Memory hierarchies and kernel boot options

1

1

I'm booting a Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS server on a Core-i5 T5200U machine with kernel boot options agp=off ipv6.disable=1 intremap=no_x2apic_optout biosdevname=0 audit=0. When I inspect dmesg, I see the following:

cgroup: systemd-logind (514) created nested cgroup for controller "memory" which has
incomplete hierarchy support. Nested cgroups may change behavior in the future.
cgroup: "memory" requires setting use_hierarchy to 1 on the root

The message is present with and without other kernel options. According to kernel.org's Kernel Parameters, there is no use_hierarchy parameter.

I'm having trouble finding a thorough treatment/explanation of what's going on and what's supposed to be happening. I have a basic understanding of hierarchies (top is the register file, in between are caches, next is main memory and virtual memory is at the bottom), and I have an understanding of process isolation. But I don't understand the intersection with the running configuration and why logind is logging entries.

Update:

According to Warning about memory.use_hierarchy on every lxc-start on the LXC GitHub:

LXC wants use_hierarchy to be set to 1... The error is still very real and means that your system created sub-cgroups in the memory controller without first setting use_hierarchy = 1 making it impossible to any later process to set that bit to 1. There's nothing LXC can do about this and so printing the error is basically the best we can do to help the user troubleshoot any problem they may get as a result of this.

So errant behavior is confirmed, some of the error is explained, but its not clear to me what I should do to fix it.

Questions:

  • Is there an issue with this configuration? Yes, its an issue
  • If so, what should I do to fix it?

jww

Posted 2016-02-03T20:22:36.470

Reputation: 1

1It actually is documented and here – Ramhound – 2016-02-03T20:39:45.123

Thanks @Ramhound. I'm not sure I'd call a couple of Stack Exchange questions documentation or thorough treatments, especially when some of them don't even have answers. – jww – 2016-02-03T21:00:23.833

users link to more authoritative sources in those links. – Ramhound – 2016-02-03T21:02:10.687

No answers