linux/Documentation/sysctl
Andrea Righi 9e4a5bda89 mm: prevent divide error for small values of vm_dirty_bytes
Avoid setting less than two pages for vm_dirty_bytes: this is necessary to
avoid potential division by 0 (like the following) in get_dirty_limits().

[   49.951610] divide error: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP
[   49.952195] last sysfs file: /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda/uevent
[   49.952195] CPU 1
[   49.952195] Modules linked in: pcspkr
[   49.952195] Pid: 3064, comm: dd Not tainted 2.6.30-rc3 #1
[   49.952195] RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff802d39a9>]  [<ffffffff802d39a9>] get_dirty_limits+0xe9/0x2c0
[   49.952195] RSP: 0018:ffff88001de03a98  EFLAGS: 00010202
[   49.952195] RAX: 00000000000000c0 RBX: ffff88001de03b80 RCX: 28f5c28f5c28f5c3
[   49.952195] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 00000000000000c0 RDI: 0000000000000000
[   49.952195] RBP: ffff88001de03ae8 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
[   49.952195] R10: ffff88001ddda9a0 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000000001
[   49.952195] R13: ffff88001fbc8218 R14: ffff88001de03b70 R15: ffff88001de03b78
[   49.952195] FS:  00007fe9a435b6f0(0000) GS:ffff8800025d9000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[   49.952195] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[   49.952195] CR2: 00007fe9a39ab000 CR3: 000000001de38000 CR4: 00000000000006e0
[   49.952195] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[   49.952195] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[   49.952195] Process dd (pid: 3064, threadinfo ffff88001de02000, task ffff88001ddda250)
[   49.952195] Stack:
[   49.952195]  ffff88001fa0de00 ffff88001f2dbd70 ffff88001f9fe800 000080b900000000
[   49.952195]  00000000000000c0 ffff8800027a6100 0000000000000400 ffff88001fbc8218
[   49.952195]  0000000000000000 0000000000000600 ffff88001de03bb8 ffffffff802d3ed7
[   49.952195] Call Trace:
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff802d3ed7>] balance_dirty_pages_ratelimited_nr+0x1d7/0x3f0
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff80368f8e>] ? ext3_writeback_write_end+0x9e/0x120
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff802cc7df>] generic_file_buffered_write+0x12f/0x330
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff802cce8d>] __generic_file_aio_write_nolock+0x26d/0x460
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff802cda32>] ? generic_file_aio_write+0x52/0xd0
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff802cda49>] generic_file_aio_write+0x69/0xd0
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff80365fa6>] ext3_file_write+0x26/0xc0
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff803034d1>] do_sync_write+0xf1/0x140
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff80290d1a>] ? get_lock_stats+0x2a/0x60
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff80280730>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff8030411b>] vfs_write+0xcb/0x190
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff803042d0>] sys_write+0x50/0x90
[   49.952195]  [<ffffffff8022ff6b>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
[   49.952195] Code: 00 00 00 2b 05 09 1c 17 01 48 89 c6 49 0f af f4 48 c1 ee 02 48 89 f0 48 f7 e1 48 89 d6 31 d2 48 c1 ee 02 48 0f af 75 d0 48 89 f0 <48> f7 f7 41 8b 95 ac 01 00 00 48 89 c7 49 0f af d4 48 c1 ea 02
[   49.952195] RIP  [<ffffffff802d39a9>] get_dirty_limits+0xe9/0x2c0
[   49.952195]  RSP <ffff88001de03a98>
[   50.096523] ---[ end trace 008d7aa02f244d7b ]---

Signed-off-by: Andrea Righi <righi.andrea@gmail.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-05-02 15:36:10 -07:00
..
00-INDEX documentation: update Documentation/filesystem/proc.txt and Documentation/sysctls 2009-04-02 19:04:53 -07:00
abi.txt Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
ctl_unnumbered.txt Add Documentation/sysctl/ctl_unnumbered.txt 2007-07-16 09:05:49 -07:00
fs.txt documentation: update Documentation/filesystem/proc.txt and Documentation/sysctls 2009-04-02 19:04:53 -07:00
kernel.txt documentation: update Documentation/filesystem/proc.txt and Documentation/sysctls 2009-04-02 19:04:53 -07:00
net.txt Documentation/sysctl/net.txt: fix a typo 2009-04-13 15:04:28 -07:00
README Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
sunrpc.txt Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
vm.txt mm: prevent divide error for small values of vm_dirty_bytes 2009-05-02 15:36:10 -07:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)