Documentation/mm/page_owner.rst - linux - Git at Google

 .. _page_owner:

 ==================================================
 page owner: Tracking about who allocated each page
 ==================================================

 Introduction
 ============

 page owner is for the tracking about who allocated each page.
 It can be used to debug memory leak or to find a memory hogger.
 When allocation happens, information about allocation such as call stack
 and order of pages is stored into certain storage for each page.
 When we need to know about status of all pages, we can get and analyze
 this information.

 Although we already have tracepoint for tracing page allocation/free,
 using it for analyzing who allocate each page is rather complex. We need
 to enlarge the trace buffer for preventing overlapping until userspace
 program launched. And, launched program continually dump out the trace
 buffer for later analysis and it would change system behaviour with more
 possibility rather than just keeping it in memory, so bad for debugging.

 page owner can also be used for various purposes. For example, accurate
 fragmentation statistics can be obtained through gfp flag information of
 each page. It is already implemented and activated if page owner is
 enabled. Other usages are more than welcome.

 page owner is disabled by default. So, if you'd like to use it, you need
 to add "page_owner=on" to your boot cmdline. If the kernel is built
 with page owner and page owner is disabled in runtime due to not enabling
 boot option, runtime overhead is marginal. If disabled in runtime, it
 doesn't require memory to store owner information, so there is no runtime
 memory overhead. And, page owner inserts just two unlikely branches into
 the page allocator hotpath and if not enabled, then allocation is done
 like as the kernel without page owner. These two unlikely branches should
 not affect to allocation performance, especially if the static keys jump
 label patching functionality is available. Following is the kernel's code
 size change due to this facility.

 Although enabling page owner increases kernel size by several kilobytes,
 most of this code is outside page allocator and its hot path. Building
 the kernel with page owner and turning it on if needed would be great
 option to debug kernel memory problem.

 There is one notice that is caused by implementation detail. page owner
 stores information into the memory from struct page extension. This memory
 is initialized some time later than that page allocator starts in sparse
 memory system, so, until initialization, many pages can be allocated and
 they would have no owner information. To fix it up, these early allocated
 pages are investigated and marked as allocated in initialization phase.
 Although it doesn't mean that they have the right owner information,
 at least, we can tell whether the page is allocated or not,
 more accurately. On 2GB memory x86-64 VM box, 13343 early allocated pages
 are catched and marked, although they are mostly allocated from struct
 page extension feature. Anyway, after that, no page is left in
 un-tracking state.

 Usage
 =====

 1) Build user-space helper::

 	cd tools/vm
 	make page_owner_sort

 2) Enable page owner: add "page_owner=on" to boot cmdline.

 3) Do the job that you want to debug.

 4) Analyze information from page owner::

 	cat /sys/kernel/debug/page_owner > page_owner_full.txt
 	./page_owner_sort page_owner_full.txt sorted_page_owner.txt

    The general output of ``page_owner_full.txt`` is as follows::

 	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
 	PFN XXX ...
 	// Detailed stack

 	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
 	PFN XXX ...
 	// Detailed stack
     By default, it will do full pfn dump, to start with a given pfn,
     page_owner supports fseek.

     FILE *fp = fopen("/sys/kernel/debug/page_owner", "r");
     fseek(fp, pfn_start, SEEK_SET);

    The ``page_owner_sort`` tool ignores ``PFN`` rows, puts the remaining rows
    in buf, uses regexp to extract the page order value, counts the times
    and pages of buf, and finally sorts them according to the parameter(s).

    See the result about who allocated each page
    in the ``sorted_page_owner.txt``. General output::

 	XXX times, XXX pages:
 	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
 	// Detailed stack

    By default, ``page_owner_sort`` is sorted according to the times of buf.
    If you want to sort by the page nums of buf, use the ``-m`` parameter.
    The detailed parameters are:

    fundamental function::

 	Sort:
 		-a		Sort by memory allocation time.
 		-m		Sort by total memory.
 		-p		Sort by pid.
 		-P		Sort by tgid.
 		-n		Sort by task command name.
 		-r		Sort by memory release time.
 		-s		Sort by stack trace.
 		-t		Sort by times (default).
 		--sort <order>	Specify sorting order.  Sorting syntax is [+|-]key[,[+|-]key[,...]].
 				Choose a key from the **STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS** section. The "+" is
 				optional since default direction is increasing numerical or lexicographic
 				order. Mixed use of abbreviated and complete-form of keys is allowed.

 		Examples:
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --sort=n,+pid,-tgid
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --sort=at

    additional function::

 	Cull:
 		--cull <rules>
 				Specify culling rules.Culling syntax is key[,key[,...]].Choose a
 				multi-letter key from the **STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS** section.

 		<rules> is a single argument in the form of a comma-separated list,
 		which offers a way to specify individual culling rules.  The recognized
 		keywords are described in the **STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS** section below.
 		<rules> can be specified by the sequence of keys k1,k2, ..., as described in
 		the STANDARD SORT KEYS section below. Mixed use of abbreviated and
 		complete-form of keys is allowed.

 		Examples:
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=stacktrace
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=st,pid,name
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=n,f

 	Filter:
 		-f		Filter out the information of blocks whose memory has been released.

 	Select:
 		--pid <pidlist>		Select by pid. This selects the blocks whose process ID
 					numbers appear in <pidlist>.
 		--tgid <tgidlist>	Select by tgid. This selects the blocks whose thread
 					group ID numbers appear in <tgidlist>.
 		--name <cmdlist>	Select by task command name. This selects the blocks whose
 					task command name appear in <cmdlist>.

 		<pidlist>, <tgidlist>, <cmdlist> are single arguments in the form of a comma-separated list,
 		which offers a way to specify individual selecting rules.


 		Examples:
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --pid=1
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --tgid=1,2,3
 				./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --name name1,name2

 STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS
 ==========================
 ::

   For --sort option:

 	KEY		LONG		DESCRIPTION
 	p		pid		process ID
 	tg		tgid		thread group ID
 	n		name		task command name
 	st		stacktrace	stack trace of the page allocation
 	T		txt		full text of block
 	ft		free_ts		timestamp of the page when it was released
 	at		alloc_ts	timestamp of the page when it was allocated
 	ator		allocator	memory allocator for pages

   For --curl option:

 	KEY		LONG		DESCRIPTION
 	p		pid		process ID
 	tg		tgid		thread group ID
 	n		name		task command name
 	f		free		whether the page has been released or not
 	st		stacktrace	stack trace of the page allocation
 	ator		allocator	memory allocator for pages
	.. _page_owner:

	==================================================
	page owner: Tracking about who allocated each page
	==================================================

	Introduction
	============

	page owner is for the tracking about who allocated each page.
	It can be used to debug memory leak or to find a memory hogger.
	When allocation happens, information about allocation such as call stack
	and order of pages is stored into certain storage for each page.
	When we need to know about status of all pages, we can get and analyze
	this information.

	Although we already have tracepoint for tracing page allocation/free,
	using it for analyzing who allocate each page is rather complex. We need
	to enlarge the trace buffer for preventing overlapping until userspace
	program launched. And, launched program continually dump out the trace
	buffer for later analysis and it would change system behaviour with more
	possibility rather than just keeping it in memory, so bad for debugging.

	page owner can also be used for various purposes. For example, accurate
	fragmentation statistics can be obtained through gfp flag information of
	each page. It is already implemented and activated if page owner is
	enabled. Other usages are more than welcome.

	page owner is disabled by default. So, if you'd like to use it, you need
	to add "page_owner=on" to your boot cmdline. If the kernel is built
	with page owner and page owner is disabled in runtime due to not enabling
	boot option, runtime overhead is marginal. If disabled in runtime, it
	doesn't require memory to store owner information, so there is no runtime
	memory overhead. And, page owner inserts just two unlikely branches into
	the page allocator hotpath and if not enabled, then allocation is done
	like as the kernel without page owner. These two unlikely branches should
	not affect to allocation performance, especially if the static keys jump
	label patching functionality is available. Following is the kernel's code
	size change due to this facility.

	Although enabling page owner increases kernel size by several kilobytes,
	most of this code is outside page allocator and its hot path. Building
	the kernel with page owner and turning it on if needed would be great
	option to debug kernel memory problem.

	There is one notice that is caused by implementation detail. page owner
	stores information into the memory from struct page extension. This memory
	is initialized some time later than that page allocator starts in sparse
	memory system, so, until initialization, many pages can be allocated and
	they would have no owner information. To fix it up, these early allocated
	pages are investigated and marked as allocated in initialization phase.
	Although it doesn't mean that they have the right owner information,
	at least, we can tell whether the page is allocated or not,
	more accurately. On 2GB memory x86-64 VM box, 13343 early allocated pages
	are catched and marked, although they are mostly allocated from struct
	page extension feature. Anyway, after that, no page is left in
	un-tracking state.

	Usage
	=====

	1) Build user-space helper::

	cd tools/vm
	make page_owner_sort

	2) Enable page owner: add "page_owner=on" to boot cmdline.

	3) Do the job that you want to debug.

	4) Analyze information from page owner::

	cat /sys/kernel/debug/page_owner > page_owner_full.txt
	./page_owner_sort page_owner_full.txt sorted_page_owner.txt

	The general output of ``page_owner_full.txt`` is as follows::

	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
	PFN XXX ...
	// Detailed stack

	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
	PFN XXX ...
	// Detailed stack
	By default, it will do full pfn dump, to start with a given pfn,
	page_owner supports fseek.

	FILE *fp = fopen("/sys/kernel/debug/page_owner", "r");
	fseek(fp, pfn_start, SEEK_SET);

	The ``page_owner_sort`` tool ignores ``PFN`` rows, puts the remaining rows
	in buf, uses regexp to extract the page order value, counts the times
	and pages of buf, and finally sorts them according to the parameter(s).

	See the result about who allocated each page
	in the ``sorted_page_owner.txt``. General output::

	XXX times, XXX pages:
	Page allocated via order XXX, ...
	// Detailed stack

	By default, ``page_owner_sort`` is sorted according to the times of buf.
	If you want to sort by the page nums of buf, use the ``-m`` parameter.
	The detailed parameters are:

	fundamental function::

	Sort:
	-a Sort by memory allocation time.
	-m Sort by total memory.
	-p Sort by pid.
	-P Sort by tgid.
	-n Sort by task command name.
	-r Sort by memory release time.
	-s Sort by stack trace.
	-t Sort by times (default).
	--sort <order> Specify sorting order. Sorting syntax is [+\|-]key[,[+\|-]key[,...]].
	Choose a key from the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section. The "+" is
	optional since default direction is increasing numerical or lexicographic
	order. Mixed use of abbreviated and complete-form of keys is allowed.

	Examples:
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --sort=n,+pid,-tgid
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --sort=at

	additional function::

	Cull:
	--cull <rules>
	Specify culling rules.Culling syntax is key[,key[,...]].Choose a
	multi-letter key from the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section.

	<rules> is a single argument in the form of a comma-separated list,
	which offers a way to specify individual culling rules. The recognized
	keywords are described in the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section below.
	<rules> can be specified by the sequence of keys k1,k2, ..., as described in
	the STANDARD SORT KEYS section below. Mixed use of abbreviated and
	complete-form of keys is allowed.

	Examples:
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=stacktrace
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=st,pid,name
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --cull=n,f

	Filter:
	-f Filter out the information of blocks whose memory has been released.

	Select:
	--pid <pidlist> Select by pid. This selects the blocks whose process ID
	numbers appear in <pidlist>.
	--tgid <tgidlist> Select by tgid. This selects the blocks whose thread
	group ID numbers appear in <tgidlist>.
	--name <cmdlist> Select by task command name. This selects the blocks whose
	task command name appear in <cmdlist>.

	<pidlist>, <tgidlist>, <cmdlist> are single arguments in the form of a comma-separated list,
	which offers a way to specify individual selecting rules.


	Examples:
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --pid=1
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --tgid=1,2,3
	./page_owner_sort <input> <output> --name name1,name2

	STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS
	==========================
	::

	For --sort option:

	KEY LONG DESCRIPTION
	p pid process ID
	tg tgid thread group ID
	n name task command name
	st stacktrace stack trace of the page allocation
	T txt full text of block
	ft free_ts timestamp of the page when it was released
	at alloc_ts timestamp of the page when it was allocated
	ator allocator memory allocator for pages

	For --curl option:

	KEY LONG DESCRIPTION
	p pid process ID
	tg tgid thread group ID
	n name task command name
	f free whether the page has been released or not
	st stacktrace stack trace of the page allocation
	ator allocator memory allocator for pages