From abffc0207f12563f17bbde96e4cc0d9f3d7e2a53 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Andrea Righi Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:33:31 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] doc: clarify the behaviour of dirty_ratio/dirty_bytes When dirty_ratio or dirty_bytes is written the other parameter is disabled and set to 0 (in dirty_bytes_handler() / dirty_ratio_handler()). We do the same for dirty_background_ratio and dirty_background_bytes. However, in the sysctl documentation, we say that the counterpart becomes a function of the old value, that is not correct. Clarify the documentation reporting the actual behaviour. Reviewed-by: Greg Thelen Acked-by: David Rientjes Signed-off-by: Andrea Righi Cc: Randy Dunlap Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt | 12 ++++++++---- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt index b606c2c4dd37..30289fab86eb 100644 --- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt +++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt @@ -80,8 +80,10 @@ dirty_background_bytes Contains the amount of dirty memory at which the pdflush background writeback daemon will start writeback. -If dirty_background_bytes is written, dirty_background_ratio becomes a function -of its value (dirty_background_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory). +Note: dirty_background_bytes is the counterpart of dirty_background_ratio. Only +one of them may be specified at a time. When one sysctl is written it is +immediately taken into account to evaluate the dirty memory limits and the +other appears as 0 when read. ============================================================== @@ -97,8 +99,10 @@ dirty_bytes Contains the amount of dirty memory at which a process generating disk writes will itself start writeback. -If dirty_bytes is written, dirty_ratio becomes a function of its value -(dirty_bytes / the amount of dirtyable system memory). +Note: dirty_bytes is the counterpart of dirty_ratio. Only one of them may be +specified at a time. When one sysctl is written it is immediately taken into +account to evaluate the dirty memory limits and the other appears as 0 when +read. Note: the minimum value allowed for dirty_bytes is two pages (in bytes); any value lower than this limit will be ignored and the old configuration will be -- 2.30.2