linux/Documentation/blockdev/zram.txt

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zram: Compressed RAM based block devices
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* Introduction
The zram module creates RAM based block devices named /dev/zram<id>
(<id> = 0, 1, ...). Pages written to these disks are compressed and stored
in memory itself. These disks allow very fast I/O and compression provides
good amounts of memory savings. Some of the usecases include /tmp storage,
use as swap disks, various caches under /var and maybe many more :)
Statistics for individual zram devices are exported through sysfs nodes at
/sys/block/zram<id>/
* Usage
Following shows a typical sequence of steps for using zram.
1) Load Module:
modprobe zram num_devices=4
This creates 4 devices: /dev/zram{0,1,2,3}
(num_devices parameter is optional. Default: 1)
2) Set Disksize
Set disk size by writing the value to sysfs node 'disksize'.
The value can be either in bytes or you can use mem suffixes.
Examples:
# Initialize /dev/zram0 with 50MB disksize
echo $((50*1024*1024)) > /sys/block/zram0/disksize
# Using mem suffixes
echo 256K > /sys/block/zram0/disksize
echo 512M > /sys/block/zram0/disksize
echo 1G > /sys/block/zram0/disksize
3) Activate:
mkswap /dev/zram0
swapon /dev/zram0
mkfs.ext4 /dev/zram1
mount /dev/zram1 /tmp
4) Stats:
Per-device statistics are exported as various nodes under
/sys/block/zram<id>/
disksize
num_reads
num_writes
invalid_io
notify_free
discard
zero_pages
orig_data_size
compr_data_size
mem_used_total
5) Deactivate:
swapoff /dev/zram0
umount /dev/zram1
6) Reset:
Write any positive value to 'reset' sysfs node
echo 1 > /sys/block/zram0/reset
echo 1 > /sys/block/zram1/reset
This frees all the memory allocated for the given device and
resets the disksize to zero. You must set the disksize again
before reusing the device.
Nitin Gupta
ngupta@vflare.org