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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7e62de1e59f..00000000000 --- a/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,102 +0,0 @@ -The cgroup freezer is useful to batch job management system which start -and stop sets of tasks in order to schedule the resources of a machine -according to the desires of a system administrator. This sort of program -is often used on HPC clusters to schedule access to the cluster as a -whole. The cgroup freezer uses cgroups to describe the set of tasks to -be started/stopped by the batch job management system. It also provides -a means to start and stop the tasks composing the job. - -The cgroup freezer will also be useful for checkpointing running groups -of tasks. The freezer allows the checkpoint code to obtain a consistent -image of the tasks by attempting to force the tasks in a cgroup into a -quiescent state. Once the tasks are quiescent another task can -walk /proc or invoke a kernel interface to gather information about the -quiesced tasks. Checkpointed tasks can be restarted later should a -recoverable error occur. This also allows the checkpointed tasks to be -migrated between nodes in a cluster by copying the gathered information -to another node and restarting the tasks there. - -Sequences of SIGSTOP and SIGCONT are not always sufficient for stopping -and resuming tasks in userspace. Both of these signals are observable -from within the tasks we wish to freeze. While SIGSTOP cannot be caught, -blocked, or ignored it can be seen by waiting or ptracing parent tasks. -SIGCONT is especially unsuitable since it can be caught by the task. Any -programs designed to watch for SIGSTOP and SIGCONT could be broken by -attempting to use SIGSTOP and SIGCONT to stop and resume tasks. We can -demonstrate this problem using nested bash shells: - - $ echo $$ - 16644 - $ bash - $ echo $$ - 16690 - - From a second, unrelated bash shell: - $ kill -SIGSTOP 16690 - $ kill -SIGCONT 16690 - - <at this point 16690 exits and causes 16644 to exit too> - -This happens because bash can observe both signals and choose how it -responds to them. - -Another example of a program which catches and responds to these -signals is gdb. In fact any program designed to use ptrace is likely to -have a problem with this method of stopping and resuming tasks. - -In contrast, the cgroup freezer uses the kernel freezer code to -prevent the freeze/unfreeze cycle from becoming visible to the tasks -being frozen. This allows the bash example above and gdb to run as -expected. - -The freezer subsystem in the container filesystem defines a file named -freezer.state. Writing "FROZEN" to the state file will freeze all tasks in the -cgroup. Subsequently writing "THAWED" will unfreeze the tasks in the cgroup. -Reading will return the current state. - -Note freezer.state doesn't exist in root cgroup, which means root cgroup -is non-freezable. - -* Examples of usage : - - # mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer - # mount -t cgroup -ofreezer freezer /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer - # mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0 - # echo $some_pid > /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/tasks - -to get status of the freezer subsystem : - - # cat /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - THAWED - -to freeze all tasks in the container : - - # echo FROZEN > /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - # cat /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - FREEZING - # cat /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - FROZEN - -to unfreeze all tasks in the container : - - # echo THAWED > /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - # cat /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer/0/freezer.state - THAWED - -This is the basic mechanism which should do the right thing for user space task -in a simple scenario. - -It's important to note that freezing can be incomplete. In that case we return -EBUSY. This means that some tasks in the cgroup are busy doing something that -prevents us from completely freezing the cgroup at this time. After EBUSY, -the cgroup will remain partially frozen -- reflected by freezer.state reporting -"FREEZING" when read. The state will remain "FREEZING" until one of these -things happens: - - 1) Userspace cancels the freezing operation by writing "THAWED" to - the freezer.state file - 2) Userspace retries the freezing operation by writing "FROZEN" to - the freezer.state file (writing "FREEZING" is not legal - and returns EINVAL) - 3) The tasks that blocked the cgroup from entering the "FROZEN" - state disappear from the cgroup's set of tasks. |