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17 changes: 17 additions & 0 deletions docs/ballooning.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -263,3 +263,20 @@ cannot be enabled later by providing a `polling_interval` non-zero value.
Furthermore, if the balloon was configured with statistics pre-boot through a
non-zero `stats_polling_interval_s` value, the statistics cannot be disabled
through a `polling_interval` value of zero post-boot.

## Balloon Caveats

- Firecracker has no control over the speed of inflation or deflation; this is
dictated by the guest kernel driver.

- The balloon will continually attempt to reach its target size, which can be a
CPU-intensive process. It is therefore recommended to set realistic targets
or, after a period of stagnation in the inflation, update the target size to
be close to the inflated size.

- The `deflate_on_oom` flag is a mechanism to prevent the guest from crashing or
terminating processes; it is not meant to be used continually to free memory.
Doing this will be a CPU-intensive process, as the balloon driver is designed
to deflate and release memory slowly. This is also compounded if the balloon
has yet to reach its target size, as it will attempt to inflate while also
deflating.
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