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From: Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>
To: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@gmail.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>,
	Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>, Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>,
	Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>,
	linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	netdev@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v3] docs: proc.rst: meminfo: briefly describe gaps in memory accounting
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 09:11:27 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210421061127.1182723-1-rppt@kernel.org> (raw)

From: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>

Add a paragraph that explains that it may happen that the counters in
/proc/meminfo do not add up to the overall memory usage.

Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
---
v3:
* Add sentense about counters overlap
* Use wording suggested by Matthew

v2: Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210420121354.1160437-1-rppt@kernel.org
* Add brief changelog
* Fix typo
* Update example about network memory usage according to Eric's comment at

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CANn89iKprp7WYeZy4RRO5jHykprnSCcVBc7Tk14Ui_MA9OK7Fg@mail.gmail.com

v1: Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210420085105.1156640-1-rppt@kernel.org
 Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst | 11 +++++++++--
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
index 48fbfc336ebf..0a07a5025571 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
@@ -929,8 +929,15 @@ meminfo
 ~~~~~~~
 
 Provides information about distribution and utilization of memory.  This
-varies by architecture and compile options.  The following is from a
-16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled.  You may not have all of these fields.
+varies by architecture and compile options.  Some of the counters reported
+here overlap.  The memory reported by the non overlapping counters may not
+add up to the overall memory usage and the difference for some workloads
+can be substantial.  In many cases there are other means to find out
+additional memory using subsystem specific interfaces, for instance
+/proc/net/sockstat for TCP memory allocations.
+
+The following is from a 16GB PIII, which has highmem enabled.
+You may not have all of these fields.
 
 ::
 
-- 
2.29.2


             reply	other threads:[~2021-04-21  6:11 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-04-21  6:11 Mike Rapoport [this message]
2021-04-21  7:00 ` [PATCH v3] docs: proc.rst: meminfo: briefly describe gaps in memory accounting Michal Hocko
2021-04-21 12:37 ` Matthew Wilcox
2021-04-23 14:27 ` Vlastimil Babka

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