Bug 16031

Summary:	slabinfo description inaccurate (out of date?)
Product:	Documentation	Reporter:	bfields
Component:	man-pages	Assignee:	documentation_man-pages (documentation_man-pages)
Status:	RESOLVED CODE_FIX
Severity:	normal	CC:	jnerin, mtk.manpages
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:		Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:

Description bfields 2010-05-22 21:44:57 UTC

"man slabinfo" claims, for example, that the fifth column is "the  number  of  pages with at least one active object", when /proc/slabinfo on my (2.6.32) machine uses it for number of objects per slab.  Presumably the format it describes is outdated (example shows version 1.1, current is 2.1).

This is from Ubuntu (Lucid)'s 3.23-1.

Comment 1 Jorge Nerín 2013-09-10 16:50:14 UTC

As of man-pages 3.51 this is still the case, but perhaps the correct thing to do being it a kernel file should be to add a note directing users to read current /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/slub.txt and/or play with /usr/src/linux/tools/vm/slabinfo.c

Comment 2 Michael Kerrisk 2017-05-30 03:14:14 UTC

(In reply to Jorge Nerín from comment #1)
> As of man-pages 3.51 this is still the case, but perhaps the correct thing
> to do being it a kernel file should be to add a note directing users to read
> current /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/slub.txt and/or play with
> /usr/src/linux/tools/vm/slabinfo.c

I've added references to these source files under SEE ALSO.

Comment 3 Michael Kerrisk 2017-05-30 03:39:22 UTC

(In reply to bfields from comment #0)
> "man slabinfo" claims, for example, that the fifth column is "the  number 
> of  pages with at least one active object", when /proc/slabinfo on my
> (2.6.32) machine uses it for number of objects per slab.  Presumably the
> format it describes is outdated (example shows version 1.1, current is 2.1).
> 
> This is from Ubuntu (Lucid)'s 3.23-1.

Hello Bruce,

I did a while ago (January) make some fixes to the slabinfo(5) page. I think they address the comments in this bug. (I cannot remember if I had this bug report in mind when I made the changes though.) There's still rather more that could be done to fix this page, but it is somewhat better now than it was. I'vll close this bg report for now, but please reopen if you think something of your comment has not been addressed.

Cheers,

Michael