Detailed Usages¶
DAMON provides below interfaces for different users.
DAMON user space tool. This is for privileged people such as system administrators who want a just-working human-friendly interface. Using this, users can use the DAMON’s major features in a human-friendly way. It may not be highly tuned for special cases, though. For more detail, please refer to its usage document.
sysfs interface. This is for privileged user space programmers who want more optimized use of DAMON. Using this, users can use DAMON’s major features by reading from and writing to special sysfs files. Therefore, you can write and use your personalized DAMON sysfs wrapper programs that reads/writes the sysfs files instead of you. The DAMON user space tool is one example of such programs.
debugfs interface. (DEPRECATED!) This is almost identical to sysfs interface. This is deprecated, so users should move to the sysfs interface. If you depend on this and cannot move, please report your usecase to damon@lists.linux.dev and linux-mm@kvack.org.
Kernel Space Programming Interface. This is for kernel space programmers. Using this, users can utilize every feature of DAMON most flexibly and efficiently by writing kernel space DAMON application programs for you. You can even extend DAMON for various address spaces. For detail, please refer to the interface document.
sysfs Interface¶
DAMON sysfs interface is built when CONFIG_DAMON_SYSFS
is defined. It
creates multiple directories and files under its sysfs directory,
<sysfs>/kernel/mm/damon/
. You can control DAMON by writing to and reading
from the files under the directory.
For a short example, users can monitor the virtual address space of a given workload as below.
# cd /sys/kernel/mm/damon/admin/
# echo 1 > kdamonds/nr_kdamonds && echo 1 > kdamonds/0/contexts/nr_contexts
# echo vaddr > kdamonds/0/contexts/0/operations
# echo 1 > kdamonds/0/contexts/0/targets/nr_targets
# echo $(pidof <workload>) > kdamonds/0/contexts/0/targets/0/pid_target
# echo on > kdamonds/0/state
Files Hierarchy¶
The files hierarchy of DAMON sysfs interface is shown below. In the below
figure, parents-children relations are represented with indentations, each
directory is having /
suffix, and files in each directory are separated by
comma (",").
/sys/kernel/mm/damon/admin
│ kdamonds/nr_kdamonds
│ │ 0/state,pid
│ │ │ contexts/nr_contexts
│ │ │ │ 0/avail_operations,operations
│ │ │ │ │ monitoring_attrs/
│ │ │ │ │ │ intervals/sample_us,aggr_us,update_us
│ │ │ │ │ │ nr_regions/min,max
│ │ │ │ │ targets/nr_targets
│ │ │ │ │ │ 0/pid_target
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ regions/nr_regions
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 0/start,end
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ...
│ │ │ │ │ │ ...
│ │ │ │ │ schemes/nr_schemes
│ │ │ │ │ │ 0/action
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ access_pattern/
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ sz/min,max
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ nr_accesses/min,max
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ age/min,max
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ quotas/ms,bytes,reset_interval_ms
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ weights/sz_permil,nr_accesses_permil,age_permil
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ watermarks/metric,interval_us,high,mid,low
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ filters/nr_filters
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 0/type,matching,memcg_id
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ stats/nr_tried,sz_tried,nr_applied,sz_applied,qt_exceeds
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ tried_regions/total_bytes
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 0/start,end,nr_accesses,age
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ...
│ │ │ │ │ │ ...
│ │ │ │ ...
│ │ ...
Root¶
The root of the DAMON sysfs interface is <sysfs>/kernel/mm/damon/
, and it
has one directory named admin
. The directory contains the files for
privileged user space programs' control of DAMON. User space tools or daemons
having the root permission could use this directory.
kdamonds/¶
The monitoring-related information including request specifications and results are called DAMON context. DAMON executes each context with a kernel thread called kdamond, and multiple kdamonds could run in parallel.
Under the admin
directory, one directory, kdamonds
, which has files for
controlling the kdamonds exist. In the beginning, this directory has only one
file, nr_kdamonds
. Writing a number (N
) to the file creates the number
of child directories named 0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each
kdamond.
kdamonds/<N>/¶
In each kdamond directory, two files (state
and pid
) and one directory
(contexts
) exist.
Reading state
returns on
if the kdamond is currently running, or
off
if it is not running. Writing on
or off
makes the kdamond be
in the state. Writing commit
to the state
file makes kdamond reads the
user inputs in the sysfs files except state
file again. Writing
update_schemes_stats
to state
file updates the contents of stats files
for each DAMON-based operation scheme of the kdamond. For details of the
stats, please refer to stats section.
Writing update_schemes_tried_regions
to state
file updates the
DAMON-based operation scheme action tried regions directory for each
DAMON-based operation scheme of the kdamond. Writing
update_schemes_tried_bytes
to state
file updates only
.../tried_regions/total_bytes
files. Writing
clear_schemes_tried_regions
to state
file clears the DAMON-based
operating scheme action tried regions directory for each DAMON-based operation
scheme of the kdamond. For details of the DAMON-based operation scheme action
tried regions directory, please refer to tried_regions section.
If the state is on
, reading pid
shows the pid of the kdamond thread.
contexts
directory contains files for controlling the monitoring contexts
that this kdamond will execute.
kdamonds/<N>/contexts/¶
In the beginning, this directory has only one file, nr_contexts
. Writing a
number (N
) to the file creates the number of child directories named as
0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each monitoring context. At the
moment, only one context per kdamond is supported, so only 0
or 1
can
be written to the file.
contexts/<N>/¶
In each context directory, two files (avail_operations
and operations
)
and three directories (monitoring_attrs
, targets
, and schemes
)
exist.
DAMON supports multiple types of monitoring operations, including those for
virtual address space and the physical address space. You can get the list of
available monitoring operations set on the currently running kernel by reading
avail_operations
file. Based on the kernel configuration, the file will
list some or all of below keywords.
vaddr: Monitor virtual address spaces of specific processes
fvaddr: Monitor fixed virtual address ranges
paddr: Monitor the physical address space of the system
Please refer to regions sysfs directory for detailed differences between the operations sets in terms of the monitoring target regions.
You can set and get what type of monitoring operations DAMON will use for the
context by writing one of the keywords listed in avail_operations
file and
reading from the operations
file.
contexts/<N>/monitoring_attrs/¶
Files for specifying attributes of the monitoring including required quality
and efficiency of the monitoring are in monitoring_attrs
directory.
Specifically, two directories, intervals
and nr_regions
exist in this
directory.
Under intervals
directory, three files for DAMON's sampling interval
(sample_us
), aggregation interval (aggr_us
), and update interval
(update_us
) exist. You can set and get the values in micro-seconds by
writing to and reading from the files.
Under nr_regions
directory, two files for the lower-bound and upper-bound
of DAMON's monitoring regions (min
and max
, respectively), which
controls the monitoring overhead, exist. You can set and get the values by
writing to and rading from the files.
For more details about the intervals and monitoring regions range, please refer to the Design document (Design).
contexts/<N>/targets/¶
In the beginning, this directory has only one file, nr_targets
. Writing a
number (N
) to the file creates the number of child directories named 0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each monitoring target.
targets/<N>/¶
In each target directory, one file (pid_target
) and one directory
(regions
) exist.
If you wrote vaddr
to the contexts/<N>/operations
, each target should
be a process. You can specify the process to DAMON by writing the pid of the
process to the pid_target
file.
targets/<N>/regions¶
When vaddr
monitoring operations set is being used (vaddr
is written to
the contexts/<N>/operations
file), DAMON automatically sets and updates the
monitoring target regions so that entire memory mappings of target processes
can be covered. However, users could want to set the initial monitoring region
to specific address ranges.
In contrast, DAMON do not automatically sets and updates the monitoring target
regions when fvaddr
or paddr
monitoring operations sets are being used
(fvaddr
or paddr
have written to the contexts/<N>/operations
).
Therefore, users should set the monitoring target regions by themselves in the
cases.
For such cases, users can explicitly set the initial monitoring target regions as they want, by writing proper values to the files under this directory.
In the beginning, this directory has only one file, nr_regions
. Writing a
number (N
) to the file creates the number of child directories named 0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each initial monitoring target region.
regions/<N>/¶
In each region directory, you will find two files (start
and end
). You
can set and get the start and end addresses of the initial monitoring target
region by writing to and reading from the files, respectively.
Each region should not overlap with others. end
of directory N
should
be equal or smaller than start
of directory N+1
.
contexts/<N>/schemes/¶
The directory for DAMON-based Operation Schemes (DAMOS). Users can get and set the schemes by reading from and writing to files under this directory.
In the beginning, this directory has only one file, nr_schemes
. Writing a
number (N
) to the file creates the number of child directories named 0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each DAMON-based operation scheme.
schemes/<N>/¶
In each scheme directory, five directories (access_pattern
, quotas
,
watermarks
, filters
, stats
, and tried_regions
) and one file
(action
) exist.
The action
file is for setting and getting the scheme's action. The keywords that can be written to and read
from the file and their meaning are as below.
Note that support of each action depends on the running DAMON operations set implementation.
willneed
: Callmadvise()
for the region withMADV_WILLNEED
. Supported byvaddr
andfvaddr
operations set.
cold
: Callmadvise()
for the region withMADV_COLD
. Supported byvaddr
andfvaddr
operations set.
pageout
: Callmadvise()
for the region withMADV_PAGEOUT
. Supported byvaddr
,fvaddr
andpaddr
operations set.
hugepage
: Callmadvise()
for the region withMADV_HUGEPAGE
. Supported byvaddr
andfvaddr
operations set.
nohugepage
: Callmadvise()
for the region withMADV_NOHUGEPAGE
. Supported byvaddr
andfvaddr
operations set.
lru_prio
: Prioritize the region on its LRU lists. Supported bypaddr
operations set.
lru_deprio
: Deprioritize the region on its LRU lists. Supported bypaddr
operations set.
stat
: Do nothing but count the statistics. Supported by all operations sets.
schemes/<N>/access_pattern/¶
The directory for the target access pattern of the given DAMON-based operation scheme.
Under the access_pattern
directory, three directories (sz
,
nr_accesses
, and age
) each having two files (min
and max
)
exist. You can set and get the access pattern for the given scheme by writing
to and reading from the min
and max
files under sz
,
nr_accesses
, and age
directories, respectively. Note that the min
and the max
form a closed interval.
schemes/<N>/quotas/¶
The directory for the quotas of the given DAMON-based operation scheme.
Under quotas
directory, three files (ms
, bytes
,
reset_interval_ms
) and one directory (weights
) having three files
(sz_permil
, nr_accesses_permil
, and age_permil
) in it exist.
You can set the time quota
in milliseconds, size quota
in bytes, and
reset interval
in milliseconds by writing the values to the three files,
respectively. Then, DAMON tries to use only up to time quota
milliseconds
for applying the action
to memory regions of the access_pattern
, and to
apply the action to only up to bytes
bytes of memory regions within the
reset_interval_ms
. Setting both ms
and bytes
zero disables the
quota limits.
You can also set the prioritization weights for size, access frequency, and age
in per-thousand unit by writing the values to the three files under the
weights
directory.
schemes/<N>/watermarks/¶
The directory for the watermarks of the given DAMON-based operation scheme.
Under the watermarks directory, five files (metric
, interval_us
,
high
, mid
, and low
) for setting the metric, the time interval
between check of the metric, and the three watermarks exist. You can set and
get the five values by writing to the files, respectively.
Keywords and meanings of those that can be written to the metric
file are
as below.
none: Ignore the watermarks
free_mem_rate: System's free memory rate (per thousand)
The interval
should written in microseconds unit.
schemes/<N>/filters/¶
The directory for the filters of the given DAMON-based operation scheme.
In the beginning, this directory has only one file, nr_filters
. Writing a
number (N
) to the file creates the number of child directories named 0
to N-1
. Each directory represents each filter. The filters are evaluated
in the numeric order.
Each filter directory contains six files, namely type
, matcing
,
memcg_path
, addr_start
, addr_end
, and target_idx
. To type
file, you can write one of four special keywords: anon
for anonymous pages,
memcg
for specific memory cgroup, addr
for specific address range (an
open-ended interval), or target
for specific DAMON monitoring target
filtering. In case of the memory cgroup filtering, you can specify the memory
cgroup of the interest by writing the path of the memory cgroup from the
cgroups mount point to memcg_path
file. In case of the address range
filtering, you can specify the start and end address of the range to
addr_start
and addr_end
files, respectively. For the DAMON monitoring
target filtering, you can specify the index of the target between the list of
the DAMON context's monitoring targets list to target_idx
file. You can
write Y
or N
to matching
file to filter out pages that does or does
not match to the type, respectively. Then, the scheme's action will not be
applied to the pages that specified to be filtered out.
For example, below restricts a DAMOS action to be applied to only non-anonymous
pages of all memory cgroups except /having_care_already
.:
# echo 2 > nr_filters
# # filter out anonymous pages
echo anon > 0/type
echo Y > 0/matching
# # further filter out all cgroups except one at '/having_care_already'
echo memcg > 1/type
echo /having_care_already > 1/memcg_path
echo N > 1/matching
Note that anon
and memcg
filters are currently supported only when
paddr
implementation <sysfs_contexts> is being used.
Also, memory regions that are filtered out by addr
or target
filters
are not counted as the scheme has tried to those, while regions that filtered
out by other type filters are counted as the scheme has tried to. The
difference is applied to stats and
tried regions.
schemes/<N>/stats/¶
DAMON counts the total number and bytes of regions that each scheme is tried to be applied, the two numbers for the regions that each scheme is successfully applied, and the total number of the quota limit exceeds. This statistics can be used for online analysis or tuning of the schemes.
The statistics can be retrieved by reading the files under stats
directory
(nr_tried
, sz_tried
, nr_applied
, sz_applied
, and
qt_exceeds
), respectively. The files are not updated in real time, so you
should ask DAMON sysfs interface to update the content of the files for the
stats by writing a special keyword, update_schemes_stats
to the relevant
kdamonds/<N>/state
file.
schemes/<N>/tried_regions/¶
This directory initially has one file, total_bytes
.
When a special keyword, update_schemes_tried_regions
, is written to the
relevant kdamonds/<N>/state
file, DAMON updates the total_bytes
file so
that reading it returns the total size of the scheme tried regions, and creates
directories named integer starting from 0
under this directory. Each
directory contains files exposing detailed information about each of the memory
region that the corresponding scheme's action
has tried to be applied under
this directory, during next aggregation interval. The information includes address range,
nr_accesses
, and age
of the region.
Writing update_schemes_tried_bytes
to the relevant kdamonds/<N>/state
file will only update the total_bytes
file, and will not create the
subdirectories.
The directories will be removed when another special keyword,
clear_schemes_tried_regions
, is written to the relevant
kdamonds/<N>/state
file.
The expected usage of this directory is investigations of schemes' behaviors,
and query-like efficient data access monitoring results retrievals. For the
latter use case, in particular, users can set the action
as stat
and
set the access pattern
as their interested pattern that they want to query.
tried_regions/<N>/¶
In each region directory, you will find four files (start
, end
,
nr_accesses
, and age
). Reading the files will show the start and end
addresses, nr_accesses
, and age
of the region that corresponding
DAMON-based operation scheme action
has tried to be applied.
Example¶
Below commands applies a scheme saying "If a memory region of size in [4KiB, 8KiB] is showing accesses per aggregate interval in [0, 5] for aggregate interval in [10, 20], page out the region. For the paging out, use only up to 10ms per second, and also don't page out more than 1GiB per second. Under the limitation, page out memory regions having longer age first. Also, check the free memory rate of the system every 5 seconds, start the monitoring and paging out when the free memory rate becomes lower than 50%, but stop it if the free memory rate becomes larger than 60%, or lower than 30%".
# cd <sysfs>/kernel/mm/damon/admin
# # populate directories
# echo 1 > kdamonds/nr_kdamonds; echo 1 > kdamonds/0/contexts/nr_contexts;
# echo 1 > kdamonds/0/contexts/0/schemes/nr_schemes
# cd kdamonds/0/contexts/0/schemes/0
# # set the basic access pattern and the action
# echo 4096 > access_pattern/sz/min
# echo 8192 > access_pattern/sz/max
# echo 0 > access_pattern/nr_accesses/min
# echo 5 > access_pattern/nr_accesses/max
# echo 10 > access_pattern/age/min
# echo 20 > access_pattern/age/max
# echo pageout > action
# # set quotas
# echo 10 > quotas/ms
# echo $((1024*1024*1024)) > quotas/bytes
# echo 1000 > quotas/reset_interval_ms
# # set watermark
# echo free_mem_rate > watermarks/metric
# echo 5000000 > watermarks/interval_us
# echo 600 > watermarks/high
# echo 500 > watermarks/mid
# echo 300 > watermarks/low
Please note that it's highly recommended to use user space tools like damo rather than manually reading and writing the files as above. Above is only for an example.
debugfs Interface (DEPRECATED!)¶
Note
THIS IS DEPRECATED!
DAMON debugfs interface is deprecated, so users should move to the sysfs interface. If you depend on this and cannot move, please report your usecase to damon@lists.linux.dev and linux-mm@kvack.org.
DAMON exports eight files, attrs
, target_ids
, init_regions
,
schemes
, monitor_on
, kdamond_pid
, mk_contexts
and
rm_contexts
under its debugfs directory, <debugfs>/damon/
.
Attributes¶
Users can get and set the sampling interval
, aggregation interval
,
update interval
, and min/max number of monitoring target regions by
reading from and writing to the attrs
file. To know about the monitoring
attributes in detail, please refer to the Design. For
example, below commands set those values to 5 ms, 100 ms, 1,000 ms, 10 and
1000, and then check it again:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# echo 5000 100000 1000000 10 1000 > attrs
# cat attrs
5000 100000 1000000 10 1000
Target IDs¶
Some types of address spaces supports multiple monitoring target. For example,
the virtual memory address spaces monitoring can have multiple processes as the
monitoring targets. Users can set the targets by writing relevant id values of
the targets to, and get the ids of the current targets by reading from the
target_ids
file. In case of the virtual address spaces monitoring, the
values should be pids of the monitoring target processes. For example, below
commands set processes having pids 42 and 4242 as the monitoring targets and
check it again:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# echo 42 4242 > target_ids
# cat target_ids
42 4242
Users can also monitor the physical memory address space of the system by
writing a special keyword, "paddr\n
" to the file. Because physical address
space monitoring doesn't support multiple targets, reading the file will show a
fake value, 42
, as below:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# echo paddr > target_ids
# cat target_ids
42
Note that setting the target ids doesn't start the monitoring.
Initial Monitoring Target Regions¶
In case of the virtual address space monitoring, DAMON automatically sets and updates the monitoring target regions so that entire memory mappings of target processes can be covered. However, users can want to limit the monitoring region to specific address ranges, such as the heap, the stack, or specific file-mapped area. Or, some users can know the initial access pattern of their workloads and therefore want to set optimal initial regions for the 'adaptive regions adjustment'.
In contrast, DAMON do not automatically sets and updates the monitoring target regions in case of physical memory monitoring. Therefore, users should set the monitoring target regions by themselves.
In such cases, users can explicitly set the initial monitoring target regions
as they want, by writing proper values to the init_regions
file. The input
should be a sequence of three integers separated by white spaces that represent
one region in below form.:
<target idx> <start address> <end address>
The target idx
should be the index of the target in target_ids
file,
starting from 0
, and the regions should be passed in address order. For
example, below commands will set a couple of address ranges, 1-100
and
100-200
as the initial monitoring target region of pid 42, which is the
first one (index 0
) in target_ids
, and another couple of address
ranges, 20-40
and 50-100
as that of pid 4242, which is the second one
(index 1
) in target_ids
.:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# cat target_ids
42 4242
# echo "0 1 100 \
0 100 200 \
1 20 40 \
1 50 100" > init_regions
Note that this sets the initial monitoring target regions only. In case of
virtual memory monitoring, DAMON will automatically updates the boundary of the
regions after one update interval
. Therefore, users should set the
update interval
large enough in this case, if they don't want the
update.
Schemes¶
Users can get and set the DAMON-based operation schemes by reading from and writing to schemes
debugfs file.
Reading the file also shows the statistics of each scheme. To the file, each
of the schemes should be represented in each line in below form:
<target access pattern> <action> <quota> <watermarks>
You can disable schemes by simply writing an empty string to the file.
Target Access Pattern¶
The target access pattern of the
scheme. The <target access pattern>
is constructed with three ranges in
below form:
min-size max-size min-acc max-acc min-age max-age
Specifically, bytes for the size of regions (min-size
and max-size
),
number of monitored accesses per aggregate interval for access frequency
(min-acc
and max-acc
), number of aggregate intervals for the age of
regions (min-age
and max-age
) are specified. Note that the ranges are
closed interval.
Action¶
The <action>
is a predefined integer for memory management actions. The supported numbers and their meanings are as
below.
0: Call
madvise()
for the region withMADV_WILLNEED
. Ignored iftarget
ispaddr
.1: Call
madvise()
for the region withMADV_COLD
. Ignored iftarget
ispaddr
.2: Call
madvise()
for the region withMADV_PAGEOUT
.3: Call
madvise()
for the region withMADV_HUGEPAGE
. Ignored iftarget
ispaddr
.4: Call
madvise()
for the region withMADV_NOHUGEPAGE
. Ignored iftarget
ispaddr
.5: Do nothing but count the statistics
Quota¶
Users can set the quotas of the given scheme
via the <quota>
in below form:
<ms> <sz> <reset interval> <priority weights>
This makes DAMON to try to use only up to <ms>
milliseconds for applying
the action to memory regions of the target access pattern
within the
<reset interval>
milliseconds, and to apply the action to only up to
<sz>
bytes of memory regions within the <reset interval>
. Setting both
<ms>
and <sz>
zero disables the quota limits.
For the prioritization, users
can set the weights for the three properties in <priority weights>
in below
form:
<size weight> <access frequency weight> <age weight>
Watermarks¶
Users can specify watermarks of the
given scheme via <watermarks>
in below form:
<metric> <check interval> <high mark> <middle mark> <low mark>
<metric>
is a predefined integer for the metric to be checked. The
supported numbers and their meanings are as below.
0: Ignore the watermarks
1: System's free memory rate (per thousand)
The value of the metric is checked every <check interval>
microseconds.
If the value is higher than <high mark>
or lower than <low mark>
, the
scheme is deactivated. If the value is lower than <mid mark>
, the scheme
is activated.
Statistics¶
It also counts the total number and bytes of regions that each scheme is tried to be applied, the two numbers for the regions that each scheme is successfully applied, and the total number of the quota limit exceeds. This statistics can be used for online analysis or tuning of the schemes.
The statistics can be shown by reading the schemes
file. Reading the file
will show each scheme you entered in each line, and the five numbers for the
statistics will be added at the end of each line.
Example¶
Below commands applies a scheme saying "If a memory region of size in [4KiB, 8KiB] is showing accesses per aggregate interval in [0, 5] for aggregate interval in [10, 20], page out the region. For the paging out, use only up to 10ms per second, and also don't page out more than 1GiB per second. Under the limitation, page out memory regions having longer age first. Also, check the free memory rate of the system every 5 seconds, start the monitoring and paging out when the free memory rate becomes lower than 50%, but stop it if the free memory rate becomes larger than 60%, or lower than 30%".:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# scheme="4096 8192 0 5 10 20 2" # target access pattern and action
# scheme+=" 10 $((1024*1024*1024)) 1000" # quotas
# scheme+=" 0 0 100" # prioritization weights
# scheme+=" 1 5000000 600 500 300" # watermarks
# echo "$scheme" > schemes
Turning On/Off¶
Setting the files as described above doesn't incur effect unless you explicitly
start the monitoring. You can start, stop, and check the current status of the
monitoring by writing to and reading from the monitor_on
file. Writing
on
to the file starts the monitoring of the targets with the attributes.
Writing off
to the file stops those. DAMON also stops if every target
process is terminated. Below example commands turn on, off, and check the
status of DAMON:
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# echo on > monitor_on
# echo off > monitor_on
# cat monitor_on
off
Please note that you cannot write to the above-mentioned debugfs files while
the monitoring is turned on. If you write to the files while DAMON is running,
an error code such as -EBUSY
will be returned.
Monitoring Thread PID¶
DAMON does requested monitoring with a kernel thread called kdamond
. You
can get the pid of the thread by reading the kdamond_pid
file. When the
monitoring is turned off, reading the file returns none
.
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# cat monitor_on
off
# cat kdamond_pid
none
# echo on > monitor_on
# cat kdamond_pid
18594
Using Multiple Monitoring Threads¶
One kdamond
thread is created for each monitoring context. You can create
and remove monitoring contexts for multiple kdamond
required use case using
the mk_contexts
and rm_contexts
files.
Writing the name of the new context to the mk_contexts
file creates a
directory of the name on the DAMON debugfs directory. The directory will have
DAMON debugfs files for the context.
# cd <debugfs>/damon
# ls foo
# ls: cannot access 'foo': No such file or directory
# echo foo > mk_contexts
# ls foo
# attrs init_regions kdamond_pid schemes target_ids
If the context is not needed anymore, you can remove it and the corresponding
directory by putting the name of the context to the rm_contexts
file.
# echo foo > rm_contexts
# ls foo
# ls: cannot access 'foo': No such file or directory
Note that mk_contexts
, rm_contexts
, and monitor_on
files are in the
root directory only.
Tracepoint for Monitoring Results¶
Users can get the monitoring results via the tried_regions or a tracepoint, damon:damon_aggregated
.
While the tried regions directory is useful for getting a snapshot, the
tracepoint is useful for getting a full record of the results. While the
monitoring is turned on, you could record the tracepoint events and show
results using tracepoint supporting tools like perf
. For example:
# echo on > monitor_on
# perf record -e damon:damon_aggregated &
# sleep 5
# kill 9 $(pidof perf)
# echo off > monitor_on
# perf script