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+.. _slub:
+
+==========================
+Short users guide for SLUB
+==========================
+
+The basic philosophy of SLUB is very different from SLAB. SLAB
+requires rebuilding the kernel to activate debug options for all
+slab caches. SLUB always includes full debugging but it is off by default.
+SLUB can enable debugging only for selected slabs in order to avoid
+an impact on overall system performance which may make a bug more
+difficult to find.
+
+In order to switch debugging on one can add an option ``slub_debug``
+to the kernel command line. That will enable full debugging for
+all slabs.
+
+Typically one would then use the ``slabinfo`` command to get statistical
+data and perform operation on the slabs. By default ``slabinfo`` only lists
+slabs that have data in them. See "slabinfo -h" for more options when
+running the command. ``slabinfo`` can be compiled with
+::
+
+ gcc -o slabinfo tools/vm/slabinfo.c
+
+Some of the modes of operation of ``slabinfo`` require that slub debugging
+be enabled on the command line. F.e. no tracking information will be
+available without debugging on and validation can only partially
+be performed if debugging was not switched on.
+
+Some more sophisticated uses of slub_debug:
+-------------------------------------------
+
+Parameters may be given to ``slub_debug``. If none is specified then full
+debugging is enabled. Format:
+
+slub_debug=<Debug-Options>
+ Enable options for all slabs
+
+slub_debug=<Debug-Options>,<slab name1>,<slab name2>,...
+ Enable options only for select slabs (no spaces
+ after a comma)
+
+Multiple blocks of options for all slabs or selected slabs can be given, with
+blocks of options delimited by ';'. The last of "all slabs" blocks is applied
+to all slabs except those that match one of the "select slabs" block. Options
+of the first "select slabs" blocks that matches the slab's name are applied.
+
+Possible debug options are::
+
+ F Sanity checks on (enables SLAB_DEBUG_CONSISTENCY_CHECKS
+ Sorry SLAB legacy issues)
+ Z Red zoning
+ P Poisoning (object and padding)
+ U User tracking (free and alloc)
+ T Trace (please only use on single slabs)
+ A Enable failslab filter mark for the cache
+ O Switch debugging off for caches that would have
+ caused higher minimum slab orders
+ - Switch all debugging off (useful if the kernel is
+ configured with CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG_ON)
+
+F.e. in order to boot just with sanity checks and red zoning one would specify::
+
+ slub_debug=FZ
+
+Trying to find an issue in the dentry cache? Try::
+
+ slub_debug=,dentry
+
+to only enable debugging on the dentry cache. You may use an asterisk at the
+end of the slab name, in order to cover all slabs with the same prefix. For
+example, here's how you can poison the dentry cache as well as all kmalloc
+slabs::
+
+ slub_debug=P,kmalloc-*,dentry
+
+Red zoning and tracking may realign the slab. We can just apply sanity checks
+to the dentry cache with::
+
+ slub_debug=F,dentry
+
+Debugging options may require the minimum possible slab order to increase as
+a result of storing the metadata (for example, caches with PAGE_SIZE object
+sizes). This has a higher liklihood of resulting in slab allocation errors
+in low memory situations or if there's high fragmentation of memory. To
+switch off debugging for such caches by default, use::
+
+ slub_debug=O
+
+You can apply different options to different list of slab names, using blocks
+of options. This will enable red zoning for dentry and user tracking for
+kmalloc. All other slabs will not get any debugging enabled::
+
+ slub_debug=Z,dentry;U,kmalloc-*
+
+You can also enable options (e.g. sanity checks and poisoning) for all caches
+except some that are deemed too performance critical and don't need to be
+debugged by specifying global debug options followed by a list of slab names
+with "-" as options::
+
+ slub_debug=FZ;-,zs_handle,zspage
+
+The state of each debug option for a slab can be found in the respective files
+under::
+
+ /sys/kernel/slab/<slab name>/
+
+If the file contains 1, the option is enabled, 0 means disabled. The debug
+options from the ``slub_debug`` parameter translate to the following files::
+
+ F sanity_checks
+ Z red_zone
+ P poison
+ U store_user
+ T trace
+ A failslab
+
+Careful with tracing: It may spew out lots of information and never stop if
+used on the wrong slab.
+
+Slab merging
+============
+
+If no debug options are specified then SLUB may merge similar slabs together
+in order to reduce overhead and increase cache hotness of objects.
+``slabinfo -a`` displays which slabs were merged together.
+
+Slab validation
+===============
+
+SLUB can validate all object if the kernel was booted with slub_debug. In
+order to do so you must have the ``slabinfo`` tool. Then you can do
+::
+
+ slabinfo -v
+
+which will test all objects. Output will be generated to the syslog.
+
+This also works in a more limited way if boot was without slab debug.
+In that case ``slabinfo -v`` simply tests all reachable objects. Usually
+these are in the cpu slabs and the partial slabs. Full slabs are not
+tracked by SLUB in a non debug situation.
+
+Getting more performance
+========================
+
+To some degree SLUB's performance is limited by the need to take the
+list_lock once in a while to deal with partial slabs. That overhead is
+governed by the order of the allocation for each slab. The allocations
+can be influenced by kernel parameters:
+
+.. slub_min_objects=x (default 4)
+.. slub_min_order=x (default 0)
+.. slub_max_order=x (default 3 (PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER))
+
+``slub_min_objects``
+ allows to specify how many objects must at least fit into one
+ slab in order for the allocation order to be acceptable. In
+ general slub will be able to perform this number of
+ allocations on a slab without consulting centralized resources
+ (list_lock) where contention may occur.
+
+``slub_min_order``
+ specifies a minimum order of slabs. A similar effect like
+ ``slub_min_objects``.
+
+``slub_max_order``
+ specified the order at which ``slub_min_objects`` should no
+ longer be checked. This is useful to avoid SLUB trying to
+ generate super large order pages to fit ``slub_min_objects``
+ of a slab cache with large object sizes into one high order
+ page. Setting command line parameter
+ ``debug_guardpage_minorder=N`` (N > 0), forces setting
+ ``slub_max_order`` to 0, what cause minimum possible order of
+ slabs allocation.
+
+SLUB Debug output
+=================
+
+Here is a sample of slub debug output::
+
+ ====================================================================
+ BUG kmalloc-8: Right Redzone overwritten
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ INFO: 0xc90f6d28-0xc90f6d2b. First byte 0x00 instead of 0xcc
+ INFO: Slab 0xc528c530 flags=0x400000c3 inuse=61 fp=0xc90f6d58
+ INFO: Object 0xc90f6d20 @offset=3360 fp=0xc90f6d58
+ INFO: Allocated in get_modalias+0x61/0xf5 age=53 cpu=1 pid=554
+
+ Bytes b4 (0xc90f6d10): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a ........ZZZZZZZZ
+ Object (0xc90f6d20): 31 30 31 39 2e 30 30 35 1019.005
+ Redzone (0xc90f6d28): 00 cc cc cc .
+ Padding (0xc90f6d50): 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a 5a ZZZZZZZZ
+
+ [<c010523d>] dump_trace+0x63/0x1eb
+ [<c01053df>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x2f
+ [<c010601d>] show_trace+0x12/0x14
+ [<c0106035>] dump_stack+0x16/0x18
+ [<c017e0fa>] object_err+0x143/0x14b
+ [<c017e2cc>] check_object+0x66/0x234
+ [<c017eb43>] __slab_free+0x239/0x384
+ [<c017f446>] kfree+0xa6/0xc6
+ [<c02e2335>] get_modalias+0xb9/0xf5
+ [<c02e23b7>] dmi_dev_uevent+0x27/0x3c
+ [<c027866a>] dev_uevent+0x1ad/0x1da
+ [<c0205024>] kobject_uevent_env+0x20a/0x45b
+ [<c020527f>] kobject_uevent+0xa/0xf
+ [<c02779f1>] store_uevent+0x4f/0x58
+ [<c027758e>] dev_attr_store+0x29/0x2f
+ [<c01bec4f>] sysfs_write_file+0x16e/0x19c
+ [<c0183ba7>] vfs_write+0xd1/0x15a
+ [<c01841d7>] sys_write+0x3d/0x72
+ [<c0104112>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x99
+ [<b7f7b410>] 0xb7f7b410
+ =======================
+
+ FIX kmalloc-8: Restoring Redzone 0xc90f6d28-0xc90f6d2b=0xcc
+
+If SLUB encounters a corrupted object (full detection requires the kernel
+to be booted with slub_debug) then the following output will be dumped
+into the syslog:
+
+1. Description of the problem encountered
+
+ This will be a message in the system log starting with::
+
+ ===============================================
+ BUG <slab cache affected>: <What went wrong>
+ -----------------------------------------------
+
+ INFO: <corruption start>-<corruption_end> <more info>
+ INFO: Slab <address> <slab information>
+ INFO: Object <address> <object information>
+ INFO: Allocated in <kernel function> age=<jiffies since alloc> cpu=<allocated by
+ cpu> pid=<pid of the process>
+ INFO: Freed in <kernel function> age=<jiffies since free> cpu=<freed by cpu>
+ pid=<pid of the process>
+
+ (Object allocation / free information is only available if SLAB_STORE_USER is
+ set for the slab. slub_debug sets that option)
+
+2. The object contents if an object was involved.
+
+ Various types of lines can follow the BUG SLUB line:
+
+ Bytes b4 <address> : <bytes>
+ Shows a few bytes before the object where the problem was detected.
+ Can be useful if the corruption does not stop with the start of the
+ object.
+
+ Object <address> : <bytes>
+ The bytes of the object. If the object is inactive then the bytes
+ typically contain poison values. Any non-poison value shows a
+ corruption by a write after free.
+
+ Redzone <address> : <bytes>
+ The Redzone following the object. The Redzone is used to detect
+ writes after the object. All bytes should always have the same
+ value. If there is any deviation then it is due to a write after
+ the object boundary.
+
+ (Redzone information is only available if SLAB_RED_ZONE is set.
+ slub_debug sets that option)
+
+ Padding <address> : <bytes>
+ Unused data to fill up the space in order to get the next object
+ properly aligned. In the debug case we make sure that there are
+ at least 4 bytes of padding. This allows the detection of writes
+ before the object.
+
+3. A stackdump
+
+ The stackdump describes the location where the error was detected. The cause
+ of the corruption is may be more likely found by looking at the function that
+ allocated or freed the object.
+
+4. Report on how the problem was dealt with in order to ensure the continued
+ operation of the system.
+
+ These are messages in the system log beginning with::
+
+ FIX <slab cache affected>: <corrective action taken>
+
+ In the above sample SLUB found that the Redzone of an active object has
+ been overwritten. Here a string of 8 characters was written into a slab that
+ has the length of 8 characters. However, a 8 character string needs a
+ terminating 0. That zero has overwritten the first byte of the Redzone field.
+ After reporting the details of the issue encountered the FIX SLUB message
+ tells us that SLUB has restored the Redzone to its proper value and then
+ system operations continue.
+
+Emergency operations
+====================
+
+Minimal debugging (sanity checks alone) can be enabled by booting with::
+
+ slub_debug=F
+
+This will be generally be enough to enable the resiliency features of slub
+which will keep the system running even if a bad kernel component will
+keep corrupting objects. This may be important for production systems.
+Performance will be impacted by the sanity checks and there will be a
+continual stream of error messages to the syslog but no additional memory
+will be used (unlike full debugging).
+
+No guarantees. The kernel component still needs to be fixed. Performance
+may be optimized further by locating the slab that experiences corruption
+and enabling debugging only for that cache
+
+I.e.::
+
+ slub_debug=F,dentry
+
+If the corruption occurs by writing after the end of the object then it
+may be advisable to enable a Redzone to avoid corrupting the beginning
+of other objects::
+
+ slub_debug=FZ,dentry
+
+Extended slabinfo mode and plotting
+===================================
+
+The ``slabinfo`` tool has a special 'extended' ('-X') mode that includes:
+ - Slabcache Totals
+ - Slabs sorted by size (up to -N <num> slabs, default 1)
+ - Slabs sorted by loss (up to -N <num> slabs, default 1)
+
+Additionally, in this mode ``slabinfo`` does not dynamically scale
+sizes (G/M/K) and reports everything in bytes (this functionality is
+also available to other slabinfo modes via '-B' option) which makes
+reporting more precise and accurate. Moreover, in some sense the `-X'
+mode also simplifies the analysis of slabs' behaviour, because its
+output can be plotted using the ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` script. So it
+pushes the analysis from looking through the numbers (tons of numbers)
+to something easier -- visual analysis.
+
+To generate plots:
+
+a) collect slabinfo extended records, for example::
+
+ while [ 1 ]; do slabinfo -X >> FOO_STATS; sleep 1; done
+
+b) pass stats file(-s) to ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` script::
+
+ slabinfo-gnuplot.sh FOO_STATS [FOO_STATS2 .. FOO_STATSN]
+
+ The ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` script will pre-processes the collected records
+ and generates 3 png files (and 3 pre-processing cache files) per STATS
+ file:
+ - Slabcache Totals: FOO_STATS-totals.png
+ - Slabs sorted by size: FOO_STATS-slabs-by-size.png
+ - Slabs sorted by loss: FOO_STATS-slabs-by-loss.png
+
+Another use case, when ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` can be useful, is when you
+need to compare slabs' behaviour "prior to" and "after" some code
+modification. To help you out there, ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` script
+can 'merge' the `Slabcache Totals` sections from different
+measurements. To visually compare N plots:
+
+a) Collect as many STATS1, STATS2, .. STATSN files as you need::
+
+ while [ 1 ]; do slabinfo -X >> STATS<X>; sleep 1; done
+
+b) Pre-process those STATS files::
+
+ slabinfo-gnuplot.sh STATS1 STATS2 .. STATSN
+
+c) Execute ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` in '-t' mode, passing all of the
+ generated pre-processed \*-totals::
+
+ slabinfo-gnuplot.sh -t STATS1-totals STATS2-totals .. STATSN-totals
+
+ This will produce a single plot (png file).
+
+ Plots, expectedly, can be large so some fluctuations or small spikes
+ can go unnoticed. To deal with that, ``slabinfo-gnuplot.sh`` has two
+ options to 'zoom-in'/'zoom-out':
+
+ a) ``-s %d,%d`` -- overwrites the default image width and height
+ b) ``-r %d,%d`` -- specifies a range of samples to use (for example,
+ in ``slabinfo -X >> FOO_STATS; sleep 1;`` case, using a ``-r
+ 40,60`` range will plot only samples collected between 40th and
+ 60th seconds).
+
+
+DebugFS files for SLUB
+======================
+
+For more information about current state of SLUB caches with the user tracking
+debug option enabled, debugfs files are available, typically under
+/sys/kernel/debug/slab/<cache>/ (created only for caches with enabled user
+tracking). There are 2 types of these files with the following debug
+information:
+
+1. alloc_traces::
+
+ Prints information about unique allocation traces of the currently
+ allocated objects. The output is sorted by frequency of each trace.
+
+ Information in the output:
+ Number of objects, allocating function, minimal/average/maximal jiffies since alloc,
+ pid range of the allocating processes, cpu mask of allocating cpus, and stack trace.
+
+ Example:::
+
+ 1085 populate_error_injection_list+0x97/0x110 age=166678/166680/166682 pid=1 cpus=1::
+ __slab_alloc+0x6d/0x90
+ kmem_cache_alloc_trace+0x2eb/0x300
+ populate_error_injection_list+0x97/0x110
+ init_error_injection+0x1b/0x71
+ do_one_initcall+0x5f/0x2d0
+ kernel_init_freeable+0x26f/0x2d7
+ kernel_init+0xe/0x118
+ ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30
+
+
+2. free_traces::
+
+ Prints information about unique freeing traces of the currently allocated
+ objects. The freeing traces thus come from the previous life-cycle of the
+ objects and are reported as not available for objects allocated for the first
+ time. The output is sorted by frequency of each trace.
+
+ Information in the output:
+ Number of objects, freeing function, minimal/average/maximal jiffies since free,
+ pid range of the freeing processes, cpu mask of freeing cpus, and stack trace.
+
+ Example:::
+
+ 1980 <not-available> age=4294912290 pid=0 cpus=0
+ 51 acpi_ut_update_ref_count+0x6a6/0x782 age=236886/237027/237772 pid=1 cpus=1
+ kfree+0x2db/0x420
+ acpi_ut_update_ref_count+0x6a6/0x782
+ acpi_ut_update_object_reference+0x1ad/0x234
+ acpi_ut_remove_reference+0x7d/0x84
+ acpi_rs_get_prt_method_data+0x97/0xd6
+ acpi_get_irq_routing_table+0x82/0xc4
+ acpi_pci_irq_find_prt_entry+0x8e/0x2e0
+ acpi_pci_irq_lookup+0x3a/0x1e0
+ acpi_pci_irq_enable+0x77/0x240
+ pcibios_enable_device+0x39/0x40
+ do_pci_enable_device.part.0+0x5d/0xe0
+ pci_enable_device_flags+0xfc/0x120
+ pci_enable_device+0x13/0x20
+ virtio_pci_probe+0x9e/0x170
+ local_pci_probe+0x48/0x80
+ pci_device_probe+0x105/0x1c0
+
+Christoph Lameter, May 30, 2007
+Sergey Senozhatsky, October 23, 2015