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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
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+==============
+Control Groups
+==============
+
+Written by Paul Menage <menage@google.com> based on
+Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/cpusets.rst
+
+Original copyright statements from cpusets.txt:
+
+Portions Copyright (C) 2004 BULL SA.
+
+Portions Copyright (c) 2004-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
+
+Modified by Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
+
+Modified by Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
+
+.. CONTENTS:
+
+ 1. Control Groups
+ 1.1 What are cgroups ?
+ 1.2 Why are cgroups needed ?
+ 1.3 How are cgroups implemented ?
+ 1.4 What does notify_on_release do ?
+ 1.5 What does clone_children do ?
+ 1.6 How do I use cgroups ?
+ 2. Usage Examples and Syntax
+ 2.1 Basic Usage
+ 2.2 Attaching processes
+ 2.3 Mounting hierarchies by name
+ 3. Kernel API
+ 3.1 Overview
+ 3.2 Synchronization
+ 3.3 Subsystem API
+ 4. Extended attributes usage
+ 5. Questions
+
+1. Control Groups
+=================
+
+1.1 What are cgroups ?
+----------------------
+
+Control Groups provide a mechanism for aggregating/partitioning sets of
+tasks, and all their future children, into hierarchical groups with
+specialized behaviour.
+
+Definitions:
+
+A *cgroup* associates a set of tasks with a set of parameters for one
+or more subsystems.
+
+A *subsystem* is a module that makes use of the task grouping
+facilities provided by cgroups to treat groups of tasks in
+particular ways. A subsystem is typically a "resource controller" that
+schedules a resource or applies per-cgroup limits, but it may be
+anything that wants to act on a group of processes, e.g. a
+virtualization subsystem.
+
+A *hierarchy* is a set of cgroups arranged in a tree, such that
+every task in the system is in exactly one of the cgroups in the
+hierarchy, and a set of subsystems; each subsystem has system-specific
+state attached to each cgroup in the hierarchy. Each hierarchy has
+an instance of the cgroup virtual filesystem associated with it.
+
+At any one time there may be multiple active hierarchies of task
+cgroups. Each hierarchy is a partition of all tasks in the system.
+
+User-level code may create and destroy cgroups by name in an
+instance of the cgroup virtual file system, specify and query to
+which cgroup a task is assigned, and list the task PIDs assigned to
+a cgroup. Those creations and assignments only affect the hierarchy
+associated with that instance of the cgroup file system.
+
+On their own, the only use for cgroups is for simple job
+tracking. The intention is that other subsystems hook into the generic
+cgroup support to provide new attributes for cgroups, such as
+accounting/limiting the resources which processes in a cgroup can
+access. For example, cpusets (see Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/cpusets.rst) allow
+you to associate a set of CPUs and a set of memory nodes with the
+tasks in each cgroup.
+
+1.2 Why are cgroups needed ?
+----------------------------
+
+There are multiple efforts to provide process aggregations in the
+Linux kernel, mainly for resource-tracking purposes. Such efforts
+include cpusets, CKRM/ResGroups, UserBeanCounters, and virtual server
+namespaces. These all require the basic notion of a
+grouping/partitioning of processes, with newly forked processes ending
+up in the same group (cgroup) as their parent process.
+
+The kernel cgroup patch provides the minimum essential kernel
+mechanisms required to efficiently implement such groups. It has
+minimal impact on the system fast paths, and provides hooks for
+specific subsystems such as cpusets to provide additional behaviour as
+desired.
+
+Multiple hierarchy support is provided to allow for situations where
+the division of tasks into cgroups is distinctly different for
+different subsystems - having parallel hierarchies allows each
+hierarchy to be a natural division of tasks, without having to handle
+complex combinations of tasks that would be present if several
+unrelated subsystems needed to be forced into the same tree of
+cgroups.
+
+At one extreme, each resource controller or subsystem could be in a
+separate hierarchy; at the other extreme, all subsystems
+would be attached to the same hierarchy.
+
+As an example of a scenario (originally proposed by vatsa@in.ibm.com)
+that can benefit from multiple hierarchies, consider a large
+university server with various users - students, professors, system
+tasks etc. The resource planning for this server could be along the
+following lines::
+
+ CPU : "Top cpuset"
+ / \
+ CPUSet1 CPUSet2
+ | |
+ (Professors) (Students)
+
+ In addition (system tasks) are attached to topcpuset (so
+ that they can run anywhere) with a limit of 20%
+
+ Memory : Professors (50%), Students (30%), system (20%)
+
+ Disk : Professors (50%), Students (30%), system (20%)
+
+ Network : WWW browsing (20%), Network File System (60%), others (20%)
+ / \
+ Professors (15%) students (5%)
+
+Browsers like Firefox/Lynx go into the WWW network class, while (k)nfsd goes
+into the NFS network class.
+
+At the same time Firefox/Lynx will share an appropriate CPU/Memory class
+depending on who launched it (prof/student).
+
+With the ability to classify tasks differently for different resources
+(by putting those resource subsystems in different hierarchies),
+the admin can easily set up a script which receives exec notifications
+and depending on who is launching the browser he can::
+
+ # echo browser_pid > /sys/fs/cgroup/<restype>/<userclass>/tasks
+
+With only a single hierarchy, he now would potentially have to create
+a separate cgroup for every browser launched and associate it with
+appropriate network and other resource class. This may lead to
+proliferation of such cgroups.
+
+Also let's say that the administrator would like to give enhanced network
+access temporarily to a student's browser (since it is night and the user
+wants to do online gaming :)) OR give one of the student's simulation
+apps enhanced CPU power.
+
+With ability to write PIDs directly to resource classes, it's just a
+matter of::
+
+ # echo pid > /sys/fs/cgroup/network/<new_class>/tasks
+ (after some time)
+ # echo pid > /sys/fs/cgroup/network/<orig_class>/tasks
+
+Without this ability, the administrator would have to split the cgroup into
+multiple separate ones and then associate the new cgroups with the
+new resource classes.
+
+
+
+1.3 How are cgroups implemented ?
+---------------------------------
+
+Control Groups extends the kernel as follows:
+
+ - Each task in the system has a reference-counted pointer to a
+ css_set.
+
+ - A css_set contains a set of reference-counted pointers to
+ cgroup_subsys_state objects, one for each cgroup subsystem
+ registered in the system. There is no direct link from a task to
+ the cgroup of which it's a member in each hierarchy, but this
+ can be determined by following pointers through the
+ cgroup_subsys_state objects. This is because accessing the
+ subsystem state is something that's expected to happen frequently
+ and in performance-critical code, whereas operations that require a
+ task's actual cgroup assignments (in particular, moving between
+ cgroups) are less common. A linked list runs through the cg_list
+ field of each task_struct using the css_set, anchored at
+ css_set->tasks.
+
+ - A cgroup hierarchy filesystem can be mounted for browsing and
+ manipulation from user space.
+
+ - You can list all the tasks (by PID) attached to any cgroup.
+
+The implementation of cgroups requires a few, simple hooks
+into the rest of the kernel, none in performance-critical paths:
+
+ - in init/main.c, to initialize the root cgroups and initial
+ css_set at system boot.
+
+ - in fork and exit, to attach and detach a task from its css_set.
+
+In addition, a new file system of type "cgroup" may be mounted, to
+enable browsing and modifying the cgroups presently known to the
+kernel. When mounting a cgroup hierarchy, you may specify a
+comma-separated list of subsystems to mount as the filesystem mount
+options. By default, mounting the cgroup filesystem attempts to
+mount a hierarchy containing all registered subsystems.
+
+If an active hierarchy with exactly the same set of subsystems already
+exists, it will be reused for the new mount. If no existing hierarchy
+matches, and any of the requested subsystems are in use in an existing
+hierarchy, the mount will fail with -EBUSY. Otherwise, a new hierarchy
+is activated, associated with the requested subsystems.
+
+It's not currently possible to bind a new subsystem to an active
+cgroup hierarchy, or to unbind a subsystem from an active cgroup
+hierarchy. This may be possible in future, but is fraught with nasty
+error-recovery issues.
+
+When a cgroup filesystem is unmounted, if there are any
+child cgroups created below the top-level cgroup, that hierarchy
+will remain active even though unmounted; if there are no
+child cgroups then the hierarchy will be deactivated.
+
+No new system calls are added for cgroups - all support for
+querying and modifying cgroups is via this cgroup file system.
+
+Each task under /proc has an added file named 'cgroup' displaying,
+for each active hierarchy, the subsystem names and the cgroup name
+as the path relative to the root of the cgroup file system.
+
+Each cgroup is represented by a directory in the cgroup file system
+containing the following files describing that cgroup:
+
+ - tasks: list of tasks (by PID) attached to that cgroup. This list
+ is not guaranteed to be sorted. Writing a thread ID into this file
+ moves the thread into this cgroup.
+ - cgroup.procs: list of thread group IDs in the cgroup. This list is
+ not guaranteed to be sorted or free of duplicate TGIDs, and userspace
+ should sort/uniquify the list if this property is required.
+ Writing a thread group ID into this file moves all threads in that
+ group into this cgroup.
+ - notify_on_release flag: run the release agent on exit?
+ - release_agent: the path to use for release notifications (this file
+ exists in the top cgroup only)
+
+Other subsystems such as cpusets may add additional files in each
+cgroup dir.
+
+New cgroups are created using the mkdir system call or shell
+command. The properties of a cgroup, such as its flags, are
+modified by writing to the appropriate file in that cgroups
+directory, as listed above.
+
+The named hierarchical structure of nested cgroups allows partitioning
+a large system into nested, dynamically changeable, "soft-partitions".
+
+The attachment of each task, automatically inherited at fork by any
+children of that task, to a cgroup allows organizing the work load
+on a system into related sets of tasks. A task may be re-attached to
+any other cgroup, if allowed by the permissions on the necessary
+cgroup file system directories.
+
+When a task is moved from one cgroup to another, it gets a new
+css_set pointer - if there's an already existing css_set with the
+desired collection of cgroups then that group is reused, otherwise a new
+css_set is allocated. The appropriate existing css_set is located by
+looking into a hash table.
+
+To allow access from a cgroup to the css_sets (and hence tasks)
+that comprise it, a set of cg_cgroup_link objects form a lattice;
+each cg_cgroup_link is linked into a list of cg_cgroup_links for
+a single cgroup on its cgrp_link_list field, and a list of
+cg_cgroup_links for a single css_set on its cg_link_list.
+
+Thus the set of tasks in a cgroup can be listed by iterating over
+each css_set that references the cgroup, and sub-iterating over
+each css_set's task set.
+
+The use of a Linux virtual file system (vfs) to represent the
+cgroup hierarchy provides for a familiar permission and name space
+for cgroups, with a minimum of additional kernel code.
+
+1.4 What does notify_on_release do ?
+------------------------------------
+
+If the notify_on_release flag is enabled (1) in a cgroup, then
+whenever the last task in the cgroup leaves (exits or attaches to
+some other cgroup) and the last child cgroup of that cgroup
+is removed, then the kernel runs the command specified by the contents
+of the "release_agent" file in that hierarchy's root directory,
+supplying the pathname (relative to the mount point of the cgroup
+file system) of the abandoned cgroup. This enables automatic
+removal of abandoned cgroups. The default value of
+notify_on_release in the root cgroup at system boot is disabled
+(0). The default value of other cgroups at creation is the current
+value of their parents' notify_on_release settings. The default value of
+a cgroup hierarchy's release_agent path is empty.
+
+1.5 What does clone_children do ?
+---------------------------------
+
+This flag only affects the cpuset controller. If the clone_children
+flag is enabled (1) in a cgroup, a new cpuset cgroup will copy its
+configuration from the parent during initialization.
+
+1.6 How do I use cgroups ?
+--------------------------
+
+To start a new job that is to be contained within a cgroup, using
+the "cpuset" cgroup subsystem, the steps are something like::
+
+ 1) mount -t tmpfs cgroup_root /sys/fs/cgroup
+ 2) mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
+ 3) mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
+ 4) Create the new cgroup by doing mkdir's and write's (or echo's) in
+ the /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset virtual file system.
+ 5) Start a task that will be the "founding father" of the new job.
+ 6) Attach that task to the new cgroup by writing its PID to the
+ /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset tasks file for that cgroup.
+ 7) fork, exec or clone the job tasks from this founding father task.
+
+For example, the following sequence of commands will setup a cgroup
+named "Charlie", containing just CPUs 2 and 3, and Memory Node 1,
+and then start a subshell 'sh' in that cgroup::
+
+ mount -t tmpfs cgroup_root /sys/fs/cgroup
+ mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
+ mount -t cgroup cpuset -ocpuset /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
+ cd /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
+ mkdir Charlie
+ cd Charlie
+ /bin/echo 2-3 > cpuset.cpus
+ /bin/echo 1 > cpuset.mems
+ /bin/echo $$ > tasks
+ sh
+ # The subshell 'sh' is now running in cgroup Charlie
+ # The next line should display '/Charlie'
+ cat /proc/self/cgroup
+
+2. Usage Examples and Syntax
+============================
+
+2.1 Basic Usage
+---------------
+
+Creating, modifying, using cgroups can be done through the cgroup
+virtual filesystem.
+
+To mount a cgroup hierarchy with all available subsystems, type::
+
+ # mount -t cgroup xxx /sys/fs/cgroup
+
+The "xxx" is not interpreted by the cgroup code, but will appear in
+/proc/mounts so may be any useful identifying string that you like.
+
+Note: Some subsystems do not work without some user input first. For instance,
+if cpusets are enabled the user will have to populate the cpus and mems files
+for each new cgroup created before that group can be used.
+
+As explained in section `1.2 Why are cgroups needed?` you should create
+different hierarchies of cgroups for each single resource or group of
+resources you want to control. Therefore, you should mount a tmpfs on
+/sys/fs/cgroup and create directories for each cgroup resource or resource
+group::
+
+ # mount -t tmpfs cgroup_root /sys/fs/cgroup
+ # mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1
+
+To mount a cgroup hierarchy with just the cpuset and memory
+subsystems, type::
+
+ # mount -t cgroup -o cpuset,memory hier1 /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1
+
+While remounting cgroups is currently supported, it is not recommend
+to use it. Remounting allows changing bound subsystems and
+release_agent. Rebinding is hardly useful as it only works when the
+hierarchy is empty and release_agent itself should be replaced with
+conventional fsnotify. The support for remounting will be removed in
+the future.
+
+To Specify a hierarchy's release_agent::
+
+ # mount -t cgroup -o cpuset,release_agent="/sbin/cpuset_release_agent" \
+ xxx /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1
+
+Note that specifying 'release_agent' more than once will return failure.
+
+Note that changing the set of subsystems is currently only supported
+when the hierarchy consists of a single (root) cgroup. Supporting
+the ability to arbitrarily bind/unbind subsystems from an existing
+cgroup hierarchy is intended to be implemented in the future.
+
+Then under /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1 you can find a tree that corresponds to the
+tree of the cgroups in the system. For instance, /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1
+is the cgroup that holds the whole system.
+
+If you want to change the value of release_agent::
+
+ # echo "/sbin/new_release_agent" > /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1/release_agent
+
+It can also be changed via remount.
+
+If you want to create a new cgroup under /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1::
+
+ # cd /sys/fs/cgroup/rg1
+ # mkdir my_cgroup
+
+Now you want to do something with this cgroup:
+
+ # cd my_cgroup
+
+In this directory you can find several files::
+
+ # ls
+ cgroup.procs notify_on_release tasks
+ (plus whatever files added by the attached subsystems)
+
+Now attach your shell to this cgroup::
+
+ # /bin/echo $$ > tasks
+
+You can also create cgroups inside your cgroup by using mkdir in this
+directory::
+
+ # mkdir my_sub_cs
+
+To remove a cgroup, just use rmdir::
+
+ # rmdir my_sub_cs
+
+This will fail if the cgroup is in use (has cgroups inside, or
+has processes attached, or is held alive by other subsystem-specific
+reference).
+
+2.2 Attaching processes
+-----------------------
+
+::
+
+ # /bin/echo PID > tasks
+
+Note that it is PID, not PIDs. You can only attach ONE task at a time.
+If you have several tasks to attach, you have to do it one after another::
+
+ # /bin/echo PID1 > tasks
+ # /bin/echo PID2 > tasks
+ ...
+ # /bin/echo PIDn > tasks
+
+You can attach the current shell task by echoing 0::
+
+ # echo 0 > tasks
+
+You can use the cgroup.procs file instead of the tasks file to move all
+threads in a threadgroup at once. Echoing the PID of any task in a
+threadgroup to cgroup.procs causes all tasks in that threadgroup to be
+attached to the cgroup. Writing 0 to cgroup.procs moves all tasks
+in the writing task's threadgroup.
+
+Note: Since every task is always a member of exactly one cgroup in each
+mounted hierarchy, to remove a task from its current cgroup you must
+move it into a new cgroup (possibly the root cgroup) by writing to the
+new cgroup's tasks file.
+
+Note: Due to some restrictions enforced by some cgroup subsystems, moving
+a process to another cgroup can fail.
+
+2.3 Mounting hierarchies by name
+--------------------------------
+
+Passing the name=<x> option when mounting a cgroups hierarchy
+associates the given name with the hierarchy. This can be used when
+mounting a pre-existing hierarchy, in order to refer to it by name
+rather than by its set of active subsystems. Each hierarchy is either
+nameless, or has a unique name.
+
+The name should match [\w.-]+
+
+When passing a name=<x> option for a new hierarchy, you need to
+specify subsystems manually; the legacy behaviour of mounting all
+subsystems when none are explicitly specified is not supported when
+you give a subsystem a name.
+
+The name of the subsystem appears as part of the hierarchy description
+in /proc/mounts and /proc/<pid>/cgroups.
+
+
+3. Kernel API
+=============
+
+3.1 Overview
+------------
+
+Each kernel subsystem that wants to hook into the generic cgroup
+system needs to create a cgroup_subsys object. This contains
+various methods, which are callbacks from the cgroup system, along
+with a subsystem ID which will be assigned by the cgroup system.
+
+Other fields in the cgroup_subsys object include:
+
+- subsys_id: a unique array index for the subsystem, indicating which
+ entry in cgroup->subsys[] this subsystem should be managing.
+
+- name: should be initialized to a unique subsystem name. Should be
+ no longer than MAX_CGROUP_TYPE_NAMELEN.
+
+- early_init: indicate if the subsystem needs early initialization
+ at system boot.
+
+Each cgroup object created by the system has an array of pointers,
+indexed by subsystem ID; this pointer is entirely managed by the
+subsystem; the generic cgroup code will never touch this pointer.
+
+3.2 Synchronization
+-------------------
+
+There is a global mutex, cgroup_mutex, used by the cgroup
+system. This should be taken by anything that wants to modify a
+cgroup. It may also be taken to prevent cgroups from being
+modified, but more specific locks may be more appropriate in that
+situation.
+
+See kernel/cgroup.c for more details.
+
+Subsystems can take/release the cgroup_mutex via the functions
+cgroup_lock()/cgroup_unlock().
+
+Accessing a task's cgroup pointer may be done in the following ways:
+- while holding cgroup_mutex
+- while holding the task's alloc_lock (via task_lock())
+- inside an rcu_read_lock() section via rcu_dereference()
+
+3.3 Subsystem API
+-----------------
+
+Each subsystem should:
+
+- add an entry in linux/cgroup_subsys.h
+- define a cgroup_subsys object called <name>_cgrp_subsys
+
+Each subsystem may export the following methods. The only mandatory
+methods are css_alloc/free. Any others that are null are presumed to
+be successful no-ops.
+
+``struct cgroup_subsys_state *css_alloc(struct cgroup *cgrp)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called to allocate a subsystem state object for a cgroup. The
+subsystem should allocate its subsystem state object for the passed
+cgroup, returning a pointer to the new object on success or a
+ERR_PTR() value. On success, the subsystem pointer should point to
+a structure of type cgroup_subsys_state (typically embedded in a
+larger subsystem-specific object), which will be initialized by the
+cgroup system. Note that this will be called at initialization to
+create the root subsystem state for this subsystem; this case can be
+identified by the passed cgroup object having a NULL parent (since
+it's the root of the hierarchy) and may be an appropriate place for
+initialization code.
+
+``int css_online(struct cgroup *cgrp)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called after @cgrp successfully completed all allocations and made
+visible to cgroup_for_each_child/descendant_*() iterators. The
+subsystem may choose to fail creation by returning -errno. This
+callback can be used to implement reliable state sharing and
+propagation along the hierarchy. See the comment on
+cgroup_for_each_descendant_pre() for details.
+
+``void css_offline(struct cgroup *cgrp);``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+This is the counterpart of css_online() and called iff css_online()
+has succeeded on @cgrp. This signifies the beginning of the end of
+@cgrp. @cgrp is being removed and the subsystem should start dropping
+all references it's holding on @cgrp. When all references are dropped,
+cgroup removal will proceed to the next step - css_free(). After this
+callback, @cgrp should be considered dead to the subsystem.
+
+``void css_free(struct cgroup *cgrp)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+The cgroup system is about to free @cgrp; the subsystem should free
+its subsystem state object. By the time this method is called, @cgrp
+is completely unused; @cgrp->parent is still valid. (Note - can also
+be called for a newly-created cgroup if an error occurs after this
+subsystem's create() method has been called for the new cgroup).
+
+``int can_attach(struct cgroup *cgrp, struct cgroup_taskset *tset)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called prior to moving one or more tasks into a cgroup; if the
+subsystem returns an error, this will abort the attach operation.
+@tset contains the tasks to be attached and is guaranteed to have at
+least one task in it.
+
+If there are multiple tasks in the taskset, then:
+ - it's guaranteed that all are from the same thread group
+ - @tset contains all tasks from the thread group whether or not
+ they're switching cgroups
+ - the first task is the leader
+
+Each @tset entry also contains the task's old cgroup and tasks which
+aren't switching cgroup can be skipped easily using the
+cgroup_taskset_for_each() iterator. Note that this isn't called on a
+fork. If this method returns 0 (success) then this should remain valid
+while the caller holds cgroup_mutex and it is ensured that either
+attach() or cancel_attach() will be called in future.
+
+``void css_reset(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+An optional operation which should restore @css's configuration to the
+initial state. This is currently only used on the unified hierarchy
+when a subsystem is disabled on a cgroup through
+"cgroup.subtree_control" but should remain enabled because other
+subsystems depend on it. cgroup core makes such a css invisible by
+removing the associated interface files and invokes this callback so
+that the hidden subsystem can return to the initial neutral state.
+This prevents unexpected resource control from a hidden css and
+ensures that the configuration is in the initial state when it is made
+visible again later.
+
+``void cancel_attach(struct cgroup *cgrp, struct cgroup_taskset *tset)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called when a task attach operation has failed after can_attach() has succeeded.
+A subsystem whose can_attach() has some side-effects should provide this
+function, so that the subsystem can implement a rollback. If not, not necessary.
+This will be called only about subsystems whose can_attach() operation have
+succeeded. The parameters are identical to can_attach().
+
+``void attach(struct cgroup *cgrp, struct cgroup_taskset *tset)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called after the task has been attached to the cgroup, to allow any
+post-attachment activity that requires memory allocations or blocking.
+The parameters are identical to can_attach().
+
+``void fork(struct task_struct *task)``
+
+Called when a task is forked into a cgroup.
+
+``void exit(struct task_struct *task)``
+
+Called during task exit.
+
+``void free(struct task_struct *task)``
+
+Called when the task_struct is freed.
+
+``void bind(struct cgroup *root)``
+(cgroup_mutex held by caller)
+
+Called when a cgroup subsystem is rebound to a different hierarchy
+and root cgroup. Currently this will only involve movement between
+the default hierarchy (which never has sub-cgroups) and a hierarchy
+that is being created/destroyed (and hence has no sub-cgroups).
+
+4. Extended attribute usage
+===========================
+
+cgroup filesystem supports certain types of extended attributes in its
+directories and files. The current supported types are:
+
+ - Trusted (XATTR_TRUSTED)
+ - Security (XATTR_SECURITY)
+
+Both require CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability to set.
+
+Like in tmpfs, the extended attributes in cgroup filesystem are stored
+using kernel memory and it's advised to keep the usage at minimum. This
+is the reason why user defined extended attributes are not supported, since
+any user can do it and there's no limit in the value size.
+
+The current known users for this feature are SELinux to limit cgroup usage
+in containers and systemd for assorted meta data like main PID in a cgroup
+(systemd creates a cgroup per service).
+
+5. Questions
+============
+
+::
+
+ Q: what's up with this '/bin/echo' ?
+ A: bash's builtin 'echo' command does not check calls to write() against
+ errors. If you use it in the cgroup file system, you won't be
+ able to tell whether a command succeeded or failed.
+
+ Q: When I attach processes, only the first of the line gets really attached !
+ A: We can only return one error code per call to write(). So you should also
+ put only ONE PID.