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swap: virtual swap readahead

PATCH Superseded Johannes Weiner 6 participants 10 messages Jun 2, 2009 – Jun 8, 2009

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Johannes Weiner

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#0 lore raw

PATCH v2 1/1 swap: virtual swap readahead

Hi Andrew,

I redid the qsbench runs with a bigger page cluster (2^4). It shows improvement on both versions, the patched one still performing better. Rik hinted me that we can make the default even bigger when we are better at avoiding reading unrelated pages. I am currently testing this. Here are the timings for 2^4 (i.e. twice the) ra pages:

vanilla:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 101.41/101.06 [1.42] system 11.02/10.83 [0.92] real 368.44/361.31 [48.47] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 101.42/101.23 [0.66] system 12.98/13.01 [0.56] real 338.45/338.56 [2.94] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 101.75/101.62 [1.03] system 10.05/9.52 [1.53] real 371.97/351.88 [77.69] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 103.35/103.33 [0.63] system 9.80/9.59 [1.72] real 453.48/473.21 [115.61] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 91.04/91.00 [0.86] system 8.95/9.41 [2.06] real 312.16/342.29 [100.53]

vswapra:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 98.47/98.32 [1.33] system 9.85/9.90 [0.92] real 373.95/382.64 [26.77] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 96.89/97.00 [0.44] system 9.52/9.48 [1.49] real 288.43/281.55 [53.12] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 98.74/98.70 [0.92] system 7.62/7.83 [1.25] real 291.15/296.94 [54.85] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 100.68/100.59 [0.53] system 7.59/7.62 [0.41] real 305.12/311.29 [26.09] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 88.67/88.50 [1.02] system 6.06/6.22 [0.72] real 205.29/221.65 [42.06]

Furthermore I changed the patch to leave shmem alone for now and added documentation for the new approach. And I adjusted the changelog a bit.

Andi, I think the NUMA policy is already taken care of. Can you have another look at it? Other than that you gave positive feedback - can I add your acked-by?

Hannes

---
The current swap readahead implementation reads a physically contiguous group of swap slots around the faulting page to take advantage of the disk head's position and in the hope that the surrounding pages will be needed soon as well.

This works as long as the physical swap slot order approximates the LRU order decently, otherwise it wastes memory and IO bandwidth to read in pages that are unlikely to be needed soon.

However, the physical swap slot layout diverges from the LRU order with increasing swap activity, i.e. high memory pressure situations, and this is exactly the situation where swapin should not waste any memory or IO bandwidth as both are the most contended resources at this point.

Another approximation for LRU-relation is the VMA order as groups of VMA-related pages are usually used together.

This patch combines both the physical and the virtual hint to get a good approximation of pages that are sensible to read ahead.

When both diverge, we either read unrelated data, seek heavily for related data, or, what this patch does, just decrease the readahead efforts.

To achieve this, we have essentially two readahead windows of the same
size: one spans the virtual, the other one the physical neighborhood of the faulting page. We only read where both areas overlap.

---
 mm/swap_state.c |  115 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 99 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

version 2:
o fall back to physical ra window for shmem
o add documentation to the new ra algorithm

qsbench, 20 runs, 1.7GB RAM, 2GB swap, "mean (standard deviation) median":

vanilla vswapra

1  x 2048M	391.25 ( 71.76) 384.56		445.55 (83.19) 415.41
2  x 1024M	384.25 ( 75.00) 423.08		290.26 (31.38) 299.51
4  x  540M	553.91 (100.02) 554.57		336.58 (52.49) 331.52
8  x  280M	561.08 ( 82.36) 583.12		319.13 (43.17) 307.69

16 x 128M 285.51 (113.20) 236.62 214.24 (62.37) 214.15

mm/swap_state.c +99 -16
@@ -325,27 +325,14 @@ struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_e
 	return found_page;
 }
 
-/**
- * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
- * @entry: swap entry of this memory
- * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
- * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
- * @addr: target address for mempolicy
- *
- * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
- *
+/*
  * Primitive swap readahead code. We simply read an aligned block of
  * (1 << page_cluster) entries in the swap area. This method is chosen
  * because it doesn't cost us any seek time.  We also make sure to queue
  * the 'original' request together with the readahead ones...
- *
- * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm triggering
- * the readahead.
- *
- * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
  */
-struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+static struct page *swapin_readahead_phys(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+				struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
 {
 	int nr_pages;
 	struct page *page;
@@ -371,3 +358,99 @@ struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_
 	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
 	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
 }
+
+/**
+ * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
+ * @entry: swap entry of this memory
+ * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
+ * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
+ * @addr: target address for mempolicy
+ *
+ * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
+ *
+ * The readahead window is the virtual area around the faulting page,
+ * where the physical proximity of the swap slots is taken into
+ * account as well.
+ *
+ * While the swap allocation algorithm tries to keep LRU-related pages
+ * together on the swap backing, it is not reliable on heavy thrashing
+ * systems where concurrent reclaimers allocate swap slots and/or most
+ * anonymous memory pages are already in swap cache.
+ *
+ * On the virtual side, subgroups of VMA-related pages are usually
+ * used together, which gives another hint to LRU relationship.
+ *
+ * By taking both aspects into account, we get a good approximation of
+ * which pages are sensible to read together with the faulting one.
+ *
+ * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm
+ * triggering the readahead.
+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	unsigned long start, pos, end;
+	unsigned long pmin, pmax;
+	int cluster, window;
+
+	if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)	/* XXX: shmem case */
+		return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
+	cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+	window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+	/* Physical range to read from */
+	pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);
+	pmax = pmin + cluster;
+
+	/* Virtual range to read from */
+	start = addr & ~(window - 1);
+	end = start + window;
+
+	for (pos = start; pos < end; pos += PAGE_SIZE) {
+		struct page *page;
+		swp_entry_t swp;
+		spinlock_t *ptl;
+		pgd_t *pgd;
+		pud_t *pud;
+		pmd_t *pmd;
+		pte_t *pte;
+
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);
+		if (!is_swap_pte(*pte)) {
+			pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+			continue;
+		}
+		swp = pte_to_swp_entry(*pte);
+		pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+
+		if (swp_type(swp) != swp_type(entry))
+			continue;
+		/*
+		 * Dont move the disk head too far away.  This also
+		 * throttles readahead while thrashing, where virtual
+		 * order diverges more and more from physical order.
+		 */
+		if (swp_offset(swp) > pmax)
+			continue;
+		if (swp_offset(swp) < pmin)
+			continue;
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);
+		if (!page)
+			continue;
+		page_cache_release(page);
+	}
+	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+}
#1 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · Johannes Weiner

+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */

mm/swap_state.c +5 -0
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	unsigned long start, pos, end;
+	unsigned long pmin, pmax;

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 405

Quoted 10 lines
mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+	int cluster, window;
+
+	if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)	/* XXX: shmem case */
+		return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
+	cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+	window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+	/* Physical range to read from */
+	pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);

Is cluster really properly sign extended on 64bit? Looks a little dubious. long from the start would be safer

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 409

Quoted 3 lines
mm/swap_state.c +3 -0
+
+	/* Virtual range to read from */
+	start = addr & ~(window - 1);

Same.

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 430

Quoted 10 lines
mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);

You could be more efficient here by using the standard mm/* nested loop pattern that avoids relookup of everything in each iteration. I suppose it would mainly make a difference with 32bit highpte where mapping a pte can be somewhat costly. And you would take less locks this way.

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 451

Quoted 3 lines
mm/swap_state.c +3 -0
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);
+		if (!page)
+			continue;

That's out of memory, break would be better here because prefetch while oom is usually harmful.

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 455

Quoted 4 lines
mm/swap_state.c +4 -0
+		page_cache_release(page);
+	}
+	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);

Shouldn't that page be already handled in the loop earlier? Why doing that again? It would be better to remember it from there.

-Andi

Signature · 1 line
[email protected] -- Speaking for myself only.
author reviewer
#2 lore raw
Quoted 14 lines · Andi Kleen
Quoted 13 lines · Johannes Weiner

+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */

mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	unsigned long start, pos, end;
+	unsigned long pmin, pmax;
+	int cluster, window;
+
+	if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)	/* XXX: shmem case */
+		return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
Quoted 8 lines

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 405

Quoted 5 lines
mm/swap_state.c +5 -0
+	cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+	window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+	/* Physical range to read from */
+	pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);

Is cluster really properly sign extended on 64bit? Looks a little dubious. long from the start would be safer

Fixed.

Quoted 4 lines

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 409

Quoted 2 lines
mm/swap_state.c +2 -0
+	/* Virtual range to read from */
+	start = addr & ~(window - 1);

Same.

Fixed.

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 7 lines
mm/swap_state.c +7 -0
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
Quoted 8 lines

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 430

Quoted 3 lines
mm/swap_state.c +3 -0
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);

You could be more efficient here by using the standard mm/* nested loop pattern that avoids relookup of everything in each iteration. I suppose it would mainly make a difference with 32bit highpte where mapping a pte can be somewhat costly. And you would take less locks this way.

I ran into weird problems here. The above version is actually faster in the benchmarks than writing a nested level walker or using walk_page_range(). Still digging but it can take some time. Busy week :(

Quoted 6 lines

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 451

Quoted 3 lines
mm/swap_state.c +3 -0
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);
+		if (!page)
+			continue;

That's out of memory, break would be better here because prefetch while oom is usually harmful.

It can also happen due to a race with something releasing the swap slot (i.e. swap_duplicate() fails). But the old version did a break too and this patch shouldn't do it differently. Fixed.

Quoted 7 lines

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 455

Quoted 4 lines
mm/swap_state.c +4 -0
+		page_cache_release(page);
+	}
+	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);

Shouldn't that page be already handled in the loop earlier? Why doing that again? It would be better to remember it from there.

When doing the nested page table level walker, communicating even more state back and forth gets pretty ugly. I see what I can do.

Thanks for your input Andi,

Hannes

#3 lore raw
Quoted 18 lines · Johannes Weiner
Quoted 16 lines · Andi Kleen

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 430

Quoted 10 lines · Johannes Weiner
mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);

You could be more efficient here by using the standard mm/* nested loop pattern that avoids relookup of everything in each iteration. I suppose it would mainly make a difference with 32bit highpte where mapping a pte can be somewhat costly. And you would take less locks this way.

Quoted 4 lines

I ran into weird problems here. The above version is actually faster in the benchmarks than writing a nested level walker or using walk_page_range(). Still digging but it can take some time. Busy week :(

I'm not too worried about not walking the page tables, because swap is an extreme slow path anyway.

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#4 lore raw
Quoted 2 lines

I'm not too worried about not walking the page tables, because swap is an extreme slow path anyway.

it was more about taking less locks and doing less mappings. Especially highmem pte mappings can be quite expensive, because they have to flush parts of the TLB.

-Andi

Signature · 7 lines
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#5 lore raw
In reply to Johannes Weiner

Hi, Hannes.

Quoted 58 lines · Johannes Weiner
Quoted 14 lines · Andi Kleen
Quoted 13 lines · Johannes Weiner

+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */

mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+                   struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+   unsigned long start, pos, end;
+   unsigned long pmin, pmax;
+   int cluster, window;
+
+   if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)        /* XXX: shmem case */
+           return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 5 lines

+   cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+   window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+   /* Physical range to read from */
+   pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);

Is cluster really properly sign extended on 64bit? Looks a little dubious. long from the start would be safer

Fixed.

Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 2 lines

+   /* Virtual range to read from */
+   start = addr & ~(window - 1);

Same.

Fixed.

Quoted 11 lines
Quoted 10 lines

+           pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+           if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+                   continue;
+           pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+           if (!pud_present(*pud))
+                   continue;
+           pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+           if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+                   continue;
+           pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);

Quoted 4 lines

You could be more efficient here by using the standard mm/* nested loop pattern that avoids relookup of everything in each iteration. I suppose it would mainly make a difference with 32bit highpte where mapping a pte can be somewhat costly. And you would take less locks this way.

I ran into weird problems here.  The above version is actually faster in the benchmarks than writing a nested level walker or using walk_page_range().  Still digging but it can take some time.  Busy week :(

Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines

+           page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);
+           if (!page)
+                   continue;

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines

That's out of memory, break would be better here because prefetch while oom is usually harmful.

It can also happen due to a race with something releasing the swap slot (i.e. swap_duplicate() fails).  But the old version did a break too and this patch shouldn't do it differently.  Fixed.

I think it would be better to read fault page earlier than readahead pages. That's because,
1) Readahead pages would prevent to read fault page due to out-of-memory.
2) If we can't get the fault page, we don't need extra pages(ie, readahead pages)
It's waste of memory or IO bandwidth. It's what you want.
3) If we read fault page at first and meet oom, we can also stop readahead.

Signature · 8 lines
Kinds regards,
Minchan Kim

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#6 lore raw
In reply to Johannes Weiner
Quoted 199 lines · On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 00:37:39 +0200 Johannes Weiner <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Andrew,

I redid the qsbench runs with a bigger page cluster (2^4). It shows improvement on both versions, the patched one still performing better. Rik hinted me that we can make the default even bigger when we are better at avoiding reading unrelated pages. I am currently testing this. Here are the timings for 2^4 (i.e. twice the) ra pages:

vanilla:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 101.41/101.06 [1.42] system 11.02/10.83 [0.92] real 368.44/361.31 [48.47] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 101.42/101.23 [0.66] system 12.98/13.01 [0.56] real 338.45/338.56 [2.94] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 101.75/101.62 [1.03] system 10.05/9.52 [1.53] real 371.97/351.88 [77.69] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 103.35/103.33 [0.63] system 9.80/9.59 [1.72] real 453.48/473.21 [115.61] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 91.04/91.00 [0.86] system 8.95/9.41 [2.06] real 312.16/342.29 [100.53]

vswapra:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 98.47/98.32 [1.33] system 9.85/9.90 [0.92] real 373.95/382.64 [26.77] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 96.89/97.00 [0.44] system 9.52/9.48 [1.49] real 288.43/281.55 [53.12] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 98.74/98.70 [0.92] system 7.62/7.83 [1.25] real 291.15/296.94 [54.85] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 100.68/100.59 [0.53] system 7.59/7.62 [0.41] real 305.12/311.29 [26.09] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 88.67/88.50 [1.02] system 6.06/6.22 [0.72] real 205.29/221.65 [42.06]

Furthermore I changed the patch to leave shmem alone for now and added documentation for the new approach. And I adjusted the changelog a bit.

Andi, I think the NUMA policy is already taken care of. Can you have another look at it? Other than that you gave positive feedback - can I add your acked-by?

Hannes

---
The current swap readahead implementation reads a physically contiguous group of swap slots around the faulting page to take advantage of the disk head's position and in the hope that the surrounding pages will be needed soon as well.

This works as long as the physical swap slot order approximates the LRU order decently, otherwise it wastes memory and IO bandwidth to read in pages that are unlikely to be needed soon.

However, the physical swap slot layout diverges from the LRU order with increasing swap activity, i.e. high memory pressure situations, and this is exactly the situation where swapin should not waste any memory or IO bandwidth as both are the most contended resources at this point.

Another approximation for LRU-relation is the VMA order as groups of VMA-related pages are usually used together.

This patch combines both the physical and the virtual hint to get a good approximation of pages that are sensible to read ahead.

When both diverge, we either read unrelated data, seek heavily for related data, or, what this patch does, just decrease the readahead efforts.

To achieve this, we have essentially two readahead windows of the same
size: one spans the virtual, the other one the physical neighborhood of the faulting page. We only read where both areas overlap.

---
 mm/swap_state.c |  115 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 99 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

version 2:
o fall back to physical ra window for shmem
o add documentation to the new ra algorithm

qsbench, 20 runs, 1.7GB RAM, 2GB swap, "mean (standard deviation) median":

vanilla vswapra

1  x 2048M	391.25 ( 71.76) 384.56		445.55 (83.19) 415.41
2  x 1024M	384.25 ( 75.00) 423.08		290.26 (31.38) 299.51
4  x  540M	553.91 (100.02) 554.57		336.58 (52.49) 331.52
8  x  280M	561.08 ( 82.36) 583.12		319.13 (43.17) 307.69

16 x 128M 285.51 (113.20) 236.62 214.24 (62.37) 214.15

mm/swap_state.c +81 -16
@@ -325,27 +325,14 @@ struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_e
 	return found_page;
 }
 
-/**
- * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
- * @entry: swap entry of this memory
- * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
- * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
- * @addr: target address for mempolicy
- *
- * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
- *
+/*
  * Primitive swap readahead code. We simply read an aligned block of
  * (1 << page_cluster) entries in the swap area. This method is chosen
  * because it doesn't cost us any seek time.  We also make sure to queue
  * the 'original' request together with the readahead ones...
- *
- * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm triggering
- * the readahead.
- *
- * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
  */
-struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+static struct page *swapin_readahead_phys(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+				struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
 {
 	int nr_pages;
 	struct page *page;
@@ -371,3 +358,99 @@ struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_
 	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
 	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
 }
+
+/**
+ * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
+ * @entry: swap entry of this memory
+ * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
+ * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
+ * @addr: target address for mempolicy
+ *
+ * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
+ *
+ * The readahead window is the virtual area around the faulting page,
+ * where the physical proximity of the swap slots is taken into
+ * account as well.
+ *
+ * While the swap allocation algorithm tries to keep LRU-related pages
+ * together on the swap backing, it is not reliable on heavy thrashing
+ * systems where concurrent reclaimers allocate swap slots and/or most
+ * anonymous memory pages are already in swap cache.
+ *
+ * On the virtual side, subgroups of VMA-related pages are usually
+ * used together, which gives another hint to LRU relationship.
+ *
+ * By taking both aspects into account, we get a good approximation of
+ * which pages are sensible to read together with the faulting one.
+ *
+ * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm
+ * triggering the readahead.
+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	unsigned long start, pos, end;
+	unsigned long pmin, pmax;
+	int cluster, window;
+
+	if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)	/* XXX: shmem case */
+		return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
+	cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+	window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+	/* Physical range to read from */
+	pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);
+	pmax = pmin + cluster;
+
+	/* Virtual range to read from */
+	start = addr & ~(window - 1);
+	end = start + window;
+
+	for (pos = start; pos < end; pos += PAGE_SIZE) {
+		struct page *page;
+		swp_entry_t swp;
+		spinlock_t *ptl;
+		pgd_t *pgd;
+		pud_t *pud;
+		pmd_t *pmd;
+		pte_t *pte;
+
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);
+		if (!is_swap_pte(*pte)) {
+			pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+			continue;
+		}
+		swp = pte_to_swp_entry(*pte);
+		pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+
+		if (swp_type(swp) != swp_type(entry))

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 448

Quoted 10 lines
mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+			continue;
+		/*
+		 * Dont move the disk head too far away.  This also
+		 * throttles readahead while thrashing, where virtual
+		 * order diverges more and more from physical order.
+		 */
+		if (swp_offset(swp) > pmax)
+			continue;
+		if (swp_offset(swp) < pmin)
+			continue;

I wonder (I just wonder..) can we add code like following here ?

/* we do _readahead_ here. Then, we don't want to add too much jobs to vm/IO*/ if (swp != entry)

	gfp_mask &= ~__GFP_WAIT

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 449

Quoted 1 line
mm/swap_state.c +1 -0
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);

too slow ?

Bye.
-Kame

Quoted 9 lines
mm/swap_state.c +7 -1
+		if (!page)
+			continue;
+		page_cache_release(page);
+	}
+	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+}
 
--
Quoted 4 lines

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author reviewer
#7 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki

I wonder (I just wonder..) can we add code like following here ?

   /* we do _readahead_ here. Then, we don't want to add too much jobs to vm/IO*/
   if (swp != entry)
	gfp_mask &= ~__GFP_WAIT

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 449

Quoted 1 line
mm/swap_state.c +1 -0
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);

too slow ?

Good idea, certainly worth evaluating. But not in this patch, I don't want to change _everything_ at once :-)

Thanks, Hannes

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#8 lore raw
In reply to Johannes Weiner
Quoted 58 lines · Johannes Weiner

Hi Andrew,

I redid the qsbench runs with a bigger page cluster (2^4). It shows improvement on both versions, the patched one still performing better. Rik hinted me that we can make the default even bigger when we are better at avoiding reading unrelated pages. I am currently testing this. Here are the timings for 2^4 (i.e. twice the) ra pages:

vanilla:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 101.41/101.06 [1.42] system 11.02/10.83 [0.92] real 368.44/361.31 [48.47] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 101.42/101.23 [0.66] system 12.98/13.01 [0.56] real 338.45/338.56 [2.94] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 101.75/101.62 [1.03] system 10.05/9.52 [1.53] real 371.97/351.88 [77.69] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 103.35/103.33 [0.63] system 9.80/9.59 [1.72] real 453.48/473.21 [115.61] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 91.04/91.00 [0.86] system 8.95/9.41 [2.06] real 312.16/342.29 [100.53]

vswapra:
1 x 2048M [20 runs] user 98.47/98.32 [1.33] system 9.85/9.90 [0.92] real 373.95/382.64 [26.77] 2 x 1024M [20 runs] user 96.89/97.00 [0.44] system 9.52/9.48 [1.49] real 288.43/281.55 [53.12] 4 x 540M [20 runs] user 98.74/98.70 [0.92] system 7.62/7.83 [1.25] real 291.15/296.94 [54.85] 8 x 280M [20 runs] user 100.68/100.59 [0.53] system 7.59/7.62 [0.41] real 305.12/311.29 [26.09] 16 x 128M [20 runs] user 88.67/88.50 [1.02] system 6.06/6.22 [0.72] real 205.29/221.65 [42.06]

Furthermore I changed the patch to leave shmem alone for now and added documentation for the new approach. And I adjusted the changelog a bit.

Andi, I think the NUMA policy is already taken care of. Can you have another look at it? Other than that you gave positive feedback - can I add your acked-by?

Hannes

---
The current swap readahead implementation reads a physically contiguous group of swap slots around the faulting page to take advantage of the disk head's position and in the hope that the surrounding pages will be needed soon as well.

This works as long as the physical swap slot order approximates the LRU order decently, otherwise it wastes memory and IO bandwidth to read in pages that are unlikely to be needed soon.

However, the physical swap slot layout diverges from the LRU order with increasing swap activity, i.e. high memory pressure situations, and this is exactly the situation where swapin should not waste any memory or IO bandwidth as both are the most contended resources at this point.

Another approximation for LRU-relation is the VMA order as groups of VMA-related pages are usually used together.

This patch combines both the physical and the virtual hint to get a good approximation of pages that are sensible to read ahead.

When both diverge, we either read unrelated data, seek heavily for related data, or, what this patch does, just decrease the readahead efforts.

Quoted 8 lines

To achieve this, we have essentially two readahead windows of the same
size: one spans the virtual, the other one the physical neighborhood of the faulting page. We only read where both areas overlap.

I think this a great idea, a very promising approach. I like it so much better than Andrew's and others' proposals to dedicate areas of swap space to distinct virtual objects: which, as you rightly pointed out, condemn us to unnecessary seeking when writing swap (and is even more of an issue if we're writing to SSD rather than HDD).

It would be nice to get results from a wider set of benchmarks than just qsbench; but I don't think qsbench is biased in your favour, and I don't think you need go to too much trouble on that - let's just aim to get your work into mmotm, then we can all play around with it for a while. I suppose what I'd most like is to try it with shmem, which you've understandably left out for now.

You'll be hating me for the way I made shmem_truncate_range() etc. nigh incomprehensible when enabling highmem index pages there. Christoph Rohland's original was much nicer. Again and again and again I've wanted to throw all that out, and keep swap entries in the standard radix tree which keeps the struct page pointers; but again and again and again, I've been unable to justify losing the highmem index ability - for a while it seemed as if x86_64 was going to make highmem a thing of the past, and it's certainly helped us to ignore 32GB 32-bit; but I think 4GB 32-bit is here a long while.

Though I like the way you localized it all into swapin_readahead(), I'd prefer to keep ptes out of swap_state.c, and think several issues will fall away if you turn your patch around. You'll avoid the pte code in swap_state.c, you'll satisfy Andi's concerns about locking/kmapping overhead, and you'll find shmem much much easier, if instead of peering back at where you've come from in swapin_readahead(), you make the outer levels (do_swap_page and shmem_getpage) pass a vector of swap entries to swapin_readahead()? That vector on stack, and copied from the one page table or index page (don't bother to cross page table or index page boundaries) while it was mapped.

It's probably irrelevant to you, but I've attached an untested patch of mine which stomps somewhat on this area: I was shocked to notice shmem_getpage() in a list of deep stack offenders a few months back, realized it was those unpleasant NUMA mempolicy pseudo-vmas, and made a patch to get rid of them. I've rebased it to 2.6.30-rc8 and checked that the resulting kernel runs, but not really tested it; and I think I didn't even try to get the mpol reference counting right (tends to be an issue precisely in swapin_readahead, where one mpol ends up used repeatedly) - mpol refcounting is an arcane art only Lee understands! I've attached the patch because you may want to glance at it and decide, either that it's something which is helpful to the direction you're going in and you'd like to base upon it, or that it's a distraction and you'd prefer me to keep it to myself until your changes are in.

But your patch below is incomplete, isn't it? The old swapin_readahead() is now called swapin_readahead_phys(), and you want shmem_getpage() to be using that for now: but no prototype for it and no change to mm/shmem.c.

Hugh

Quoted 141 lines
---
 mm/swap_state.c |  115 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 99 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

version 2:
o fall back to physical ra window for shmem
o add documentation to the new ra algorithm

qsbench, 20 runs, 1.7GB RAM, 2GB swap, "mean (standard deviation) median":

vanilla vswapra

1  x 2048M	391.25 ( 71.76) 384.56		445.55 (83.19) 415.41
2  x 1024M	384.25 ( 75.00) 423.08		290.26 (31.38) 299.51
4  x  540M	553.91 (100.02) 554.57		336.58 (52.49) 331.52
8  x  280M	561.08 ( 82.36) 583.12		319.13 (43.17) 307.69

16 x 128M 285.51 (113.20) 236.62 214.24 (62.37) 214.15

mm/swap_state.c +89 -16
@@ -325,27 +325,14 @@ struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_e
 	return found_page;
 }
 
-/**
- * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
- * @entry: swap entry of this memory
- * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
- * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
- * @addr: target address for mempolicy
- *
- * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
- *
+/*
  * Primitive swap readahead code. We simply read an aligned block of
  * (1 << page_cluster) entries in the swap area. This method is chosen
  * because it doesn't cost us any seek time.  We also make sure to queue
  * the 'original' request together with the readahead ones...
- *
- * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm triggering
- * the readahead.
- *
- * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
  */
-struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+static struct page *swapin_readahead_phys(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+				struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
 {
 	int nr_pages;
 	struct page *page;
@@ -371,3 +358,99 @@ struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_
 	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
 	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
 }
+
+/**
+ * swapin_readahead - swap in pages in hope we need them soon
+ * @entry: swap entry of this memory
+ * @gfp_mask: memory allocation flags
+ * @vma: user vma this address belongs to
+ * @addr: target address for mempolicy
+ *
+ * Returns the struct page for entry and addr, after queueing swapin.
+ *
+ * The readahead window is the virtual area around the faulting page,
+ * where the physical proximity of the swap slots is taken into
+ * account as well.
+ *
+ * While the swap allocation algorithm tries to keep LRU-related pages
+ * together on the swap backing, it is not reliable on heavy thrashing
+ * systems where concurrent reclaimers allocate swap slots and/or most
+ * anonymous memory pages are already in swap cache.
+ *
+ * On the virtual side, subgroups of VMA-related pages are usually
+ * used together, which gives another hint to LRU relationship.
+ *
+ * By taking both aspects into account, we get a good approximation of
+ * which pages are sensible to read together with the faulting one.
+ *
+ * This has been extended to use the NUMA policies from the mm
+ * triggering the readahead.
+ *
+ * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
+ */
+struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	unsigned long start, pos, end;
+	unsigned long pmin, pmax;
+	int cluster, window;
+
+	if (!vma || !vma->vm_mm)	/* XXX: shmem case */
+		return swapin_readahead_phys(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+
+	cluster = 1 << page_cluster;
+	window = cluster << PAGE_SHIFT;
+
+	/* Physical range to read from */
+	pmin = swp_offset(entry) & ~(cluster - 1);
+	pmax = pmin + cluster;
+
+	/* Virtual range to read from */
+	start = addr & ~(window - 1);
+	end = start + window;
+
+	for (pos = start; pos < end; pos += PAGE_SIZE) {
+		struct page *page;
+		swp_entry_t swp;
+		spinlock_t *ptl;
+		pgd_t *pgd;
+		pud_t *pud;
+		pmd_t *pmd;
+		pte_t *pte;
+
+		pgd = pgd_offset(vma->vm_mm, pos);
+		if (!pgd_present(*pgd))
+			continue;
+		pud = pud_offset(pgd, pos);
+		if (!pud_present(*pud))
+			continue;
+		pmd = pmd_offset(pud, pos);
+		if (!pmd_present(*pmd))
+			continue;
+		pte = pte_offset_map_lock(vma->vm_mm, pmd, pos, &ptl);
+		if (!is_swap_pte(*pte)) {
+			pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+			continue;
+		}
+		swp = pte_to_swp_entry(*pte);
+		pte_unmap_unlock(pte, ptl);
+
+		if (swp_type(swp) != swp_type(entry))
+			continue;
+		/*
+		 * Dont move the disk head too far away.  This also
+		 * throttles readahead while thrashing, where virtual
+		 * order diverges more and more from physical order.
+		 */
+		if (swp_offset(swp) > pmax)
+			continue;

mm/swap_state.c struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_ · line 456

Quoted 10 lines
mm/swap_state.c +10 -0
+		if (swp_offset(swp) < pmin)
+			continue;
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp, gfp_mask, vma, pos);
+		if (!page)
+			continue;
+		page_cache_release(page);
+	}
+	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+}

[PATCH] mm: alloc_page_mpol

Introduce alloc_page_mpol(), to get rid of those mpol pseudo-vmas from shmem.c, which caused shmem_getpage() to show up in deep stack reports.

Not-yet-Signed-off-by Hugh Dickins <[email protected]>

---

 include/linux/gfp.h       |    6 +++
 include/linux/mempolicy.h |   10 ++++++
 include/linux/swap.h      |    9 ++---
 mm/memory.c               |    5 +--
 mm/mempolicy.c            |   75 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------
 mm/shmem.c                |   66 ++++------------------------------------
 mm/swap_state.c           |   10 +++---
 mm/swapfile.c             |    4 +-
 8 files changed, 80 insertions(+), 105 deletions(-)
include/linux/gfp.h +5 -1
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 #include <linux/topology.h>
 
 struct vm_area_struct;
+struct mempolicy;
 
 /*
  * GFP bitmasks..
@@ -213,10 +214,13 @@ alloc_pages(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int
 }
 extern struct page *alloc_page_vma(gfp_t gfp_mask,
 			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr);
+extern struct page *alloc_page_mpol(gfp_t gfp_mask,
+			struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff);
 #else
 #define alloc_pages(gfp_mask, order) \
 		alloc_pages_node(numa_node_id(), gfp_mask, order)
-#define alloc_page_vma(gfp_mask, vma, addr) alloc_pages(gfp_mask, 0)
+#define alloc_page_vma(gfp_mask, vma, addr)	alloc_pages(gfp_mask, 0)
+#define alloc_page_mpol(gfp_mask, mpol, pgoff)	alloc_pages(gfp_mask, 0)
 #endif
 #define alloc_page(gfp_mask) alloc_pages(gfp_mask, 0)
 
include/linux/mempolicy.h +10 -0
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ enum {
 #include <linux/pagemap.h>
 
 struct mm_struct;
+struct vm_area_struct;
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
 
@@ -147,6 +148,9 @@ static inline struct mempolicy *mpol_dup
 	return pol;
 }
 
+extern struct mempolicy *get_vma_policy(struct task_struct *task,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr);
+
 #define vma_policy(vma) ((vma)->vm_policy)
 #define vma_set_policy(vma, pol) ((vma)->vm_policy = (pol))
 
@@ -294,6 +298,12 @@ mpol_shared_policy_lookup(struct shared_
 {
 	return NULL;
 }
+
+static inline struct mempolicy *get_vma_policy(struct task_struct *task,
+			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+{
+	return NULL;
+}
 
 #define vma_policy(vma) NULL
 #define vma_set_policy(vma, pol) do {} while(0)
include/linux/swap.h +4 -5
@@ -12,9 +12,8 @@
 #include <asm/atomic.h>
 #include <asm/page.h>
 
-struct notifier_block;
-
 struct bio;
+struct mempolicy;
 
 #define SWAP_FLAG_PREFER	0x8000	/* set if swap priority specified */
 #define SWAP_FLAG_PRIO_MASK	0x7fff
@@ -290,9 +289,9 @@ extern void free_page_and_swap_cache(str
 extern void free_pages_and_swap_cache(struct page **, int);
 extern struct page *lookup_swap_cache(swp_entry_t);
 extern struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_entry_t, gfp_t,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr);
+			struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff);
 extern struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t, gfp_t,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr);
+			struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff);
 
 /* linux/mm/swapfile.c */
 extern long nr_swap_pages;
@@ -377,7 +376,7 @@ static inline void swap_free(swp_entry_t
 }
 
 static inline struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t swp, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+					struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff)
 {
 	return NULL;
 }
mm/memory.c +3 -2
@@ -2467,8 +2467,9 @@ static int do_swap_page(struct mm_struct
 	page = lookup_swap_cache(entry);
 	if (!page) {
 		grab_swap_token(); /* Contend for token _before_ read-in */
-		page = swapin_readahead(entry,
-					GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE, vma, address);
+		page = swapin_readahead(entry, GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE,
+					get_vma_policy(current, vma, address),
+					linear_page_index(vma, address));
 		if (!page) {
 			/*
 			 * Back out if somebody else faulted in this pte
mm/mempolicy.c +43 -32

120 lines not on this page · raw message

mm/shmem.c +8 -58

94 lines not on this page · raw message

mm/swap_state.c +5 -5
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ struct page * lookup_swap_cache(swp_entr
  * the swap entry is no longer in use.
  */
 struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+			struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff)
 {
 	struct page *found_page, *new_page = NULL;
 	int err;
@@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_e
 		 * Get a new page to read into from swap.
 		 */
 		if (!new_page) {
-			new_page = alloc_page_vma(gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+			new_page = alloc_page_mpol(gfp_mask, mpol, pgoff);
 			if (!new_page)
 				break;		/* Out of memory */
 		}
@@ -345,7 +345,7 @@ struct page *read_swap_cache_async(swp_e
  * Caller must hold down_read on the vma->vm_mm if vma is not NULL.
  */
 struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
-			struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
+			struct mempolicy *mpol, pgoff_t pgoff)
 {
 	int nr_pages;
 	struct page *page;
@@ -363,11 +363,11 @@ struct page *swapin_readahead(swp_entry_
 	for (end_offset = offset + nr_pages; offset < end_offset; offset++) {
 		/* Ok, do the async read-ahead now */
 		page = read_swap_cache_async(swp_entry(swp_type(entry), offset),
-						gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+						gfp_mask, mpol, pgoff);
 		if (!page)
 			break;
 		page_cache_release(page);
 	}
 	lru_add_drain();	/* Push any new pages onto the LRU now */
-	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, vma, addr);
+	return read_swap_cache_async(entry, gfp_mask, mpol, pgoff);
 }
mm/swapfile.c +2 -2
@@ -951,8 +951,8 @@ static int try_to_unuse(unsigned int typ
 		 */
 		swap_map = &si->swap_map[i];
 		entry = swp_entry(type, i);
-		page = read_swap_cache_async(entry,
-					GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE, NULL, 0);
+		page = read_swap_cache_async(entry, GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE,
+					get_vma_policy(current, NULL, 0), 0);
 		if (!page) {
 			/*
 			 * Either swap_duplicate() failed because entry
author reviewer
#9 lore raw
Quoted 43 lines · Hugh Dickins
Quoted 26 lines · Johannes Weiner

The current swap readahead implementation reads a physically contiguous group of swap slots around the faulting page to take advantage of the disk head's position and in the hope that the surrounding pages will be needed soon as well.

This works as long as the physical swap slot order approximates the LRU order decently, otherwise it wastes memory and IO bandwidth to read in pages that are unlikely to be needed soon.

However, the physical swap slot layout diverges from the LRU order with increasing swap activity, i.e. high memory pressure situations, and this is exactly the situation where swapin should not waste any memory or IO bandwidth as both are the most contended resources at this point.

Another approximation for LRU-relation is the VMA order as groups of VMA-related pages are usually used together.

This patch combines both the physical and the virtual hint to get a good approximation of pages that are sensible to read ahead.

When both diverge, we either read unrelated data, seek heavily for related data, or, what this patch does, just decrease the readahead efforts.

Quoted 8 lines

To achieve this, we have essentially two readahead windows of the same
size: one spans the virtual, the other one the physical neighborhood of the faulting page. We only read where both areas overlap.

I think this a great idea, a very promising approach. I like it so much better than Andrew's and others' proposals to dedicate areas of swap space to distinct virtual objects: which, as you rightly pointed out, condemn us to unnecessary seeking when writing swap (and is even more of an issue if we're writing to SSD rather than HDD).

Quoted 7 lines

It would be nice to get results from a wider set of benchmarks than just qsbench; but I don't think qsbench is biased in your favour, and I don't think you need go to too much trouble on that - let's just aim to get your work into mmotm, then we can all play around with it for a while. I suppose what I'd most like is to try it with shmem, which you've understandably left out for now.

I agree, it would be nice to have this in mm soonish and have it exposed a bit more until .31 or .32. And I'll continue to test other loads.

Quoted 9 lines

You'll be hating me for the way I made shmem_truncate_range() etc. nigh incomprehensible when enabling highmem index pages there. Christoph Rohland's original was much nicer. Again and again and again I've wanted to throw all that out, and keep swap entries in the standard radix tree which keeps the struct page pointers; but again and again and again, I've been unable to justify losing the highmem index ability - for a while it seemed as if x86_64 was going to make highmem a thing of the past, and it's certainly helped us to ignore 32GB 32-bit; but I think 4GB 32-bit is here a long while.

Regarding highmem, I have only one 32 bit box with 1G memory and highmem= seems to be broken right now. The documentation says it will fix-set the zone. It does not on x86, but instead seems to set up Normal and then complain about the lack of remaining pages to stuff into HighMem.

With 128M HighMem, testing for highpte mapping overhead is a bit bogus so I can't do that until I figure something out (either fixing highmem= or no-opping GFP_HIGHMEM and use GFP_HIGHPTE for the pte pages).

Or redoing the patch as you suggested below, which is probably what I will opt for.

Quoted 10 lines

Though I like the way you localized it all into swapin_readahead(), I'd prefer to keep ptes out of swap_state.c, and think several issues will fall away if you turn your patch around. You'll avoid the pte code in swap_state.c, you'll satisfy Andi's concerns about locking/kmapping overhead, and you'll find shmem much much easier, if instead of peering back at where you've come from in swapin_readahead(), you make the outer levels (do_swap_page and shmem_getpage) pass a vector of swap entries to swapin_readahead()? That vector on stack, and copied from the one page table or index page (don't bother to cross page table or index page boundaries) while it was mapped.

That is a nice suggestion.

Quoted 6 lines

It's probably irrelevant to you, but I've attached an untested patch of mine which stomps somewhat on this area: I was shocked to notice shmem_getpage() in a list of deep stack offenders a few months back, realized it was those unpleasant NUMA mempolicy pseudo-vmas, and made a patch to get rid of them. I've rebased it to 2.6.30-rc8 and checked that the resulting kernel runs, but not really tested it; and I think

Quoted 8 lines

I didn't even try to get the mpol reference counting right (tends to be an issue precisely in swapin_readahead, where one mpol ends up used repeatedly) - mpol refcounting is an arcane art only Lee understands! I've attached the patch because you may want to glance at it and decide, either that it's something which is helpful to the direction you're going in and you'd like to base upon it, or that it's a distraction and you'd prefer me to keep it to myself until your changes are in.

I will try to make swapin_readahead() take an array of ptes, then your patch shouldn't get in my way as I don't need the vma anymore.

Quoted 3 lines

But your patch below is incomplete, isn't it? The old swapin_readahead() is now called swapin_readahead_phys(), and you want shmem_getpage() to be using that for now: but no prototype for it and no change to mm/shmem.c.

You probably missed the no-vma or no-vma->vm_mm branch in swapin_readahead(). shmem either sends in a NULL-vma or the dummy-vma that has no vm->vm_mm set. Oops. That is of course a bug, vma->vm_mm is uninitialized, not NULL. But that will go away as well.

Thanks,

Hannes

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