Chapter 11 Administering the Resource Capping Daemon (Tasks)

This chapter contains procedures for configuring and using the resource capping daemon rcapd.

For an overview of rcapd, see Chapter 10, Physical Memory Control Using the Resource Capping Daemon (Overview).

Configuring and Using the Resource Capping Daemon (Task Map)

Administering the Resource Capping Daemon With rcapadm

This section contains procedures for configuring the resource capping daemon with the rcapadm command. See rcapd Configuration and the rcapadm(1M) man page for more information. Using the rcapadm to specify a temporary resource cap for a zone is also covered.

If used without arguments, rcapadm displays the current status of the resource capping daemon if it has been configured.

How to Set the Memory Cap Enforcement Threshold

Caps can be configured so that they will not be enforced until the physical memory available to processes is low. See Memory Cap Enforcement Threshold for more information.

The minimum (and default) value is 0, which means that memory caps are always enforced. To set a different minimum, follow this procedure.

1. Become superuser, or assume a role that includes the Process Management profile.

   The System Administrator role includes the Process Management profile. For information on how to create the role and assign the role to a user, see Managing RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Use the -c option of rcapadm to set a different physical memory utilization value for memory cap enforcement.

   # rcapadm -c percent

   percent is in the range 0 to 100. Higher values are less restrictive. A higher value means capped project workloads can execute without having caps enforced until the system's memory utilization exceeds this threshold.

See Also

To display the current physical memory utilization and the cap enforcement threshold, see Reporting Memory Utilization and the Memory Cap Enforcement Threshold.

How to Set Operation Intervals

rcapd Operation Intervals contains information about the intervals for the periodic operations performed by rcapd. To set operation intervals using rcapadm, follow this procedure.

1. Become superuser, or assume a role that includes the Process Management profile.

   The System Administrator role includes the Process Management profile. For information on how to create the role and assign the role to a user, see Managing RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Use the -i option to set interval values.

   # rcapadm -i interval=value,...,interval=value

   ---

   Note –

   All interval values are specified in seconds.

   ---

How to Enable Resource Capping

There are three ways to enable resource capping on your system. Enabling resource capping also sets the /etc/rcap.conf file with default values.

1. Become superuser, or assume a role that includes the Process Management profile.

   The System Administrator role includes the Process Management profile. For information on how to create the role and assign the role to a user, see Managing RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Enable the resource capping daemon in one of the following ways:

   • Turn on resource capping using the svcadm command.

     # svcadm enable rcap

   • Enable the resource capping daemon so that it will be started now and also be started each time the system is booted, type:

     # rcapadm -E

   • Enable the resource capping daemon at boot without starting it now by also specifying the -n option:

     # rcapadm -n -E

How to Disable Resource Capping

There are three ways to disable resource capping on your system.

1. Become superuser, or assume a role that includes the Process Management profile.

   The System Administrator role includes the Process Management profile. For information on how to create the role and assign the role to a user, see Managing RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Disable the resource capping daemon in one of the following ways:

   • Turn off resource capping using the svcadm command.

     # svcadm disable rcap

   • To disable the resource capping daemon so that it will be stopped now and not be started when the system is booted, type:

     # rcapadm -D

   • To disable the resource capping daemon without stopping it, also specify the -n option:

     # rcapadm -n -D

   ---

   Tip –

   Disabling the Resource Capping Daemon Safely

   ---

   Use the svcadm command or the rcapadm command with the -D to safely disable rcapd. If the daemon is killed (see the kill(1) man page), processes might be left in a stopped state and need to be manually restarted. To resume a process running, use the prun command. See the prun(1) man page for more information.

How to Specify a Temporary Resource Cap for a Zone

This procedure is use to allocate the maximum amount of memory that can be consumed by a specified zone. This value lasts only until the next reboot. To set a persistent cap, use the zonecfg command.

1. Become superuser, or assume a role that includes the Process Management profile.

   The System Administrator role includes the Process Management profile.

2. Set a maximum memory value of 512 Mbytes for the zone my-zone.

   # rcapadm -z testzone -m 512M

Producing Reports With rcapstat

Use rcapstat to report resource capping statistics. Monitoring Resource Utilization With rcapstat explains how to use the rcapstat command to generate reports. That section also describes the column headings in the report. The rcapstat(1) man page also contains this information.

The following subsections use examples to illustrate how to produce reports for specific purposes.

Reporting Cap and Project Information

In this example, caps are defined for two projects associated with two users. user1 has a cap of 50 megabytes, and user2 has a cap of 10 megabytes.

The following command produces five reports at 5-second sampling intervals.

user1machine% rcapstat 5 5
    id project  nproc     vm    rss   cap    at avgat    pg avgpg
112270   user1     24   123M    35M   50M   50M    0K 3312K    0K
 78194   user2      1  2368K  1856K   10M    0K    0K    0K    0K
    id project  nproc     vm    rss   cap    at avgat    pg avgpg
112270   user1     24   123M    35M   50M    0K    0K    0K    0K
 78194   user2      1  2368K  1856K   10M    0K    0K    0K    0K
    id project  nproc     vm    rss   cap    at avgat    pg avgpg
112270   user1     24   123M    35M   50M    0K    0K    0K    0K
 78194   user2      1  2368K  1928K   10M    0K    0K    0K    0K
    id project  nproc     vm    rss   cap    at avgat    pg avgpg
112270   user1     24   123M    35M   50M    0K    0K    0K    0K
 78194   user2      1  2368K  1928K   10M    0K    0K    0K    0K
    id project  nproc     vm    rss   cap    at avgat    pg avgpg
112270   user1     24   123M    35M   50M    0K    0K    0K    0K
 78194   user2      1  2368K  1928K   10M    0K    0K    0K    0K 

The first three lines of output constitute the first report, which contains the cap and project information for the two projects and paging statistics since rcapd was started. The at and pg columns are a number greater than zero for user1 and zero for user2, which indicates that at some time in the daemon's history, user1 exceeded its cap but user2 did not.

The subsequent reports show no significant activity.

Monitoring the RSS of a Project

The following example shows project user1, which has an RSS in excess of its RSS cap.

The following command produces five reports at 5-second sampling intervals.

user1machine% rcapstat 5 5

    id project  nproc    vm   rss   cap    at avgat     pg  avgpg
376565   user1      3 6249M 6144M 6144M  690M  220M  5528K  2764K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6144M 6144M    0M  131M  4912K  1637K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6171M 6144M   27M  147M  6048K  2016K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6146M 6144M 4872M  174M  4368K  1456K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6156M 6144M   12M  161M  3376K  1125K

The user1 project has three processes that are actively using physical memory. The positive values in the pg column indicate that rcapd is consistently paging out memory as it attempts to meet the cap by lowering the physical memory utilization of the project's processes. However, rcapd does not succeed in keeping the RSS below the cap value. This is indicated by the varying rss values that do not show a corresponding decrease. As soon as memory is paged out, the workload uses it again and the RSS count goes back up. This means that all of the project's resident memory is being actively used and the working set size (WSS) is greater than the cap. Thus, rcapd is forced to page out some of the working set to meet the cap. Under this condition, the system will continue to experience high page fault rates, and associated I/O, until one of the following occurs:

• The WSS becomes smaller.

• The cap is raised.

• The application changes its memory access pattern.

In this situation, shortening the sample interval might reduce the discrepancy between the RSS value and the cap value by causing rcapd to sample the workload and enforce caps more frequently.

A page fault occurs when either a new page must be created or the system must copy in a page from a swap device.

Determining the Working Set Size of a Project

The following example is a continuation of the previous example, and it uses the same project.

The previous example shows that the user1 project is using more physical memory than its cap allows. This example shows how much memory the project workload requires.

user1machine% rcapstat 5 5
    id project  nproc    vm   rss   cap    at avgat     pg  avgpg
376565   user1      3 6249M 6144M 6144M  690M    0K   689M     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6144M 6144M    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6171M 6144M   27M    0K    27M     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6146M 6144M 4872K    0K  4816K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6156M 6144M   12M    0K    12M     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6150M 6144M 5848K    0K  5816K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6155M 6144M   11M    0K    11M     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6150M   10G   32K    0K    32K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6214M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K
376565   user1      3 6249M 6247M   10G    0K    0K     0K     0K

Halfway through the cycle, the cap on the user1 project was increased from 6 gigabytes to 10 gigabytes. This increase stops cap enforcement and allows the resident set size to grow, limited only by other processes and the amount of memory in the machine. The rss column might stabilize to reflect the project working set size (WSS), 6247M in this example. This is the minimum cap value that allows the project's processes to operate without continuously incurring page faults.

While the cap on user1 is 6 gigabytes, in every 5–second sample interval the RSS decreases and I/O increases as rcapd pages out some of the workload's memory. Shortly after a page out completes, the workload, needing those pages, pages them back in as it continues running. This cycle repeats until the cap is raised to 10 gigabytes, approximately halfway through the example. The RSS then stabilizes at 6.1 gigabytes. Since the workload's RSS is now below the cap, no more paging occurs. The I/O associated with paging stops as well. Thus, the project required 6.1 gigabytes to perform the work it was doing at the time it was being observed.

Also see the vmstat(1M) and iostat(1M) man pages.

Reporting Memory Utilization and the Memory Cap Enforcement Threshold

You can use the -g option of rcapstat to report the following:

• Current physical memory utilization as a percentage of physical memory installed on the system

• System memory cap enforcement threshold set by rcapadm

The -g option causes a memory utilization and cap enforcement line to be printed at the end of the report for each interval.

# rcapstat -g
    id project   nproc    vm   rss   cap    at avgat   pg  avgpg
376565    rcap       0    0K    0K   10G    0K    0K   0K     0K
physical memory utilization: 55%   cap enforcement threshold: 0%
    id project   nproc    vm   rss   cap    at avgat   pg  avgpg
376565    rcap       0    0K    0K   10G    0K    0K   0K     0K
physical memory utilization: 55%   cap enforcement threshold: 0%