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avoid external fragmentation related to migration fallback

RFC PATCH In review ChengYi He 4 participants 8 messages Jan 29, 2016 – Feb 2, 2016

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ChengYi He

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cover avoid external fragmentation related to migration fallback

The patchset tries to avoid external fragmentation related to migration fallback. The symptom of this external fragmentation is that there are lots of allocation failures of order-2 and order-3 pages and many threads enter allocation slowpath to compact and direct reclaim pages. This will degrade system performance and make it less responsive to users. This symptom could be observed in devices which have only one memory zone, such as some arm64 android devices. Below are two examples in which processes fail to allocate order-2 and order-3 pages and enter direct reclaim.

1) In arm64, THREAD_SIZE_ORDER is 2. The thread enters direct reclaim while allocating an order-2 page as kernel stack.

[<ffffffc0002077dc>] dump_backtrace+0x0/0x134
[<ffffffc000207920>] show_stack+0x10/0x1c
[<ffffffc000cedc64>] dump_stack+0x1c/0x28
[<ffffffc0002cb6bc>] try_to_free_pages+0x5d8/0x704
[<ffffffc0002c219c>] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x544/0x834
[<ffffffc00021a1e4>] copy_process.part.58+0xf4/0xdfc
[<ffffffc00021b000>] do_fork+0xe0/0x358
[<ffffffc00021b310>] SyS_clone+0x10/0x1c

2) The thread enters direct reclaim while allocating an order-3 page.

[<ffffffc0002077dc>] dump_backtrace+0x0/0x134
[<ffffffc000207920>] show_stack+0x10/0x1c
[<ffffffc000cedc64>] dump_stack+0x1c/0x28
[<ffffffc0002cb6bc>] try_to_free_pages+0x5d8/0x704
[<ffffffc0002c219c>] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x544/0x834
[<ffffffc0002f0c68>] new_slab+0x80/0x23c
[<ffffffc0002f2780>] __slab_alloc.isra.50.constprop.55+0x26c/0x300
[<ffffffc0002f2abc>] kmem_cache_alloc+0x94/0x1d4
[<ffffffc0003e3a1c>] fuse_alloc_inode+0x20/0xb8
[<ffffffc00030f468>] alloc_inode+0x1c/0x90
[<ffffffc000310134>] iget5_locked+0xa0/0x1c0
[<ffffffc0003e3d00>] fuse_iget+0x60/0x1bc
[<ffffffc0003de13c>] fuse_lookup_name+0x140/0x194
[<ffffffc0003de1c4>] fuse_lookup+0x34/0x110
[<ffffffc00030236c>] lookup_real+0x30/0x54
[<ffffffc000302efc>] __lookup_hash+0x30/0x48
[<ffffffc00030377c>] lookup_slow+0x44/0xbc
[<ffffffc000304dd8>] path_lookupat+0x104/0x710
[<ffffffc00030540c>] filename_lookup.isra.32+0x28/0x74
[<ffffffc0003072cc>] user_path_at_empty+0x58/0x88
[<ffffffc000307308>] user_path_at+0xc/0x18
[<ffffffc0002f8764>] SyS_faccessat+0xc0/0x1bc

Below is the root cause of this external fragmentation which could be observed in devices which have only one memory zone, such as some arm64 android devices:

1) In arm64, the first 4GB physical address space is of DMA zone. If the size of physical memory is less than 4GB and the whole memory is in the first 4GB address space, then the system will have only one DMA zone.
2) By default, all pageblocks are Movable.
3) Allocators such as slab, ion, graphics preferably allocate pages of Unmvoable migration type. It might fallback to allocate Movable pages and changes Movable pageblocks into Unmovable ones.
4) Movable pagesblocks will become less and less due to above reason. However, in android system, AnonPages request is always high. The Movable pages will be easily exhausted.
5) While Movable pages are exhausted, the Movable allocations will frequently fallback to allocate the largest feasiable pages of the other migration types. The order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split into smaller ones easily.

This symptom doesn't appear in arm32 android which usually has two memory zones including Highmem and Normal. The slab, ion, and graphics allocators allocate pages with flag GFP_KERNEL. Only Movable pageblocks in Normal zone become less, and the Movable pages in Highmem zone are still a lot. Thus, the Movable pages will not be easily exhausted, and there will not be frequent fallbacks.

Since the root cause is that fallbacks might frequently split order-2 and order-3 pages of the other migration types. This patch tweaks fallback mechanism to avoid splitting order-2 and order-3 pages. while fallbacks happen, if the largest feasible pages are less than or queal to COSTLY_ORDER, i.e. 3, then try to select the smallest feasible pages. The reason why fallbacks prefer the largest feasiable pages is to increase fallback efficiency since fallbacks are likely to happen again. By stealing the largest feasible pages, it could reduce the oppourtunities of antoher fallback. Besides, it could make consecutive allocations more approximate to each other and make system less fragment. However, if the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to order-3, fallbacks might split it and make the upcoming order-3 page allocations fail.

My test is against arm64 android devices with kernel 3.10.49. I set the same account and install the same applications in both deivces and use them synchronously.

Test result:
1) Test without this patch:
Most free pages are order-0 Unmovable ones. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively high. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-2 and order-3 allocations.
2) Test with this patch:
There are more order-2 and order-3 free pages. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively low. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-0 allocations.

Log:
1) Test without this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:55 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:52, idle time: 8 days, 14:48:55, sleep time: 16:43:56 ------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:          194524 kB
Buffers:            3788 kB
Cached:           380872 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable 43852   701     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable  3357     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     5     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     1     5    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA     2     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 362 80 170 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 31755040
pgsteal_direct_dma 34597394
pgscan_kswapd_dma 36427664
pgscan_direct_dma 39490711
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 201929 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 4858
allocstall 664269
allocstall_order_0 9738
allocstall_order_1 1787
allocstall_order_2 637608
allocstall_order_3 15136
pgmigrate_success 2941956
pgmigrate_fail 1033
compact_migrate_scanned 142985157
compact_free_scanned 4734040109
compact_isolated 7720362
compact_stall 65978
compact_fail 46084
compact_success 11717

2) Test with this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:31 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:30
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           47612 kB
Buffers:            3732 kB
Cached:           387048 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   272   243   126    1    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable     0   361   168   46    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable  4103  1782   130    3    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA   563     2     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 183 12 417 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 50710868
pgsteal_direct_dma 1756780
pgscan_kswapd_dma 58281837
pgscan_direct_dma 2022049
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 37599 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 13564
allocstall 27510
allocstall_order_0 26101
allocstall_order_1 23
allocstall_order_2 1224
allocstall_order_3 162
pgmigrate_success 63751
pgmigrate_fail 7
compact_migrate_scanned 278170
compact_free_scanned 6155410
compact_isolated 140762
compact_stall 749
compact_fail 54
compact_success 22
unevictable_pgs_culled 794

Below is the status of another device with this patch. /proc/pagetypeinfo shows that even if there are no Movable pages, there are lots of order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages. For this case, if the patch is not applied, then order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split easily. It's likely that system perforamnce will become low due to severe external fragmentation.

------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 33 days, 08:10:58
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           37340 kB
Buffers:           13412 kB
Cached:           655456 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2     3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   718   628  1116   301    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable   198    93     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA    89    11     3     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0     0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 377 115 120 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_direct_dma 28575192
pgsteal_kswapd_dma 378357910
pgscan_kswapd_dma 422765699
pgscan_direct_dma 31860747
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 947979 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 139901
allocstall 592989
compact_migrate_scanned 149884903
compact_free_scanned 6629299888
compact_isolated 7699012
compact_stall 52550
compact_fail 45155
compact_success 6057

ChengYi He (2):
mm/page_alloc: let migration fallback support pages of requested order mm/page_alloc: avoid splitting pages of order 2 and 3 in migration
fallback

 mm/page_alloc.c | 92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
 1 file changed, 59 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)
Signature · 7 lines
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author
#1 lore raw

RFC PATCH 1/2 mm/page_alloc: let migration fallback support pages of requested order

This helper function only factors out the code flow within each order during fallback. There is no function change.

---
 mm/page_alloc.c | 79 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------
 1 file changed, 46 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)
mm/page_alloc.c +46 -33
index 63358d9..50c325a 100644
@@ -1752,51 +1752,64 @@ static void unreserve_highatomic_pageblock(const struct alloc_context *ac)
 	}
 }
 
-/* Remove an element from the buddy allocator from the fallback list */
 static inline struct page *
-__rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order, int start_migratetype)
+__rmqueue_fallback_order(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order,
+		int start_migratetype, int current_order)
 {
 	struct free_area *area;
-	unsigned int current_order;
 	struct page *page;
 	int fallback_mt;
 	bool can_steal;
 
-	/* Find the largest possible block of pages in the other list */
-	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER-1;
-				current_order >= order && current_order <= MAX_ORDER-1;
-				--current_order) {
-		area = &(zone->free_area[current_order]);
-		fallback_mt = find_suitable_fallback(area, current_order,
-				start_migratetype, false, &can_steal);
-		if (fallback_mt == -1)
-			continue;
+	area = &(zone->free_area[current_order]);
+	fallback_mt = find_suitable_fallback(area, current_order,
+			start_migratetype, false, &can_steal);
+	if (fallback_mt == -1)
+		return NULL;
 
-		page = list_first_entry(&area->free_list[fallback_mt],
-						struct page, lru);
-		if (can_steal)
-			steal_suitable_fallback(zone, page, start_migratetype);
+	page = list_first_entry(&area->free_list[fallback_mt],
+					struct page, lru);
+	if (can_steal)
+		steal_suitable_fallback(zone, page, start_migratetype);
 
-		/* Remove the page from the freelists */
-		area->nr_free--;
-		list_del(&page->lru);
-		rmv_page_order(page);
+	/* Remove the page from the freelists */
+	area->nr_free--;
+	list_del(&page->lru);
+	rmv_page_order(page);
 
-		expand(zone, page, order, current_order, area,
-					start_migratetype);
-		/*
-		 * The pcppage_migratetype may differ from pageblock's
-		 * migratetype depending on the decisions in
-		 * find_suitable_fallback(). This is OK as long as it does not
-		 * differ for MIGRATE_CMA pageblocks. Those can be used as
-		 * fallback only via special __rmqueue_cma_fallback() function
-		 */
-		set_pcppage_migratetype(page, start_migratetype);
+	expand(zone, page, order, current_order, area,
+				start_migratetype);
+	/*
+	 * The pcppage_migratetype may differ from pageblock's
+	 * migratetype depending on the decisions in
+	 * find_suitable_fallback(). This is OK as long as it does not
+	 * differ for MIGRATE_CMA pageblocks. Those can be used as
+	 * fallback only via special __rmqueue_cma_fallback() function
+	 */
+	set_pcppage_migratetype(page, start_migratetype);
 
-		trace_mm_page_alloc_extfrag(page, order, current_order,
-			start_migratetype, fallback_mt);
+	trace_mm_page_alloc_extfrag(page, order, current_order,
+		start_migratetype, fallback_mt);
 
-		return page;
+	return page;
+}
+
+/* Remove an element from the buddy allocator from the fallback list */
+static inline struct page *
+__rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order, int start_migratetype)
+{
+	unsigned int current_order;
+	struct page *page;
+
+	/* Find the largest possible block of pages in the other list */
+	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER-1;
+				current_order >= order && current_order <= MAX_ORDER-1;
+				--current_order) {
+		page = __rmqueue_fallback_order(zone, order, start_migratetype,
+				current_order);
+
+		if (page)
+			return page;
 	}
 
 	return NULL;
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author
#2 lore raw

RFC PATCH 2/2 mm/page_alloc: avoid splitting pages of order 2 and 3 in migration fallback

In reply to ChengYi He

While buddy system fallbacks to allocate different migration type pages, it prefers the largest feasible pages and might split the chosen page into smalller ones. If the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to orde-3 and migration fallback happens frequently, then order-2 and order-3 pages can be exhausted easily. This patch aims to allocate the smallest feasible pages for the fallback mechanism under this condition.

---
 mm/page_alloc.c | 19 ++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
mm/page_alloc.c +16 -3
index 50c325a..3fcb653 100644
@@ -1802,9 +1802,22 @@ __rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order, int start_migratetype)
 	struct page *page;
 
 	/* Find the largest possible block of pages in the other list */
-	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER-1;
-				current_order >= order && current_order <= MAX_ORDER-1;
-				--current_order) {
+	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER - 1;
+			current_order >= max_t(unsigned int, PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER + 1, order);
+			--current_order) {
+		page = __rmqueue_fallback_order(zone, order, start_migratetype,
+				current_order);
+
+		if (page)
+			return page;
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * While current_order <= PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER, find the smallest
+	 * feasible pages in the other list to avoid splitting high order pages
+	 */
+	for (current_order = order; current_order <= PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER;
+			++current_order) {
 		page = __rmqueue_fallback_order(zone, order, start_migratetype,
 				current_order);
 
Signature · 7 lines
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#3 lore raw

Re: [RFC PATCH 2/2] mm/page_alloc: avoid splitting pages of order 2 and 3 in migration fallback

Quoted 32 lines · ChengYi He

While buddy system fallbacks to allocate different migration type pages, it prefers the largest feasible pages and might split the chosen page into smalller ones. If the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to orde-3 and migration fallback happens frequently, then order-2 and order-3 pages can be exhausted easily. This patch aims to allocate the smallest feasible pages for the fallback mechanism under this condition.

---
 mm/page_alloc.c | 19 ++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
mm/page_alloc.c +9 -3
index 50c325a..3fcb653 100644
@@ -1802,9 +1802,22 @@ __rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order, int start_migratetype)
 	struct page *page;
 
 	/* Find the largest possible block of pages in the other list */
-	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER-1;
-				current_order >= order && current_order <= MAX_ORDER-1;
-				--current_order) {
+	for (current_order = MAX_ORDER - 1;
+			current_order >= max_t(unsigned int, PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER + 1, order);
+			--current_order) {
+		page = __rmqueue_fallback_order(zone, order, start_migratetype,
+				current_order);
+
+		if (page)
+			return page;
+	}

mm/page_alloc.c __rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order, int start_migratetype) · line 1823

Quoted 10 lines
mm/page_alloc.c +7 -0
+
+	/*
+	 * While current_order <= PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER, find the smallest
+	 * feasible pages in the other list to avoid splitting high order pages
+	 */
+	for (current_order = order; current_order <= PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER;
+			++current_order) {
 		page = __rmqueue_fallback_order(zone, order, start_migratetype,
 				current_order);
 

Hi Chengyi,

So you mean use the largest block first, if no large block left, the use the smallest block, right?

I have an idea, how about set two migrate types(movable and unmovable) when doing init work? The function is memmap_init_zone().

I don't know how to set the ratio, maybe unmovable takes 1/10 memory, and left 9/10 memory to movable? I think this effect is a little like the two zones (normal and movable).

Another two ideas
https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/8/14/67
7d348b9ea64db0a315d777ce7d4b06697f946503, maybe this patch is not applied on your 3.10

Thanks,
Xishi Qiu

#4 lore raw
In reply to ChengYi He

On 01/29/2016 08:23 PM, ChengYi He wrote:

[...]

Quoted 19 lines

Below is the root cause of this external fragmentation which could be observed in devices which have only one memory zone, such as some arm64 android devices:

1) In arm64, the first 4GB physical address space is of DMA zone. If the size of physical memory is less than 4GB and the whole memory is in the first 4GB address space, then the system will have only one DMA zone.
2) By default, all pageblocks are Movable.
3) Allocators such as slab, ion, graphics preferably allocate pages of Unmvoable migration type. It might fallback to allocate Movable pages and changes Movable pageblocks into Unmovable ones.
4) Movable pagesblocks will become less and less due to above reason. However, in android system, AnonPages request is always high. The Movable pages will be easily exhausted.
5) While Movable pages are exhausted, the Movable allocations will frequently fallback to allocate the largest feasiable pages of the other migration types. The order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split into smaller ones easily.

Quoted 6 lines

This symptom doesn't appear in arm32 android which usually has two memory zones including Highmem and Normal. The slab, ion, and graphics allocators allocate pages with flag GFP_KERNEL. Only Movable pageblocks in Normal zone become less, and the Movable pages in Highmem zone are still a lot. Thus, the Movable pages will not be easily exhausted, and there will not be frequent fallbacks.

Hm, this 1 zone vs 2 zones shouldn't make that much difference, unless
a) you use zone reclaim mode, or b) you have an old kernel without fair zone allocation policy?

Quoted 4 lines

Since the root cause is that fallbacks might frequently split order-2 and order-3 pages of the other migration types. This patch tweaks fallback mechanism to avoid splitting order-2 and order-3 pages. while fallbacks happen, if the largest feasible pages are less than or queal to

Quoted 8 lines

COSTLY_ORDER, i.e. 3, then try to select the smallest feasible pages. The reason why fallbacks prefer the largest feasiable pages is to increase fallback efficiency since fallbacks are likely to happen again. By stealing the largest feasible pages, it could reduce the oppourtunities of antoher fallback. Besides, it could make consecutive allocations more approximate to each other and make system less fragment. However, if the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to order-3, fallbacks might split it and make the upcoming order-3 page allocations fail.

In theory I don't see immediately why preferring smaller pages for fallback should be a clear win. If it's Unmovable allocations stealing from Movable pageblocks, the allocations will spread over larger areas instead of being grouped together. Maybe, for Movable allocations stealing from Unmovable allocations, preferring smallest might make sense and be safe, as any extra fragmentation is fixable bycompaction. Maybe it was already tried (by Joonsoo?) at some point, I'm not sure right now.

Quoted 3 lines

My test is against arm64 android devices with kernel 3.10.49. I set the same account and install the same applications in both deivces and use them synchronously.

3.10 is wayyyyyy old. There were numerous patches to compaction and anti-fragmentation since then. IIRC the fallback decisions were quite suboptimal at that point. I'm not even sure how you could apply your patches to both recent kernel for posting them, and 3.10 for testing? Is it possible to test on 4.4?

Quoted 134 lines

Test result:
1) Test without this patch:
Most free pages are order-0 Unmovable ones. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively high. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-2 and order-3 allocations.
2) Test with this patch:
There are more order-2 and order-3 free pages. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively low. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-0 allocations.

Log:
1) Test without this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:55 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:52, idle time: 8 days, 14:48:55, sleep time: 16:43:56 ------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:          194524 kB
Buffers:            3788 kB
Cached:           380872 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable 43852   701     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable  3357     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     5     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     1     5    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA     2     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 362 80 170 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 31755040
pgsteal_direct_dma 34597394
pgscan_kswapd_dma 36427664
pgscan_direct_dma 39490711
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 201929 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 4858
allocstall 664269
allocstall_order_0 9738
allocstall_order_1 1787
allocstall_order_2 637608
allocstall_order_3 15136
pgmigrate_success 2941956
pgmigrate_fail 1033
compact_migrate_scanned 142985157
compact_free_scanned 4734040109
compact_isolated 7720362
compact_stall 65978
compact_fail 46084
compact_success 11717

2) Test with this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:31 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:30
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           47612 kB
Buffers:            3732 kB
Cached:           387048 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   272   243   126    1    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable     0   361   168   46    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable  4103  1782   130    3    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA   563     2     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 183 12 417 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 50710868
pgsteal_direct_dma 1756780
pgscan_kswapd_dma 58281837
pgscan_direct_dma 2022049
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 37599 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 13564
allocstall 27510
allocstall_order_0 26101
allocstall_order_1 23
allocstall_order_2 1224
allocstall_order_3 162
pgmigrate_success 63751
pgmigrate_fail 7
compact_migrate_scanned 278170
compact_free_scanned 6155410
compact_isolated 140762
compact_stall 749
compact_fail 54
compact_success 22
unevictable_pgs_culled 794

Below is the status of another device with this patch. /proc/pagetypeinfo shows that even if there are no Movable pages, there are lots of order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages. For this case, if the patch is not applied, then order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split easily. It's likely that system perforamnce will become low due to severe external fragmentation.

------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 33 days, 08:10:58
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           37340 kB
Buffers:           13412 kB
Cached:           655456 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2     3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   718   628  1116   301    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable   198    93     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA    89    11     3     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0     0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 377 115 120 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_direct_dma 28575192
pgsteal_kswapd_dma 378357910
pgscan_kswapd_dma 422765699
pgscan_direct_dma 31860747
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 947979 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 139901
allocstall 592989
compact_migrate_scanned 149884903
compact_free_scanned 6629299888
compact_isolated 7699012
compact_stall 52550
compact_fail 45155
compact_success 6057

Quoted 8 lines

ChengYi He (2):
mm/page_alloc: let migration fallback support pages of requested order mm/page_alloc: avoid splitting pages of order 2 and 3 in migration
fallback

 mm/page_alloc.c | 92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
 1 file changed, 59 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

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#5 lore raw
Quoted 30 lines · Vlastimil Babka

On 01/29/2016 08:23 PM, ChengYi He wrote:

[...]

Quoted 19 lines

Below is the root cause of this external fragmentation which could be observed in devices which have only one memory zone, such as some arm64 android devices:

1) In arm64, the first 4GB physical address space is of DMA zone. If the size of physical memory is less than 4GB and the whole memory is in the first 4GB address space, then the system will have only one DMA zone.
2) By default, all pageblocks are Movable.
3) Allocators such as slab, ion, graphics preferably allocate pages of Unmvoable migration type. It might fallback to allocate Movable pages and changes Movable pageblocks into Unmovable ones.
4) Movable pagesblocks will become less and less due to above reason. However, in android system, AnonPages request is always high. The Movable pages will be easily exhausted.
5) While Movable pages are exhausted, the Movable allocations will frequently fallback to allocate the largest feasiable pages of the other migration types. The order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split into smaller ones easily.

Quoted 6 lines

This symptom doesn't appear in arm32 android which usually has two memory zones including Highmem and Normal. The slab, ion, and graphics allocators allocate pages with flag GFP_KERNEL. Only Movable pageblocks in Normal zone become less, and the Movable pages in Highmem zone are still a lot. Thus, the Movable pages will not be easily exhausted, and there will not be frequent fallbacks.

Quoted 4 lines

Hm, this 1 zone vs 2 zones shouldn't make that much difference, unless
a) you use zone reclaim mode, or b) you have an old kernel without fair zone allocation policy?

Hi Vlastimil,

I agree with you.

I think if we have a normal zone and a movable zone, then the effect of compaction will be better.

e.g.
U: unmovable page
M: movable page
F: free page

one zone(DMA):

paddr:         0                       max
ZONE_DMA:      U M F U M F ... U M F U M F
after compact: U F F U F F ... U M M U M M

two zone(DMA and MOVABLE)

paddr:         0                       max
ZONE_DMA: the same as above
ZONE_MOVABLE:  M F M F M F ... M F M F M F
after compact: F F F F F F ... M M M M M M  // we get large block than above
Quoted 26 lines
Quoted 4 lines

Since the root cause is that fallbacks might frequently split order-2 and order-3 pages of the other migration types. This patch tweaks fallback mechanism to avoid splitting order-2 and order-3 pages. while fallbacks happen, if the largest feasible pages are less than or queal to

Quoted 8 lines

COSTLY_ORDER, i.e. 3, then try to select the smallest feasible pages. The reason why fallbacks prefer the largest feasiable pages is to increase fallback efficiency since fallbacks are likely to happen again. By stealing the largest feasible pages, it could reduce the oppourtunities of antoher fallback. Besides, it could make consecutive allocations more approximate to each other and make system less fragment. However, if the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to order-3, fallbacks might split it and make the upcoming order-3 page allocations fail.

In theory I don't see immediately why preferring smaller pages for fallback should be a clear win. If it's Unmovable allocations stealing from Movable pageblocks, the allocations will spread over larger areas instead of being grouped together. Maybe, for Movable allocations stealing from Unmovable allocations, preferring smallest might make sense and be safe, as any extra fragmentation is fixable bycompaction. Maybe it was already tried (by Joonsoo?) at some point, I'm not sure right now.

Quoted 3 lines

My test is against arm64 android devices with kernel 3.10.49. I set the same account and install the same applications in both deivces and use them synchronously.

Quoted 6 lines

3.10 is wayyyyyy old. There were numerous patches to compaction and anti-fragmentation since then. IIRC the fallback decisions were quite suboptimal at that point. I'm not even sure how you could apply your patches to both recent kernel for posting them, and 3.10 for testing? Is it possible to test on 4.4?

I think it's hard to update the drivers on android smart phone.

Thanks,
Xishi Qiu

Quoted 146 lines
Quoted 134 lines

Test result:
1) Test without this patch:
Most free pages are order-0 Unmovable ones. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively high. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-2 and order-3 allocations.
2) Test with this patch:
There are more order-2 and order-3 free pages. allocstall and compact_stall in /proc/vmstat are relatively low. And most occurances of allocstall are due to order-0 allocations.

Log:
1) Test without this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:55 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:52, idle time: 8 days, 14:48:55, sleep time: 16:43:56 ------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:          194524 kB
Buffers:            3788 kB
Cached:           380872 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable 43852   701     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable  3357     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     5     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     1     5    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA     2     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 362 80 170 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 31755040
pgsteal_direct_dma 34597394
pgscan_kswapd_dma 36427664
pgscan_direct_dma 39490711
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 201929 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 4858
allocstall 664269
allocstall_order_0 9738
allocstall_order_1 1787
allocstall_order_2 637608
allocstall_order_3 15136
pgmigrate_success 2941956
pgmigrate_fail 1033
compact_migrate_scanned 142985157
compact_free_scanned 4734040109
compact_isolated 7720362
compact_stall 65978
compact_fail 46084
compact_success 11717

2) Test with this patch:
------ TIME (date) ------
Fri Jul 3 16:52:31 CST 2015
------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 2 days, 12:06:30
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           47612 kB
Buffers:            3732 kB
Cached:           387048 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2    3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   272   243   126    1    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable     0   361   168   46    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable  4103  1782   130    3    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA   563     2     0    0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0    0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 183 12 417 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_kswapd_dma 50710868
pgsteal_direct_dma 1756780
pgscan_kswapd_dma 58281837
pgscan_direct_dma 2022049
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 37599 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 13564
allocstall 27510
allocstall_order_0 26101
allocstall_order_1 23
allocstall_order_2 1224
allocstall_order_3 162
pgmigrate_success 63751
pgmigrate_fail 7
compact_migrate_scanned 278170
compact_free_scanned 6155410
compact_isolated 140762
compact_stall 749
compact_fail 54
compact_success 22
unevictable_pgs_culled 794

Below is the status of another device with this patch. /proc/pagetypeinfo shows that even if there are no Movable pages, there are lots of order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages. For this case, if the patch is not applied, then order-2 and order-3 Unmovable pages will be split easily. It's likely that system perforamnce will become low due to severe external fragmentation.

------ UPTIME (uptime) ------
up time: 33 days, 08:10:58
------ MEMORY INFO (/proc/meminfo) ------

MemTotal:        2792568 kB
MemFree:           37340 kB
Buffers:           13412 kB
Cached:           655456 kB
------ PAGETYPEINFO (/proc/pagetypeinfo) ------
Free pages count per migrate type at order      0     1     2     3    4
Node    0, zone      DMA, type    Unmovable   718   628  1116   301    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type  Reclaimable   198    93     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Movable     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Reserve     0     0     0     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type          CMA    89    11     3     0    0
Node    0, zone      DMA, type      Isolate     0     0     0     0    0

Number of blocks type Unmovable Reclaimable Movable Reserve CMA Isolate
Node 0, zone DMA 377 115 120 2 113 0
------ VIRTUAL MEMORY STATS (/proc/vmstat) ------ pgsteal_direct_dma 28575192
pgsteal_kswapd_dma 378357910
pgscan_kswapd_dma 422765699
pgscan_direct_dma 31860747
kswapd_low_wmark_hit_quickly 947979 kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 139901
allocstall 592989
compact_migrate_scanned 149884903
compact_free_scanned 6629299888
compact_isolated 7699012
compact_stall 52550
compact_fail 45155
compact_success 6057

Quoted 8 lines

ChengYi He (2):
mm/page_alloc: let migration fallback support pages of requested order mm/page_alloc: avoid splitting pages of order 2 and 3 in migration
fallback

 mm/page_alloc.c | 92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
 1 file changed, 59 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

.

#6 lore raw
In reply to Vlastimil Babka
Quoted 13 lines · Vlastimil Babka
Quoted 4 lines

Since the root cause is that fallbacks might frequently split order-2 and order-3 pages of the other migration types. This patch tweaks fallback mechanism to avoid splitting order-2 and order-3 pages. while fallbacks happen, if the largest feasible pages are less than or queal to

Quoted 8 lines

COSTLY_ORDER, i.e. 3, then try to select the smallest feasible pages. The reason why fallbacks prefer the largest feasiable pages is to increase fallback efficiency since fallbacks are likely to happen again. By stealing the largest feasible pages, it could reduce the oppourtunities of antoher fallback. Besides, it could make consecutive allocations more approximate to each other and make system less fragment. However, if the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to order-3, fallbacks might split it and make the upcoming order-3 page allocations fail.

Quoted 6 lines

In theory I don't see immediately why preferring smaller pages for fallback should be a clear win. If it's Unmovable allocations stealing from Movable pageblocks, the allocations will spread over larger areas instead of being grouped together. Maybe, for Movable allocations stealing from Unmovable allocations, preferring smallest might make sense and be safe, as any extra fragmentation is fixable bycompaction.

I strongly agree that spreading the fallback allocations over a larger area is likely to have a negative impact. Given the age of the kernel being tested, it would make sense to either rebase or at the very last backport the patches that affect watermark calculations and the treatment of high-order pages.

Signature · 8 lines
Mel Gorman
SUSE Labs

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#7 lore raw
Quoted 21 lines · Mel Gorman
Quoted 13 lines · Vlastimil Babka
Quoted 4 lines

Since the root cause is that fallbacks might frequently split order-2 and order-3 pages of the other migration types. This patch tweaks fallback mechanism to avoid splitting order-2 and order-3 pages. while fallbacks happen, if the largest feasible pages are less than or queal to

Quoted 8 lines

COSTLY_ORDER, i.e. 3, then try to select the smallest feasible pages. The reason why fallbacks prefer the largest feasiable pages is to increase fallback efficiency since fallbacks are likely to happen again. By stealing the largest feasible pages, it could reduce the oppourtunities of antoher fallback. Besides, it could make consecutive allocations more approximate to each other and make system less fragment. However, if the largest feasible pages are less than or equal to order-3, fallbacks might split it and make the upcoming order-3 page allocations fail.

Quoted 6 lines

In theory I don't see immediately why preferring smaller pages for fallback should be a clear win. If it's Unmovable allocations stealing from Movable pageblocks, the allocations will spread over larger areas instead of being grouped together. Maybe, for Movable allocations stealing from Unmovable allocations, preferring smallest might make sense and be safe, as any extra fragmentation is fixable bycompaction.

Quoted 6 lines

I strongly agree that spreading the fallback allocations over a larger area is likely to have a negative impact. Given the age of the kernel being tested, it would make sense to either rebase or at the very last backport the patches that affect watermark calculations and the treatment of high-order pages.

Is it the feature of MIGRATE_HIGHATOMIC?

Thanks,
Xishi Qiu