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docs: Update documentation on balloon device
Add notes around known limitations of the balloon device Signed-off-by: Jack Thomson <[email protected]>
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docs/ballooning.md

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@@ -263,3 +263,20 @@ cannot be enabled later by providing a `polling_interval` non-zero value.
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Furthermore, if the balloon was configured with statistics pre-boot through a
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non-zero `stats_polling_interval_s` value, the statistics cannot be disabled
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through a `polling_interval` value of zero post-boot.
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## Balloon Caveats
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- Firecracker has no control over the speed of inflation or deflation; this is
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dictated by the guest kernel driver.
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- The balloon will continually attempt to reach its target size, which can be a
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CPU-intensive process. It is therefore recommended to set realistic targets
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or, after a period of stagnation in the inflation, update the target size to
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be close to the inflated size.
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- The `deflate_on_oom` flag is a mechanism to prevent the guest from crashing or
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terminating processes; it is not meant to be used continually to free memory.
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Doing this will be a CPU-intensive process, as the balloon driver is designed
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to deflate and release memory slowly. This is also compounded if the balloon
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has yet to reach its target size, as it will attempt to inflate while also
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deflating.

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