Re: [PATCH] mm/lruvec: preemptively free dead folios during lru_add drain

From: Michal Hocko

Date: Fri Apr 24 2026 - 04:32:44 EST


On Thu 23-04-26 09:43:07, JP Kobryn (Meta) wrote:
> Of all observable lruvec lock contention in our fleet, we find that ~24%
> occurs when dead folios are present in lru_add batches at drain time. This
> is wasteful in the sense that the folio is added to the LRU just to be
> immediately removed via folios_put_refs(), incurring two unnecessary lock
> acquisitions.
>
> Eliminate this overhead by preemptively cleaning up dead folios before they
> make it into the LRU. Use folio_ref_freeze() to filter folios whose only
> remaining refcount is the batch ref. When dead folios are found, move them
> off the add batch and onto a temporary batch to be freed.
>
> During A/B testing on one of our prod instagram workloads (high-frequency
> short-lived requests), the patch intercepted almost all dead folios before
> they entered the LRU. Data collected using the mm_lru_insertion tracepoint
> shows the effectiveness of the patch:
>
> Per-host LRU add averages at 95% CPU load
> (60 hosts each side, 3 x 60s intervals)
>
> dead folios/min total folios/min dead %
> unpatched: 1,297,785 19,341,986 6.7097%
> patched: 14 19,039,996 0.0001%
>
> Within this workload, we save ~2.6M lock acquisitions per minute per host
> as a result.
>
> System-wide memory stats improved on the patched side also at 95% CPU load:
> - direct reclaim scanning reduced 7%
> - allocation stalls reduced 5.2%
> - compaction stalls reduced 12.3%
> - page frees reduced 4.9%
>
> No regressions were observed in requests served per second or request tail
> latency (p99). Both metrics showed directional improvement at higher CPU
> utilization (comparing 85% to 95%).
>
> Signed-off-by: JP Kobryn (Meta) <jp.kobryn@xxxxxxxxx>

Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
Thanks!

> ---
> mm/swap.c | 36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
> 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/swap.c b/mm/swap.c
> index 5cc44f0de9877..71607b0ce3d18 100644
> --- a/mm/swap.c
> +++ b/mm/swap.c
> @@ -160,13 +160,36 @@ static void folio_batch_move_lru(struct folio_batch *fbatch, move_fn_t move_fn)
> int i;
> struct lruvec *lruvec = NULL;
> unsigned long flags = 0;
> + struct folio_batch free_fbatch;
> + bool is_lru_add = (move_fn == lru_add);
> +
> + /*
> + * If we're adding to the LRU, preemptively filter dead folios. Use
> + * this dedicated folio batch for temp storage and deferred cleanup.
> + */
> + if (is_lru_add)
> + folio_batch_init(&free_fbatch);
>
> for (i = 0; i < folio_batch_count(fbatch); i++) {
> struct folio *folio = fbatch->folios[i];
>
> /* block memcg migration while the folio moves between lru */
> - if (move_fn != lru_add && !folio_test_clear_lru(folio))
> + if (!is_lru_add && !folio_test_clear_lru(folio))
> + continue;
> +
> + /*
> + * Filter dead folios by moving them from the add batch to the temp
> + * batch for freeing after this loop.
> + *
> + * Since the folio may be part of a huge page, unqueue from
> + * deferred split list to avoid a dangling list entry.
> + */
> + if (is_lru_add && folio_ref_freeze(folio, 1)) {
> + folio_unqueue_deferred_split(folio);
> + fbatch->folios[i] = NULL;
> + folio_batch_add(&free_fbatch, folio);
> continue;
> + }
>
> folio_lruvec_relock_irqsave(folio, &lruvec, &flags);
> move_fn(lruvec, folio);
> @@ -176,6 +199,13 @@ static void folio_batch_move_lru(struct folio_batch *fbatch, move_fn_t move_fn)
>
> if (lruvec)
> lruvec_unlock_irqrestore(lruvec, flags);
> +
> + /* Cleanup filtered dead folios. */
> + if (is_lru_add) {
> + mem_cgroup_uncharge_folios(&free_fbatch);
> + free_unref_folios(&free_fbatch);
> + }
> +
> folios_put(fbatch);
> }
>
> @@ -964,6 +994,10 @@ void folios_put_refs(struct folio_batch *folios, unsigned int *refs)
> struct folio *folio = folios->folios[i];
> unsigned int nr_refs = refs ? refs[i] : 1;
>
> + /* Folio batch entry may have been preemptively removed during drain. */
> + if (!folio)
> + continue;
> +
> if (is_huge_zero_folio(folio))
> continue;
>
> --
> 2.52.0

--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs