[Mageia-dev] cgroup on the desktop

Robert Fox list at foxconsult.net
Wed Mar 21 17:32:18 CET 2012


On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 16:24 +0000, Colin Guthrie wrote:
> 'Twas brillig, and Robert Fox at 20/03/12 08:13 did gyre and gimble:
> > Tried to research it, but it look more like it is for servers than
> > desktop.  Could someone explain what the value-add is of using this on
> > the desktop?
> 
> As used in the context of systemd just a general mechanism for tracking
> processes. In the olden days, a service could exec other binaries quite
> happily. Killing the primary pid of the service meant that any other
> binaries launched were not necessarily killed. This mean that the
> service needed to implement it's own accounting and tracking system and
> there was no way to properly track to what service a given processes
> belongs.
> 
> Now with cgroups, it's possible to fully track all the processes started
> by a given service and kill each of them properly when stopping the service.
> 
> In addition it's also possible to identify to which service a given
> process belongs. e.g. if something is spinning out of control you can
> see it in top and then trace it back to the service itself.
> 
> There are numerous other things that can be done with cgroups such as
> imposing various limits on a given service (and any subsequent processes
> it spawns).
> 
> 
> Overall this is an accounting mechanism that is something very much
> baked into systemd. It's an integral part of it. It's not something we
> could simply "turn off" on desktops vs. servers.
> 
> 
> However, this isn't really the right place to discuss this topic.
> 
> Col
> 

Thanks Col - very informative and helpful!

Cheers,
Robert




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