[PATCH v2] writeback: remove the internal 5% low bound ondirty_ratio

From: Wu Fengguang
Date: Sat Aug 28 2010 - 20:19:59 EST


The dirty_ratio was siliently limited in global_dirty_limits() to >= 5%.
This is not a user expected behavior. And it's inconsistent with
calc_period_shift(), which uses the plain vm_dirty_ratio value.

Let's rip the internal bound.

At the same time, fix balance_dirty_pages() to work with the
dirty_thresh=0 case. This allows applications to proceed when
dirty+writeback pages are all cleaned.

And ">" fits with the name "exceeded" better than ">=" does. Neil
think it is an aesthetic improvement as well as a functional one :)

v2: convert the background writeback checks, too. Just to be sure.

CC: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
Proposed-by: Con Kolivas <kernel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@xxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Neil Brown <neilb@xxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@xxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/fs-writeback.c | 2 +-
mm/page-writeback.c | 16 +++++-----------
2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

--- linux-next.orig/mm/page-writeback.c 2010-08-29 08:10:30.000000000 +0800
+++ linux-next/mm/page-writeback.c 2010-08-29 08:12:08.000000000 +0800
@@ -415,14 +415,8 @@ void global_dirty_limits(unsigned long *

if (vm_dirty_bytes)
dirty = DIV_ROUND_UP(vm_dirty_bytes, PAGE_SIZE);
- else {
- int dirty_ratio;
-
- dirty_ratio = vm_dirty_ratio;
- if (dirty_ratio < 5)
- dirty_ratio = 5;
- dirty = (dirty_ratio * available_memory) / 100;
- }
+ else
+ dirty = (vm_dirty_ratio * available_memory) / 100;

if (dirty_background_bytes)
background = DIV_ROUND_UP(dirty_background_bytes, PAGE_SIZE);
@@ -510,7 +504,7 @@ static void balance_dirty_pages(struct a
* catch-up. This avoids (excessively) small writeouts
* when the bdi limits are ramping up.
*/
- if (nr_reclaimable + nr_writeback <
+ if (nr_reclaimable + nr_writeback <=
(background_thresh + dirty_thresh) / 2)
break;

@@ -542,8 +536,8 @@ static void balance_dirty_pages(struct a
* the last resort safeguard.
*/
dirty_exceeded =
- (bdi_nr_reclaimable + bdi_nr_writeback >= bdi_thresh)
- || (nr_reclaimable + nr_writeback >= dirty_thresh);
+ (bdi_nr_reclaimable + bdi_nr_writeback > bdi_thresh)
+ || (nr_reclaimable + nr_writeback > dirty_thresh);

if (!dirty_exceeded)
break;
--- linux-next.orig/fs/fs-writeback.c 2010-08-29 08:12:51.000000000 +0800
+++ linux-next/fs/fs-writeback.c 2010-08-29 08:12:53.000000000 +0800
@@ -574,7 +574,7 @@ static inline bool over_bground_thresh(v
global_dirty_limits(&background_thresh, &dirty_thresh);

return (global_page_state(NR_FILE_DIRTY) +
- global_page_state(NR_UNSTABLE_NFS) >= background_thresh);
+ global_page_state(NR_UNSTABLE_NFS) > background_thresh);
}

/*
--
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