oom: allow a non-CAP_SYS_RESOURCE proces to oom_score_adj down
authorMandeep Singh Baines <msb@chromium.org>
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:46:05 +0000 (15:46 -0800)
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 01:32:35 +0000 (17:32 -0800)
commitdabb16f639820267b3850d804571c70bd93d4e07
tree7da59e6133cd2f820389574ac9206c56e046f5d4
parentd0a21265dfb5fa8ae54e90d0fb6d1c215b10a28a
oom: allow a non-CAP_SYS_RESOURCE proces to oom_score_adj down

We'd like to be able to oom_score_adj a process up/down as it
enters/leaves the foreground.  Currently, it is not possible to oom_adj
down without CAP_SYS_RESOURCE.  This patch allows a task to decrease its
oom_score_adj back to the value that a CAP_SYS_RESOURCE thread set it to
or its inherited value at fork.  Assuming the thread that has forked it
has oom_score_adj of 0, each process could decrease it back from 0 upon
activation unless a CAP_SYS_RESOURCE thread elevated it to something
higher.

Alternative considered:

* a setuid binary
* a daemon with CAP_SYS_RESOURCE

Since you don't wan't all processes to be able to reduce their oom_adj, a
setuid or daemon implementation would be complex.  The alternatives also
have much higher overhead.

This patch updated from original patch based on feedback from David
Rientjes.

Signed-off-by: Mandeep Singh Baines <msb@chromium.org>
Acked-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Ying Han <yinghan@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
fs/proc/base.c
include/linux/sched.h
kernel/fork.c