Re: [PATCH 2/5] writeback: dirty position control

[Wu Fengguang]

Peter,

Now I get 3 figures. Test case is: run 1 dd write task for 300s, with
a "disturber" dd read task during roughly 120-130s.

(1) balance_dirty_pages-pages.png

This is the output of the original patchset. Here the "balanced
ratelimit" dots are mostly accurate except when near @freerun or @limit.

(2) balance_dirty_pages-pages_pure-rate-feedback.png

do this change:
  -	balanced_dirty_ratelimit = div_u64((u64)task_ratelimit * write_bw,
  +	balanced_dirty_ratelimit = div_u64((u64)dirty_ratelimit * write_bw,
   					   dirty_rate | 1);

Here the "balanced ratelimit" dots goto the opposite direction
comparing to "pos ratelimit", which is the expected result discussed
in the other email. Then the system got stuck in unbalanced dirty
position.  It's slowly moving towards the setpoint thanks to the
dirty_ratelimit update policy: it only updates dirty_ratelimit when
balanced_dirty_ratelimit fluctuates to the same side of
task_ratelimit, hence introduced some systematical "errors" in the
right direction ;)

(3) balance_dirty_pages-pages_pure-rate-feedback-without-dirty_ratelimit-update-constraints.png

further remove the "do conservative bdi->dirty_ratelimit updates"
feature, by replacing its update policy with a direct assignment:

        bdi->dirty_ratelimit = max(balanced_dirty_ratelimit, 1UL);

This is to check if dirty_ratelimit can still go back to the balance
point without the help of the dirty_ratelimit update policy. To my
surprise, dirty_ratelimit jumps to HUGE singular value and shows no
sign to come back to normal..

In summary, the original patchset shows the best behavior :)

Thanks,
Fengguang

Attachment: balance_dirty_pages-pages.png
Description: PNG image

Attachment: balance_dirty_pages-pages_pure-rate-feedback.png
Description: PNG image

Attachment: balance_dirty_pages-pages_pure-rate-feedback-without-dirty_ratelimit-update-constraints.png
Description: PNG image