Re: [PATCH 1/3] mm, sysctl: make VM stats configurable

From: kemi
Date: Sun Sep 17 2017 - 23:24:17 EST




On 2017å09æ15æ 19:49, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Fri 15-09-17 17:23:24, Kemi Wang wrote:
>> This patch adds a tunable interface that allows VM stats configurable, as
>> suggested by Dave Hansen and Ying Huang.
>>
>> When performance becomes a bottleneck and you can tolerate some possible
>> tool breakage and some decreased counter precision (e.g. numa counter), you
>> can do:
>> echo [C|c]oarse > /proc/sys/vm/vmstat_mode
>>
>> When performance is not a bottleneck and you want all tooling to work, you
>> can do:
>> echo [S|s]trict > /proc/sys/vm/vmstat_mode
>>
>> We recommend automatic detection of virtual memory statistics by system,
>> this is also system default configuration, you can do:
>> echo [A|a]uto > /proc/sys/vm/vmstat_mode
>>
>> The next patch handles numa statistics distinctively based-on different VM
>> stats mode.
>
> I would just merge this with the second patch so that it is clear how
> those modes are implemented. I am also wondering why cannot we have a
> much simpler interface and implementation to enable/disable numa stats
> (btw. sysctl_vm_numa_stats would be more descriptive IMHO).
>

Apologize for resending it, because I found my previous reply mixed with
Michal's in many email client.

The motivation is that we propose a general tunable interface for VM stats.
This would be more scalable, since we don't have to add an individual
Interface for each type of counter that can be configurable.
In the second patch, NUMA stats, as an example, can benefit for that.
If you still hold your idea, I don't mind to merge them together.