Re: [RFC][PATCH 0/4] Memory controller soft limit patches (v2)

From: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
Date: Tue Feb 17 2009 - 01:38:34 EST


On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:09:03 +0530
Balbir Singh <balbir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> * KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2009-02-17 14:10:39]:
>
> > On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:11:10 +0530
> > Balbir Singh <balbir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > * KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2009-02-17 13:03:52]:
> > >
> > > > On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:35:26 +0530
> > > > Balbir Singh <balbir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > I don't want to add any new big burden to kernel hackers of memory management,
> > > > they work hard to improve memory reclaim. This patch will change the behavior.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I don't think I agree, this approach suggests that before doing global
> > > reclaim, there are several groups that are using more than their
> > > share of memory, so it makes sense to reclaim from them first.
> > >
> >
> > >
> > > > BTW, in typical bad case, several threads on cpus goes into memory recalim at once and
> > > > all thread will visit this memcg's soft-limit tree at once and soft-limit will
> > > > not work as desired anyway.
> > > > You can't avoid this problem at alloc_page() hot-path.
> > >
> > > Even if all threads go into soft-reclaim at once, the tree will become
> > > empty after a point and we will just return saying there are no more
> > > memcg's to reclaim from (we remove the memcg from the tree when
> > > reclaiming), then those threads will go into regular reclaim if there
> > > is still memory pressure.
> >
> > Yes. the largest-excess group will be removed. So, it seems that it doesn't work
> > as designed. rbtree is considered as just a hint ? If so, rbtree seems to be
> > overkill.
> >
> > just a question:
> > Assume memcg under hierarchy.
> > ../group_A/ usage=1G, soft_limit=900M hierarchy=1
> > 01/ usage=200M, soft_limit=100M
> > 02/ usage=300M, soft_limit=200M
> > 03/ usage=500M, soft_limit=300M <==== 200M over.
> > 004/ usage=200M, soft_limit=100M
> > 005/ usage=300M, soft_limit=200M
> >
> > At memory shortage, group 03's memory will be reclaimed
> > - reclaim memory from 03, 03/004, 03/005
> >
> > When 100M of group 03' memory is reclaimed, group_A 's memory is reclaimd at the
> > same time, implicitly. Doesn't this break your rb-tree ?
> >
> > I recommend you that soft-limit can be only applied to the node which is top of
> > hierarchy.
>
> Yes, that can be done, but the reason for putting both was to target
> the right memcg early.
>
My point is that sort by rb-tree is broken in above case.

Thanks,
-Kame

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