drop_caches: add some documentation and info message

drop_caches: add some documentation and info message

I would like to resurrect Dave's patch.  The last time it was posted was
here https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/9/16/250 and there didn't seem to be any
strong opposition.

Kosaki was worried about possible excessive logging when somebody drops
caches too often (but then he claimed he didn't have a strong opinion on
that) but I would say opposite.  If somebody does that then I would really
like to know that from the log when supporting a system because it almost
for sure means that there is something fishy going on.  It is also worth
mentioning that only root can write drop caches so this is not an flooding
attack vector.

I am bringing that up again because this can be really helpful when
chasing strange performance issues which (surprise surprise) turn out to
be related to artificially dropped caches done because the admin thinks
this would help...

I have just refreshed the original patch on top of the current mm tree
but I could live with KERN_INFO as well if people think that KERN_NOTICE
is too hysterical.

: From: Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
: Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:30:54 +0200
:
: There is plenty of anecdotal evidence and a load of blog posts
: suggesting that using "drop_caches" periodically keeps your system
: running in "tip top shape".  Perhaps adding some kernel
: documentation will increase the amount of accurate data on its use.
:
: If we are not shrinking caches effectively, then we have real bugs.
: Using drop_caches will simply mask the bugs and make them harder
: to find, but certainly does not fix them, nor is it an appropriate
: "workaround" to limit the size of the caches.
:
: It's a great debugging tool, and is really handy for doing things
: like repeatable benchmark runs.  So, add a bit more documentation
: about it, and add a little KERN_NOTICE.  It should help developers
: who are chasing down reclaim-related bugs.

[mhocko@suse.cz: refreshed to current -mm tree]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: checkpatch fixes]
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
Acked-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Acked-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>