Re: [PATCH v5 1/4] deactivate invalidated pages

From: Balbir Singh
Date: Fri Feb 18 2011 - 01:29:16 EST


* MinChan Kim <minchan.kim@xxxxxxxxx> [2011-02-18 00:08:19]:

> Recently, there are reported problem about thrashing.
> (http://marc.info/?l=rsync&m=128885034930933&w=2)
> It happens by backup workloads(ex, nightly rsync).
> That's because the workload makes just use-once pages
> and touches pages twice. It promotes the page into
> active list so that it results in working set page eviction.
>
> Some app developer want to support POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE.
> But other OSes don't support it, either.
> (http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=128928979512086&w=2)
>
> By other approach, app developers use POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED.
> But it has a problem. If kernel meets page is writing
> during invalidate_mapping_pages, it can't work.
> It makes for application programmer to use it since they always
> have to sync data before calling fadivse(..POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED) to
> make sure the pages could be discardable. At last, they can't use
> deferred write of kernel so that they could see performance loss.
> (http://insights.oetiker.ch/linux/fadvise.html)
>
> In fact, invalidation is very big hint to reclaimer.
> It means we don't use the page any more. So let's move
> the writing page into inactive list's head if we can't truncate
> it right now.
>
> Why I move page to head of lru on this patch, Dirty/Writeback page
> would be flushed sooner or later. It can prevent writeout of pageout
> which is less effective than flusher's writeout.
>
> Originally, I reused lru_demote of Peter with some change so added
> his Signed-off-by.
>
> Reported-by: Ben Gamari <bgamari.foss@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mel@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Changelog since v4:
> - Change function comments - suggested by Johannes
> - Change function name - suggested by Johannes
> - Drop only dirty/writeback pages to deactive pagevec - suggested by Johannes
> - Add acked-by
>
> Changelog since v3:
> - Change function comments - suggested by Johannes
> - Change function name - suggested by Johannes
> - add only dirty/writeback pages to deactive pagevec
>
> Changelog since v2:
> - mapped page leaves alone - suggested by Mel
> - pass part related PG_reclaim in next patch.
>
> Changelog since v1:
> - modify description
> - correct typo
> - add some comment
>
> include/linux/swap.h | 1 +
> mm/swap.c | 78 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> mm/truncate.c | 17 ++++++++---
> 3 files changed, 91 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/swap.h b/include/linux/swap.h
> index 4d55932..c335055 100644
> --- a/include/linux/swap.h
> +++ b/include/linux/swap.h
> @@ -215,6 +215,7 @@ extern void mark_page_accessed(struct page *);
> extern void lru_add_drain(void);
> extern int lru_add_drain_all(void);
> extern void rotate_reclaimable_page(struct page *page);
> +extern void deactivate_page(struct page *page);
> extern void swap_setup(void);
>
> extern void add_page_to_unevictable_list(struct page *page);
> diff --git a/mm/swap.c b/mm/swap.c
> index c02f936..4aea806 100644
> --- a/mm/swap.c
> +++ b/mm/swap.c
> @@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ int page_cluster;
>
> static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct pagevec[NR_LRU_LISTS], lru_add_pvecs);
> static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct pagevec, lru_rotate_pvecs);
> +static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct pagevec, lru_deactivate_pvecs);
>
> /*
> * This path almost never happens for VM activity - pages are normally
> @@ -347,6 +348,60 @@ void add_page_to_unevictable_list(struct page *page)
> }
>
> /*
> + * If the page can not be invalidated, it is moved to the
> + * inactive list to speed up its reclaim. It is moved to the
> + * head of the list, rather than the tail, to give the flusher
> + * threads some time to write it out, as this is much more
> + * effective than the single-page writeout from reclaim.
> + */
> +static void lru_deactivate(struct page *page, struct zone *zone)
> +{
> + int lru, file;
> +
> + if (!PageLRU(page) || !PageActive(page))
> + return;
> +
> + /* Some processes are using the page */
> + if (page_mapped(page))
> + return;
> +
> + file = page_is_file_cache(page);
> + lru = page_lru_base_type(page);
> + del_page_from_lru_list(zone, page, lru + LRU_ACTIVE);
> + ClearPageActive(page);
> + ClearPageReferenced(page);
> + add_page_to_lru_list(zone, page, lru);
> + __count_vm_event(PGDEACTIVATE);
> +
> + update_page_reclaim_stat(zone, page, file, 0);
> +}
> +
> +static void ____pagevec_lru_deactivate(struct pagevec *pvec)
> +{
> + int i;
> + struct zone *zone = NULL;
> +
> + for (i = 0; i < pagevec_count(pvec); i++) {
> + struct page *page = pvec->pages[i];
> + struct zone *pagezone = page_zone(page);
> +
> + if (pagezone != zone) {
> + if (zone)
> + spin_unlock_irq(&zone->lru_lock);
> + zone = pagezone;
> + spin_lock_irq(&zone->lru_lock);
> + }

The optimization to avoid taking locks if the zone does not change is
quite subtle

> + lru_deactivate(page, zone);
> + }
> + if (zone)
> + spin_unlock_irq(&zone->lru_lock);
> +
> + release_pages(pvec->pages, pvec->nr, pvec->cold);
> + pagevec_reinit(pvec);
> +}
> +
> +
> +/*
> * Drain pages out of the cpu's pagevecs.
> * Either "cpu" is the current CPU, and preemption has already been
> * disabled; or "cpu" is being hot-unplugged, and is already dead.
> @@ -372,6 +427,29 @@ static void drain_cpu_pagevecs(int cpu)
> pagevec_move_tail(pvec);
> local_irq_restore(flags);
> }
> +
> + pvec = &per_cpu(lru_deactivate_pvecs, cpu);
> + if (pagevec_count(pvec))
> + ____pagevec_lru_deactivate(pvec);
> +}
> +
> +/**
> + * deactivate_page - forcefully deactivate a page
> + * @page: page to deactivate
> + *
> + * This function hints the VM that @page is a good reclaim candidate,
> + * for example if its invalidation fails due to the page being dirty
> + * or under writeback.
> + */
> +void deactivate_page(struct page *page)
> +{
> + if (likely(get_page_unless_zero(page))) {
> + struct pagevec *pvec = &get_cpu_var(lru_deactivate_pvecs);
> +
> + if (!pagevec_add(pvec, page))
> + ____pagevec_lru_deactivate(pvec);
> + put_cpu_var(lru_deactivate_pvecs);
> + }
> }
>
> void lru_add_drain(void)
> diff --git a/mm/truncate.c b/mm/truncate.c
> index 4d415b3..9ec7bc5 100644
> --- a/mm/truncate.c
> +++ b/mm/truncate.c
> @@ -328,11 +328,12 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(truncate_inode_pages);
> * pagetables.
> */
> unsigned long invalidate_mapping_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
> - pgoff_t start, pgoff_t end)
> + pgoff_t start, pgoff_t end)
> {
> struct pagevec pvec;
> pgoff_t next = start;
> - unsigned long ret = 0;
> + unsigned long ret;
> + unsigned long count = 0;
> int i;
>
> pagevec_init(&pvec, 0);
> @@ -359,8 +360,14 @@ unsigned long invalidate_mapping_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
> if (lock_failed)
> continue;
>
> - ret += invalidate_inode_page(page);
> -
> + ret = invalidate_inode_page(page);
> + /*
> + * Invalidation is a hint that the page is no longer
> + * of interest and try to speed up its reclaim.
> + */
> + if (!ret)
> + deactivate_page(page);

Do we need to do this under page_lock? Is there scope for us to reuse
rotate_reclaimable_page() logic?

> + count += ret;
> unlock_page(page);
> if (next > end)
> break;
> @@ -369,7 +376,7 @@ unsigned long invalidate_mapping_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
> mem_cgroup_uncharge_end();
> cond_resched();
> }
> - return ret;
> + return count;
> }
> EXPORT_SYMBOL(invalidate_mapping_pages);

--
Three Cheers,
Balbir
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