A script to move baloo to a cgroup to limit both memory and disk I/O

baloo-nice

#!/bin/bash
#baloo-nice by Al Williams

if [ "$1" == "fast" ]
then
RLIMIT=100048576   # bps limit (read)
WLIMIT=100048576   # bps limit (write)
else
RLIMIT=548576   # bps limit (read)
WLIMIT=548576   # bps limit (write)
fi

if [ "$1" == "med" ]
then
RLIMIT=12048576   # bps limit (read)
WLIMIT=12048576   # bps limit (write)
fi


#DEVICES="8 252 253 259"
DEVICES="8 253 259" 
SEARCH=baloo
MEMLIMIT=1024M

if [ ! -d /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo ]
then
  mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo    # assume you need to be root to do this
fi

if [ ! -d /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo ]
then
    mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo
fi    
				     

echo $MEMLIMIT >/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/memory.limit_in_bytes

for I in $DEVICES
do
  echo "$I:0 $RLIMIT" >/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo/blkio.throttle.read_bps_device
  echo "$I:0 $WLIMIT" >/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo/blkio.throttle.write_bps_device
done
for I in `pgrep $SEARCH`
do
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo/cgroup.procs
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/cgroup.procs
done

 


SEARCH=baloo_file
for I in `pgrep $SEARCH`
do
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo/cgroup.procs
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/cgroup.procs    
done


SEARCH=baloo_file_extractor
for I in `pgrep $SEARCH`
do
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/baloo/cgroup.procs
    echo $I >/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/cgroup.procs
done
 

exit 0

See https://medium.com/for-linux-users/slash-kde-baloos-disk-throughput-with-cgroups-dc67b43da01a?sk=4664dfdb238e0fb43e0a6776b50da00d

touch: cannot touch '/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/memory.limit_in_bytes': Permission denied

bash: /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/memory.limit_in_bytes: Permission denied

You need to be root or fix your permissions as root

That was done as root and the fs and path is well mounted, ownershiped and permissionned

@bphd, it worked for me when I was using ubuntu bionic. The only issue was setting up the limits for a device which is not present on the system.
My understanding about issues writing on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/baloo/memory.limit_in_bytes seems to be with the version cgroup and/or kernel. I hope that will give you helpful tip