Skip to contentSkip to conversation

Synchronous Lumpy Reclaim V2

PATCH In review Andy Whitcroft 2 participants 4 messages Jul 28, 2007 – Jul 30, 2007

Subsystems (3)
lore
Share & tools
lore
#0 lore raw

cover Synchronous Lumpy Reclaim V2

As pointed out by Mel when reclaim is applied at higher orders a significant amount of IO may be started. As this takes finite time to drain reclaim will consider more areas than ultimatly needed to satisfy the request. This leads to more reclaim than strictly required and reduced success rates.

I was able to confirm Mel's test results on systems locally. These show that even under light load the success rates drop off far more than expected. Testing with a modified version of his patch (which follows) I was able to allocate almost all of ZONE_MOVABLE with a near idle system. I ran 5 test passes sequentially following system boot (the system has 29 hugepages in ZONE_MOVABLE):

2.6.23-rc1 11 8 6 7 7
sync_lumpy v2 28 28 29 29 26

These show that although hugely better than the near 0% success normally expected we can only allocate about a 1/4 of the zone. Using synchronous reclaim for these allocations we get close to 100% as expected.

I have also run our standard high order tests and these show no regressions in allocation success rates at rest, and some significant improvements under load.

Following this email are two patches, both should be considered as bug fixes to lumpy reclaim:

ensure-we-count-pages-transitioning-inactive-via-clear_active_flags:
this a bug fix for Lumpy Reclaim fixing up a bug in VM Event accounting when it marks pages inactive, and

Wait-for-page-writeback-when-directly-reclaiming-contiguous-areas:
updates reclaim making direct reclaim synchronous when applied at orders above PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER.

Patches against 2.6.23-rc1. Andrew please consider for -mm and for pushing to mainline.

-apw

#1 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 ensure we count pages transitioning inactive via clear_active_flags

We are transitioning pages from active to inactive in clear_active_flags, those need counting as PGDEACTIVATE vm events.

---

mm/vmscan.c +1 -0
index d419e10..99ec7fa 100644
@@ -777,6 +777,7 @@ static unsigned long shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long max_scan,
 			     (sc->order > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER)?
 					     ISOLATE_BOTH : ISOLATE_INACTIVE);
 		nr_active = clear_active_flags(&page_list);
+		__count_vm_events(PGDEACTIVATE, nr_active);
 
 		__mod_zone_page_state(zone, NR_ACTIVE, -nr_active);
 		__mod_zone_page_state(zone, NR_INACTIVE,
#2 lore raw

PATCH 2/2 Wait for page writeback when directly reclaiming contiguous areas

In reply to Andy Whitcroft

From: Mel Gorman <[email protected]>

Lumpy reclaim works by selecting a lead page from the LRU list and then selecting pages for reclaim from the order-aligned area of pages. In the situation were all pages in that region are inactive and not referenced by any process over time, it works well.

In the situation where there is even light load on the system, the pages may not free quickly. Out of a area of 1024 pages, maybe only 950 of them are freed when the allocation attempt occurs because lumpy reclaim returned early. This patch alters the behaviour of direct reclaim for large contiguous blocks.

The first attempt to call shrink_page_list() is asynchronous but if it fails, the pages are submitted a second time and the calling process waits for the IO to complete. It'll retry up to 5 times for the pages to be fully freed. This may stall allocators waiting for contiguous memory but that should be expected behaviour for high-order users. It is preferable behaviour to potentially queueing unnecessary areas for IO. Note that kswapd will not stall in this fashion.

Changelog:

Changes in V2:
- remove retry loop
- fix up active accounting (count deactivate events correctly)
- use our own sync/async flag type
---

mm/vmscan.c +49 -6
index 99ec7fa..1c21714 100644
@@ -271,6 +271,12 @@ static void handle_write_error(struct address_space *mapping,
 	unlock_page(page);
 }
 
+/* Request for sync pageout. */
+typedef enum {
+	PAGEOUT_IO_ASYNC,
+	PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC,
+} pageout_io_t;
+
 /* possible outcome of pageout() */
 typedef enum {
 	/* failed to write page out, page is locked */
@@ -287,7 +293,8 @@ typedef enum {
  * pageout is called by shrink_page_list() for each dirty page.
  * Calls ->writepage().
  */
-static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping)
+static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping,
+						pageout_io_t sync_writeback)
 {
 	/*
 	 * If the page is dirty, only perform writeback if that write
@@ -346,6 +353,15 @@ static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping)
 			ClearPageReclaim(page);
 			return PAGE_ACTIVATE;
 		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Wait on writeback if requested to. This happens when
+		 * direct reclaiming a large contiguous area and the
+		 * first attempt to free a ranage of pages fails
+		 */
+		if (PageWriteback(page) && sync_writeback == PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC)
+			wait_on_page_writeback(page);
+
 		if (!PageWriteback(page)) {
 			/* synchronous write or broken a_ops? */
 			ClearPageReclaim(page);
@@ -423,7 +439,8 @@ cannot_free:
  * shrink_page_list() returns the number of reclaimed pages
  */
 static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
-					struct scan_control *sc)
+					struct scan_control *sc,
+					pageout_io_t sync_writeback)
 {
 	LIST_HEAD(ret_pages);
 	struct pagevec freed_pvec;
@@ -458,8 +475,12 @@ static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
 		if (page_mapped(page) || PageSwapCache(page))
 			sc->nr_scanned++;
 
-		if (PageWriteback(page))
-			goto keep_locked;
+		if (PageWriteback(page)) {
+			if (sync_writeback == PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC)
+				wait_on_page_writeback(page);
+			else
+				goto keep_locked;
+		}
 
 		referenced = page_referenced(page, 1);
 		/* In active use or really unfreeable?  Activate it. */
@@ -505,7 +526,7 @@ static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
 				goto keep_locked;
 
 			/* Page is dirty, try to write it out here */
-			switch(pageout(page, mapping)) {
+			switch (pageout(page, mapping, sync_writeback)) {
 			case PAGE_KEEP:
 				goto keep_locked;
 			case PAGE_ACTIVATE:
@@ -786,7 +807,29 @@ static unsigned long shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long max_scan,
 		spin_unlock_irq(&zone->lru_lock);
 
 		nr_scanned += nr_scan;
-		nr_freed = shrink_page_list(&page_list, sc);
+		nr_freed = shrink_page_list(&page_list, sc, PAGEOUT_IO_ASYNC);
+
+		/*
+		 * If we are direct reclaiming for contiguous pages and we do
+		 * not reclaim everything in the list, try again and wait
+		 * for IO to complete. This will stall high-order allocations
+		 * but that should be acceptable to the caller
+		 */
+		if (nr_freed < nr_taken && !current_is_kswapd() &&
+					sc->order > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER) {
+			congestion_wait(WRITE, HZ/10);
+
+			/*
+			 * The attempt at page out may have made some
+			 * of the pages active, mark them inactive again.
+			 */
+			nr_active = clear_active_flags(&page_list);
+			count_vm_events(PGDEACTIVATE, nr_active);
+
+			nr_freed += shrink_page_list(&page_list, sc,
+							PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC);
+		}
+
 		nr_reclaimed += nr_freed;
 		local_irq_disable();
 		if (current_is_kswapd()) {
maintainer
#3 lore raw

Re: [PATCH 2/2] Wait for page writeback when directly reclaiming contiguous areas

Quoted 13 lines · On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 23:52:30 +0100 Andy Whitcroft <[email protected]> wrote:

From: Mel Gorman <[email protected]>

Lumpy reclaim works by selecting a lead page from the LRU list and then selecting pages for reclaim from the order-aligned area of pages. In the situation were all pages in that region are inactive and not referenced by any process over time, it works well.

In the situation where there is even light load on the system, the pages may not free quickly. Out of a area of 1024 pages, maybe only 950 of them are freed when the allocation attempt occurs because lumpy reclaim returned early. This patch alters the behaviour of direct reclaim for large contiguous blocks.

Quoted 7 lines

The first attempt to call shrink_page_list() is asynchronous but if it fails, the pages are submitted a second time and the calling process waits for the IO to complete. It'll retry up to 5 times for the pages to be fully freed. This may stall allocators waiting for contiguous memory but that should be expected behaviour for high-order users. It is preferable behaviour to potentially queueing unnecessary areas for IO. Note that kswapd will not stall in this fashion.

I agree with the intent.

mm/vmscan.c static void handle_write_error(struct address_space *mapping, · line 278

Quoted 5 lines
mm/vmscan.c +5 -0
+/* Request for sync pageout. */
+typedef enum {
+	PAGEOUT_IO_ASYNC,
+	PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC,
+} pageout_io_t;

no typedefs.

(checkpatch.pl knew that ;))

Quoted 14 lines

/* possible outcome of pageout() */
typedef enum {

mm/vmscan.c +2 -1
 	/* failed to write page out, page is locked */
@@ -287,7 +293,8 @@ typedef enum {
  * pageout is called by shrink_page_list() for each dirty page.
  * Calls ->writepage().
  */
-static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping)
+static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping,
+						pageout_io_t sync_writeback)
 {
 	/*
 	 * If the page is dirty, only perform writeback if that write

mm/vmscan.c static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping) · line 360

Quoted 8 lines
mm/vmscan.c +5 -0
@@ -346,6 +353,15 @@ static pageout_t pageout(struct page *page, struct address_space *mapping)
 			ClearPageReclaim(page);
 			return PAGE_ACTIVATE;
 		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Wait on writeback if requested to. This happens when
+		 * direct reclaiming a large contiguous area and the
+		 * first attempt to free a ranage of pages fails

cnat tpye.

Quoted 20 lines
mm/vmscan.c +4 -0
+		 */
+		if (PageWriteback(page) && sync_writeback == PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC)
+			wait_on_page_writeback(page);
+
 
 		if (!PageWriteback(page)) {
 			/* synchronous write or broken a_ops? */
mm/vmscan.c +2 -1
 			ClearPageReclaim(page);
@@ -423,7 +439,8 @@ cannot_free:
  * shrink_page_list() returns the number of reclaimed pages
  */
 static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
-					struct scan_control *sc)
+					struct scan_control *sc,
+					pageout_io_t sync_writeback)
 {
 	LIST_HEAD(ret_pages);
 	struct pagevec freed_pvec;
@@ -458,8 +475,12 @@ static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
 		if (page_mapped(page) || PageSwapCache(page))

mm/vmscan.c static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list, · line 483

Quoted 10 lines
mm/vmscan.c +6 -2
 			sc->nr_scanned++;
 
-		if (PageWriteback(page))
-			goto keep_locked;
+		if (PageWriteback(page)) {
+			if (sync_writeback == PAGEOUT_IO_SYNC)
+				wait_on_page_writeback(page);
+			else
+				goto keep_locked;
+		}

This is unneeded and conceivably deadlocky for !__GFP_FS allocations. Probably we avoid doing all this if the test which may_enter_fs uses is false.

It's unlikely that any very-high-order allocators are using GFP_NOIO or whatever, but still...

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to [email protected]. For more info on Linux MM,
see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ .
Don't email: <a href=mailto:"[email protected]"> [email protected] </a>