[REGRESSION] slab: replace cpu (partial) slabs with sheaves

From: Aishwarya Rambhadran

Date: Thu Mar 26 2026 - 08:45:15 EST

Hi Vlastimil, Harry,

We have observed few kernel performance benchmark regressions,
mainly in perf & vmalloc workloads, when comparing v6.19 mainline
kernel results against later releases in the v7.0 cycle.
Independent bisections on different machines consistently point
to commits within the slab percpu sheaves series. However, towards
the end of the bisection, the signal becomes less clear, so it's
not yet certain which specific commit within the series is the
root cause.

The workloads were triggered on AWS Graviton3 (arm64) & AWS Intel
Sapphire Rapids (x86_64) systems in which the regressions are
reproducible across different kernel release candidates.
(R)/(I) mean statistically significant regression/improvement,
where "statistically significant" means the 95% confidence
intervals do not overlap”.

Below given are the performance benchmark results generated by
Fastpath Tool, for different kernel -rc versions relative to the
base version v6.19, executed on the mentioned SUTs. The perf/
syscall benchmarks (execve/fork) regress consistently by ~6–11% on
both arm64 and x86_64 across v7.0-rc1 to rc5, while vmalloc
workloads show smaller but stable regressions (~2–10%), particularly
in kvfree_rcu paths.

Regressions on AWS Intel Sapphire Rapids (x86_64) :
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| Benchmark | Result Class | 6-19-0 (base) | 7-0-0-rc1 | 7-0-0-rc2 | 7-0-0-rc2-gaf4e9ef3d784 | 7-0-0-rc3 | 7-0-0-rc4 | 7-0-0-rc5 |
+=================+==========================================================+=================+=============+=============+===========================+=============+=============+=============+
| micromm/vmalloc | kvfree_rcu_1_arg_vmalloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 262605.17 | -4.94% | -7.48% | (R) -8.11% | -4.51% | -6.23% | -3.47% |
| | kvfree_rcu_2_arg_vmalloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 253198.67 | -7.56% | (R) -10.57% | (R) -10.13% | (R) -7.07% | -6.37% | -6.55% |
| | pcpu_alloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 197904.67 | -2.07% | -3.38% | -2.07% | -2.97% | (R) -4.30% | -3.39% |
| | random_size_align_alloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 1707089.83 | -2.63% | (R) -3.69% | (R) -3.25% | (R) -2.87% | -2.22% | (R) -3.63% |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| perf/syscall | execve (ops/sec) | 1202.92 | (R) -7.15% | (R) -7.05% | (R) -7.03% | (R) -7.93% | (R) -6.51% | (R) -7.36% |
| | fork (ops/sec) | 996.00 | (R) -9.00% | (R) -10.27% | (R) -9.92% | (R) -11.19% | (R) -10.69% | (R) -10.28% |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

Regressions on AWS Graviton3 (arm64) :
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| Benchmark | Result Class | 6-19-0 (base) | 7-0-0-rc1 | 7-0-0-rc2 | 7-0-0-rc2-gaf4e9ef3d784 | 7-0-0-rc3 | 7-0-0-rc4 | 7-0-0-rc5 |
+=================+==========================================================+=================+=============+=============+===========================+=============+=============+=============+
| micromm/vmalloc | fix_size_alloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 320101.50 | (R) -4.72% | (R) -3.81% | (R) -5.05% | -3.06% | -3.16% | (R) -3.91% |
| | fix_size_alloc_test: p:4, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 522072.83 | (R) -2.15% | -1.25% | (R) -2.16% | (R) -2.13% | -2.10% | -1.82% |
| | fix_size_alloc_test: p:16, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 1041640.33 | -0.50% | (R) -2.04% | -1.43% | -0.69% | -1.78% | (R) -2.03% |
| | fix_size_alloc_test: p:256, h:1, l:100000 (usec) | 2255794.00 | -1.51% | (R) -2.24% | (R) -2.33% | -1.14% | -0.94% | -1.60% |
| | kvfree_rcu_1_arg_vmalloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 343543.83 | (R) -4.50% | (R) -3.54% | (R) -5.00% | (R) -4.88% | (R) -4.01% | (R) -5.54% |
| | kvfree_rcu_2_arg_vmalloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 342290.33 | (R) -5.15% | (R) -3.24% | (R) -3.76% | (R) -5.37% | (R) -3.74% | (R) -5.51% |
| | random_size_align_alloc_test: p:1, h:0, l:500000 (usec) | 1209666.83 | -2.43% | -2.09% | -1.19% | (R) -4.39% | -1.81% | -3.15% |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| perf/syscall | execve (ops/sec) | 1219.58 | | (R) -8.12% | (R) -7.37% | (R) -7.60% | (R) -7.86% | (R) -7.71% |
| | fork (ops/sec) | 863.67 | | (R) -7.24% | (R) -7.07% | (R) -6.42% | (R) -6.93% | (R) -6.55% |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------+---------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

The details of latest bisections that were carried out for the above
listed regressions, are given below :
-Graviton3 (arm64)
good: v6.19 (05f7e89ab973)
bad: v7.0-rc2 (11439c4635ed)
workload: perf/syscall (execve)
bisected to: f1427a1d6415 (“slab: make percpu sheaves compatible with
kmalloc_nolock()/kfree_nolock()”)

-Sapphire Rapids (x86_64)
good: v6.19 (05f7e89ab973)
bad: v7.0-rc3 (1f318b96cc84)
workload: perf/syscall (fork)
bisected to: f1427a1d6415 (“slab: make percpu sheaves compatible with
kmalloc_nolock()/kfree_nolock()”)

-Graviton3 (arm64)
good: v6.19 (05f7e89ab973)
bad: v7.0-rc3 (1f318b96cc84)
workload: perf/syscall (execve)
bisected to: f3421f8d154c (“slab: introduce percpu sheaves bootstrap”)

I'm aware that some fixes for the sheaves series have already been
merged around v7.0-rc3; however, these do not appear to resolve the
regressions described above completely. Are there additional fixes or
follow-ups in progress that I should evaluate? I can investigate
further and provide additional data, if that would be useful.

Thank you.
Aishwarya Rambhadran

On 23/01/26 12:22 PM, Vlastimil Babka wrote:

Percpu sheaves caching was introduced as opt-in but the goal was to
eventually move all caches to them. This is the next step, enabling
sheaves for all caches (except the two bootstrap ones) and then removing
the per cpu (partial) slabs and lots of associated code.

Besides (hopefully) improved performance, this removes the rather
complicated code related to the lockless fastpaths (using
this_cpu_try_cmpxchg128/64) and its complications with PREEMPT_RT or
kmalloc_nolock().

The lockless slab freelist+counters update operation using
try_cmpxchg128/64 remains and is crucial for freeing remote NUMA objects
without repeating the "alien" array flushing of SLUB, and to allow
flushing objects from sheaves to slabs mostly without the node
list_lock.

Sending this v4 because various changes accumulated in the branch due to
review and -next exposure (see the list below). Thanks for all the
reviews!

Git branch for the v4
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vbabka/linux.git/log/?h=sheaves-for-all-v4

Which is a snapshot of:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vbabka/linux.git/log/?h=b4/sheaves-for-all

Based on:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vbabka/slab.git/log/?h=slab/for-7.0/sheaves-base
- includes a sheaves optimization that seemed minor but there was lkp
test robot result with significant improvements:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/202512291555.56ce2e53-lkp@xxxxxxxxx/
(could be an uncommon corner case workload though)
- includes the kmalloc_nolock() fix commit a4ae75d1b6a2 that is undone
as part of this series

Significant (but not critical) remaining TODOs:
- Integration of rcu sheaves handling with kfree_rcu batching.
- Currently the kfree_rcu batching is almost completely bypassed. I'm
thinking it could be adjusted to handle rcu sheaves in addition to
individual objects, to get the best of both.
- Performance evaluation. Petr Tesarik has been doing that on the RFC
with some promising results (thanks!) and also found a memory leak.

Note that as many things, this caching scheme change is a tradeoff, as
summarized by Christoph:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/f7c33974-e520-387e-9e2f-1e523bfe1545@xxxxxxxxxx/

- Objects allocated from sheaves should have better temporal locality
(likely recently freed, thus cache hot) but worse spatial locality
(likely from many different slabs, increasing memory usage and
possibly TLB pressure on kernel's direct map).

Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
---
Changes in v4:
- Fix up both missing and spurious r-b tags from v3, and add new ones
(big thanks to Hao Li, Harry, and Suren!)
- Fix infinite recursion with kmemleak (Breno Leitao)
- Use cache_has_sheaves() in pcs_destroy() (Suren)
- Use cache_has_sheaves() in kvfree_rcu_barrier_on_cache() (Hao Li)
- Bypass sheaf for remote object free also in kfree_nolock() (Harry)
- WRITE_ONCE slab->counters in __update_freelist_slow() so
get_partial_node_bulk() can stop being paranoid (Harry)
- Tweak conditions in alloc_from_new_slab() (Hao Li, Suren)
- Rename get_partial*() functions to get_from_partial*() (Suren)
- Rename variable freelist to object in ___slab_alloc() (Suren)
- Separate struct partial_bulk_context instead of extending.
- Rename flush_cpu_slab() to flush_cpu_sheaves() (Hao Li)
- Add "mm/slab: fix false lockdep warning in __kfree_rcu_sheaf()" from
Harry.
- Add counting of FREE_SLOWPATH stat to some missing places (Suren, Hao
Li)
- Link to v3: https://patch.msgid.link/20260116-sheaves-for-all-v3-0-5595cb000772@xxxxxxx

Changes in v3:
- Rebase to current slab/for-7.0/sheaves which itself is rebased to
slab/for-next-fixes to include commit a4ae75d1b6a2 ("slab: fix
kmalloc_nolock() context check for PREEMPT_RT")
- Revert a4ae75d1b6a2 as part of "slab: simplify kmalloc_nolock()" as
it's no longer necessary.
- Add cache_has_sheaves() helper to test for s->sheaf_capacity, use it
in more places instead of s->cpu_sheaves tests that were missed
(Hao Li)
- Fix a bug where kmalloc_nolock() could end up trying to allocate empty
sheaf (not compatible with !allow_spin) in __pcs_replace_full_main()
(Hao Li)
- Fix missing inc_slabs_node() in ___slab_alloc() ->
alloc_from_new_slab() path. (Hao Li)
- Also a bug where refill_objects() -> alloc_from_new_slab ->
free_new_slab_nolock() (previously defer_deactivate_slab()) would
do inc_slabs_node() without matching dec_slabs_node()
- Make __free_slab call free_frozen_pages_nolock() when !allow_spin.
This was correct in the first RFC. (Hao Li)
- Add patch to make SLAB_CONSISTENCY_CHECKS prevent merging.
- Add tags from sveral people (thanks!)
- Fix checkpatch warnings.
- Link to v2: https://patch.msgid.link/20260112-sheaves-for-all-v2-0-98225cfb50cf@xxxxxxx

Changes in v2:
- Rebased to v6.19-rc1+slab.git slab/for-7.0/sheaves
- Some of the preliminary patches from the RFC went in there.
- Incorporate feedback/reports from many people (thanks!), including:
- Make caches with sheaves mergeable.
- Fix a major memory leak.
- Cleanup of stat items.
- Link to v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20251023-sheaves-for-all-v1-0-6ffa2c9941c0@xxxxxxx

---
Harry Yoo (1):
mm/slab: fix false lockdep warning in __kfree_rcu_sheaf()

Vlastimil Babka (21):
mm/slab: add rcu_barrier() to kvfree_rcu_barrier_on_cache()
slab: add SLAB_CONSISTENCY_CHECKS to SLAB_NEVER_MERGE
mm/slab: move and refactor __kmem_cache_alias()
mm/slab: make caches with sheaves mergeable
slab: add sheaves to most caches
slab: introduce percpu sheaves bootstrap
slab: make percpu sheaves compatible with kmalloc_nolock()/kfree_nolock()
slab: handle kmalloc sheaves bootstrap
slab: add optimized sheaf refill from partial list
slab: remove cpu (partial) slabs usage from allocation paths
slab: remove SLUB_CPU_PARTIAL
slab: remove the do_slab_free() fastpath
slab: remove defer_deactivate_slab()
slab: simplify kmalloc_nolock()
slab: remove struct kmem_cache_cpu
slab: remove unused PREEMPT_RT specific macros
slab: refill sheaves from all nodes
slab: update overview comments
slab: remove frozen slab checks from __slab_free()
mm/slub: remove DEACTIVATE_TO_* stat items
mm/slub: cleanup and repurpose some stat items

include/linux/slab.h | 6 -
mm/Kconfig | 11 -
mm/internal.h | 1 +
mm/page_alloc.c | 5 +
mm/slab.h | 65 +-
mm/slab_common.c | 61 +-
mm/slub.c | 2689 ++++++++++++++++++--------------------------------
7 files changed, 1031 insertions(+), 1807 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: a66f9c0f1ba2dd05fa994c800ebc63f265155f91
change-id: 20251002-sheaves-for-all-86ac13dc47a5

Best regards,