Re: [PATCH mm v3] memcg: enable memory accounting in __alloc_pages_bulk

[Michal Hocko]

On Tue 12-10-21 09:08:38, Shakeel Butt wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 8:36 AM Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue 12-10-21 17:58:21, Vasily Averin wrote:
> > > Enable memory accounting for bulk page allocator.
> >
> > ENOCHANGELOG
> >
> > And I have to say I am not very happy about the solution. It adds a very
> > tricky code where it splits different charging steps apart.
> >
> > Would it be just too inefficient to charge page-by-page once all pages
> > are already taken away from the pcp lists? This bulk should be small so
> > this shouldn't really cause massive problems. I mean something like
> >
> > diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > index b37435c274cf..8bcd69195ef5 100644
> > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > @@ -5308,6 +5308,10 @@ unsigned long __alloc_pages_bulk(gfp_t gfp, int preferred_nid,
> >
> >         local_unlock_irqrestore(&pagesets.lock, flags);
> >
> > +       if (memcg_kmem_enabled() && (gfp & __GFP_ACCOUNT)) {
> > +               /* charge pages here */
> > +       }
> 
> It is not that simple because __alloc_pages_bulk only allocate pages
> for empty slots in the page_array provided by the caller.
> 
> The failure handling for post charging would be more complicated.

If this is really that complicated (I haven't tried) then it would be
much more simple to completely skip the bulk allocator for __GFP_ACCOUNT
rather than add a tricky code. The bulk allocator is meant to be used
for ultra hot paths and memcg charging along with the reclaim doesn't
really fit into that model anyway. Or are there any actual users who
really need bulk allocator optimization and also need memcg accounting?
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs