table_pages
{"SReclaimable", &kb_swap_reclaimable}, // "swap reclaimable" (dentry and inode structures)
{"SUnreclaim", &kb_swap_unreclaimable},
{"Shmem", &kb_main_shared}, // kernel 2.6 and later (sharing the output variable with obsolete MemShared)
{"Shmem", &kb_main_shared}, // kernel 2.6.32 and later
{"Slab", &kb_slab}, // kB version of vmstat nr_slab
{"SwapCached", &kb_swap_cached},
{"SwapFree", &kb_swap_free}, // important
@ -684,6 +682,8 @@ nextline:
}
kb_swap_used = kb_swap_total - kb_swap_free;
kb_main_used = kb_main_total - kb_main_free;
/* "Cached" includes "Shmem" - we want only the page cache here */
kb_main_cached -= kb_main_shared;
}
/*****************************************************************/

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@ -20,8 +20,7 @@ extern int uptime (double *uptime_secs, double *idle_secs);
extern unsigned long getbtime(void);
extern void loadavg(double *av1, double *av5, double *av15);
/* obsolete */
/* Shmem in 2.6.32+ */
extern unsigned long kb_main_shared;
/* old but still kicking -- the important stuff */
extern unsigned long kb_main_buffers;

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@ -102,7 +102,8 @@ b: The number of processes in uninterruptible sleep.
swpd: the amount of virtual memory used.
free: the amount of idle memory.
buff: the amount of memory used as buffers.
cache: the amount of memory used as cache.
cache: the amount of memory used as cache (excluding tmpfs memory for
kernels 2.6.32+)
inact: the amount of inactive memory. (\-a option)
active: the amount of active memory. (\-a option)
.fi