Provided by: spl_0.6.5.6-0ubuntu4_amd64 
NAME
spl-module-parameters - SPL module parameters
DESCRIPTION
Description of the different parameters to the SPL module.
Module parameters
spl_kmem_cache_expire (uint)
Cache expiration is part of default Illumos cache behavior. The idea is that
objects in magazines which have not been recently accessed should be returned
to the slabs periodically. This is known as cache aging and when enabled
objects will be typically returned after 15 seconds.
On the other hand Linux slabs are designed to never move objects back to the
slabs unless there is memory pressure. This is possible because under Linux
the cache will be notified when memory is low and objects can be released.
By default only the Linux method is enabled. It has been shown to improve
responsiveness on low memory systems and not negatively impact the performance
of systems with more memory. This policy may be changed by setting the
spl_kmem_cache_expire bit mask as follows, both policies may be enabled
concurrently.
0x01 - Aging (Illumos), 0x02 - Low memory (Linux)
Default value: 0x02
spl_kmem_cache_reclaim (uint)
When this is set it prevents Linux from being able to rapidly reclaim all the
memory held by the kmem caches. This may be useful in circumstances where
it's preferable that Linux reclaim memory from some other subsystem first.
Setting this will increase the likelihood out of memory events on a memory
constrained system.
Default value: 0
spl_kmem_cache_obj_per_slab (uint)
The preferred number of objects per slab in the cache. In general, a larger
value will increase the caches memory footprint while decreasing the time
required to perform an allocation. Conversely, a smaller value will minimize
the footprint and improve cache reclaim time but individual allocations may
take longer.
Default value: 8
spl_kmem_cache_obj_per_slab_min (uint)
The minimum number of objects allowed per slab. Normally slabs will contain
spl_kmem_cache_obj_per_slab objects but for caches that contain very large
objects it's desirable to only have a few, or even just one, object per slab.
Default value: 1
spl_kmem_cache_max_size (uint)
The maximum size of a kmem cache slab in MiB. This effectively limits the
maximum cache object size to spl_kmem_cache_max_size /
spl_kmem_cache_obj_per_slab. Caches may not be created with object sized
larger than this limit.
Default value: 32 (64-bit) or 4 (32-bit)
spl_kmem_cache_slab_limit (uint)
For small objects the Linux slab allocator should be used to make the most
efficient use of the memory. However, large objects are not supported by the
Linux slab and therefore the SPL implementation is preferred. This value is
used to determine the cutoff between a small and large object.
Objects of spl_kmem_cache_slab_limit or smaller will be allocated using the
Linux slab allocator, large objects use the SPL allocator. A cutoff of 16K
was determined to be optimal for architectures using 4K pages.
Default value: 16,384
spl_kmem_cache_kmem_limit (uint)
Depending on the size of a cache object it may be backed by kmalloc()'d or
vmalloc()'d memory. This is because the size of the required allocation
greatly impacts the best way to allocate the memory.
When objects are small and only a small number of memory pages need to be
allocated, ideally just one, then kmalloc() is very efficient. However, when
allocating multiple pages with kmalloc() it gets increasingly expensive
because the pages must be physically contiguous.
For this reason we shift to vmalloc() for slabs of large objects which which
removes the need for contiguous pages. We cannot use vmalloc() in all cases
because there is significant locking overhead involved. This function takes a
single global lock over the entire virtual address range which serializes all
allocations. Using slightly different allocation functions for small and
large objects allows us to handle a wide range of object sizes. The
spl_kmem_cache_kmem_limit value is used to determine this cutoff size. One
quarter the PAGE_SIZE is used as the default value because
spl_kmem_cache_obj_per_slab defaults to 16. This means that at most we will
need to allocate four contiguous pages.
Default value: PAGE_SIZE/4
spl_kmem_alloc_warn (uint)
As a general rule kmem_alloc() allocations should be small, preferably just a
few pages since they must by physically contiguous. Therefore, a rate limited
warning will be printed to the console for any kmem_alloc() which exceeds a
reasonable threshold.
The default warning threshold is set to eight pages but capped at 32K to
accommodate systems using large pages. This value was selected to be small
enough to ensure the largest allocations are quickly noticed and fixed. But
large enough to avoid logging any warnings when a allocation size is larger
than optimal but not a serious concern. Since this value is tunable,
developers are encouraged to set it lower when testing so any new largish
allocations are quickly caught. These warnings may be disabled by setting the
threshold to zero.
Default value: 32,768
spl_kmem_alloc_max (uint)
Large kmem_alloc() allocations will fail if they exceed KMALLOC_MAX_SIZE.
Allocations which are marginally smaller than this limit may succeed but
should still be avoided due to the expense of locating a contiguous range of
free pages. Therefore, a maximum kmem size with reasonable safely margin of
4x is set. Kmem_alloc() allocations larger than this maximum will quickly
fail. Vmem_alloc() allocations less than or equal to this value will use
kmalloc(), but shift to vmalloc() when exceeding this value.
Default value: KMALLOC_MAX_SIZE/4
spl_kmem_cache_magazine_size (uint)
Cache magazines are an optimization designed to minimize the cost of
allocating memory. They do this by keeping a per-cpu cache of recently freed
objects, which can then be reallocated without taking a lock. This can improve
performance on highly contended caches. However, because objects in magazines
will prevent otherwise empty slabs from being immediately released this may
not be ideal for low memory machines.
For this reason spl_kmem_cache_magazine_size can be used to set a maximum
magazine size. When this value is set to 0 the magazine size will be
automatically determined based on the object size. Otherwise magazines will
be limited to 2-256 objects per magazine (i.e per cpu). Magazines may never
be entirely disabled in this implementation.
Default value: 0
spl_hostid (ulong)
The system hostid, when set this can be used to uniquely identify a system.
By default this value is set to zero which indicates the hostid is disabled.
It can be explicitly enabled by placing a unique non-zero value in
/etc/hostid/.
Default value: 0
spl_hostid_path (charp)
The expected path to locate the system hostid when specified. This value may
be overridden for non-standard configurations.
Default value: /etc/hostid
spl_taskq_thread_bind (int)
Bind taskq threads to specific CPUs. When enabled all taskq threads will be
distributed evenly over the available CPUs. By default, this behavior is
disabled to allow the Linux scheduler the maximum flexibility to determine
where a thread should run.
Default value: 0
spl_taskq_thread_dynamic (int)
Allow dynamic taskqs. When enabled taskqs which set the TASKQ_DYNAMIC flag
will by default create only a single thread. New threads will be created on
demand up to a maximum allowed number to facilitate the completion of
outstanding tasks. Threads which are no longer needed will be promptly
destroyed. By default this behavior is enabled but it can be disabled to aid
performance analysis or troubleshooting.
Default value: 1
spl_taskq_thread_priority (int)
Allow newly created taskq threads to set a non-default scheduler priority.
When enabled the priority specified when a taskq is created will be applied to
all threads created by that taskq. When disabled all threads will use the
default Linux kernel thread priority. By default, this behavior is enabled.
Default value: 1
spl_taskq_thread_sequential (int)
The number of items a taskq worker thread must handle without interruption
before requesting a new worker thread be spawned. This is used to control how
quickly taskqs ramp up the number of threads processing the queue. Because
Linux thread creation and destruction are relatively inexpensive a small
default value has been selected. This means that normally threads will be
created aggressively which is desirable. Increasing this value will result in
a slower thread creation rate which may be preferable for some configurations.
Default value: 4
Nov 18, 2013 SPL-MODULE-PARAMETERS(5)