[PATCH 10/12] cgroups: Add documentation for task counter subsystem

[Frederic Weisbecker]

Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Paul Menage <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Li Zefan <lizf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Aditya Kali <adityakali@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: Tim Hockin <thockin@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/cgroups/task_counter.txt |  126 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 126 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/cgroups/task_counter.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/task_counter.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/task_counter.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e93760a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/cgroups/task_counter.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+Task counter subsystem
+
+1. Description
+
+The task counter subsystem limits the number of tasks running
+inside a given cgroup. It behaves like the NR_PROC rlimit but in
+the scope of a cgroup instead of a user.
+
+It has two typical usecases, although more can probably be found:
+
+- Protect against forkbombs that explode inside a container when
+that container is implemented using a cgroup. The NR_PROC rlimit
+is not efficient for that because if we have several containers
+running in parallel under the same user, one container could starve
+all the others by spawning a high number of tasks close to the
+rlimit boundary. So in this case we need this limitation to be
+done in a per cgroup granularity.
+
+- Kill all tasks inside a cgroup without races. By setting the limit
+of running tasks to 0, one can prevent from any further fork inside a
+cgroup and then kill all of its tasks without the need to retry an
+unbound amount of time due to races between kills and forks running
+in parallel (more details in "Kill a cgroup safely" paragraph).
+
+
+2. Interface
+
+When a hierarchy is mounted with the task counter subsystem binded, it
+adds two files into the cgroups directories, except the root one:
+
+- tasks.usage contains the number of tasks running inside a cgroup and
+its children in the hierarchy (see paragraph about Inheritance).
+
+- tasks.limit contains the maximum number of tasks that can run inside
+a cgroup. We check this limit when a task forks or when it is migrated
+to a cgroup.
+
+Note that the tasks.limit value can be forced below tasks.usage, in which
+case any new task in the cgroup will be rejected until the tasks.usage
+value goes below tasks.limit.
+
+For optimization reasons, the root directory of a hierarchy doesn't have
+a task counter.
+
+
+3. Inheritance
+
+When a task is added to a cgroup, by way of a cgroup migration or a fork,
+it increases the task counter of that cgroup and of all its ancestors.
+Hence a cgroup is also subject to the limit of its ancestors.
+
+In the following hierarchy:
+
+
+             A
+             |
+             B
+           /   \
+          C     D
+
+
+We have 1 task running in B, one running in C and none running in D.
+It means we have tasks.usage = 1 in C and tasks.usage = 2 in B because
+B counts its task and those of its children.
+
+Now lets set tasks.limit = 2 in B and tasks.limit = 1 in D.
+If we move a new task in D, it will be refused because the limit in B has
+been reached already.
+
+
+4. Kill a cgroup safely
+
+As explained in the description, this subsystem is also helpful to
+kill all tasks in a cgroup safely, after setting tasks.limit to 0,
+so that we don't race against parallel forks in an unbound numbers
+of kill iterations.
+
+But there is a small detail to be aware of to use this feature that
+way.
+
+Some typical way to proceed would be:
+
+	echo 0 > tasks.limit
+	for TASK in $(cat cgroup.procs)
+	do
+		kill -KILL $TASK
+	done
+
+However there is a small race window where a task can be in the way to
+be forked but hasn't enough completed the fork to have the PID of the
+fork appearing in the cgroup.procs file.
+
+The only way to get it right is to run a loop that reads tasks.usage, kill
+all the tasks in cgroup.procs and exit the loop only if the value in
+tasks.usage was the same than the number of tasks that were in cgroup.procs,
+ie: the number of tasks that were killed.
+
+It works because the new child appears in tasks.usage right before we check,
+in the fork path, whether the parent has a pending signal, in which case the
+fork is cancelled anyway. So relying on tasks.usage is fine and non-racy.
+
+This race window is tiny and unlikely to happen, so most of the time a single
+kill iteration should be enough. But it's worth knowing about that corner
+case spotted by Oleg Nesterov.
+
+Example of safe use would be:
+
+	echo 0 > tasks.limit
+	END=false
+
+	while [ $END == false ]
+	do
+		NR_TASKS=$(cat tasks.usage)
+		NR_KILLED=0
+
+		for TASK in $(cat cgroup.procs)
+		do
+			let NR_KILLED=NR_KILLED+1
+			kill -KILL $TASK
+		done
+
+		if [ "$NR_TASKS" = "$NR_KILLED" ]
+		then
+			END=true
+		fi
+	done
-- 
1.7.5.4

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