Re: [PATCH 2/7] mm: shrinker: Add a .to_text() method for shrinkers

From: Kent Overstreet
Date: Fri Dec 08 2023 - 21:04:36 EST


On Fri, Dec 08, 2023 at 05:44:16PM -0800, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 06, 2023 at 02:13:49PM -0500, Kent Overstreet wrote:
> 0;95;0c> On Wed, Dec 06, 2023 at 07:16:04PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > On Fri, Dec 01, 2023 at 12:01:33PM -0800, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> > > > What would be the proper solution to this problem from your point of view?
> > > > What functionality/API mm can provide to make the life of fs developers
> > > > better here?
> > >
> > > What can we do better?
> > >
> > > The first thing we can do better that comes to mind is to merge
> > > Kent's patches that allow the shrinker owner to output debug
> > > information when requested by the infrastructure.
> > >
> > > Then we - the shrinker implementers - have some control of our own
> > > destiny. We can add whatever we need to solve shrinker and OOM
> > > problems realted to our shrinkers not doing the right thing.
> > >
> > > But without that callout from the infrastructure and the
> > > infrastructure to drive it at appropriate times, we will make zero
> > > progress improving the situation.
> > >
> > > Yes, the code may not be perfect and, yes, it may not be useful to
> > > mm developers, but for the people who have to debug shrinker related
> > > problems in production systems we need all the help we can get. We
> > > certainly don't care if it isn't perfect, just having something we
> > > can partially tailor to our iindividual needs is far, far better
> > > than the current situation of nothing at all...
> >
> > Of course if mm people don't want it I've got better things to do than
> > fight uphill battles just to get some reviewed-by tags. Real high
> > quality review feedback in this thread.
>
> (ignoring an attack towards all mm people, sigh)
>
> Kent, I think extending the shrinker debugfs interface is useful.
> And in this context there is no need to limit the output to 10 items.
> Also most of disagreements will vanish (sorry, if I missed something,
> but looks like all concerns are related to the oom part).
> Will it work for you?
>
> If yes, would you be able to drop the oom part (at least for now)
> and resend the patchset?

No: OOM debugging is the entire point of the patchset.