Re: [PATCH 07/12] mm, page_alloc: Distinguish between being unable to sleep, unwilling to sleep and avoiding waking kswapd

[Mel Gorman]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 05:37:59PM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
> On 08/24/2015 02:09 PM, Mel Gorman wrote:
> >__GFP_WAIT has been used to identify atomic context in callers that hold
> >spinlocks or are in interrupts. They are expected to be high priority and
> >have access one of two watermarks lower than "min" which can be referred
> >to as the "atomic reserve". __GFP_HIGH users get access to the first lower
> >watermark and can be called the "high priority reserve".
> >
> >Over time, callers had a requirement to not block when fallback options
> >were available. Some have abused __GFP_WAIT leading to a situation where
> >an optimisitic allocation with a fallback option can access atomic reserves.
> >
> >This patch uses __GFP_ATOMIC to identify callers that are truely atomic,
> >cannot sleep and have no alternative. High priority users continue to use
> >__GFP_HIGH. __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM identifies callers that can sleep and are
> >willing to enter direct reclaim. __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM to identify callers
> >that want to wake kswapd for background reclaim. __GFP_WAIT is redefined
> >as a caller that is willing to enter direct reclaim and wake kswapd for
> >background reclaim.
> >
> >This patch then converts a number of sites
> >
> >o __GFP_ATOMIC is used by callers that are high priority and have memory
> >   pools for those requests. GFP_ATOMIC uses this flag.
> >
> >o Callers that have a limited mempool to guarantee forward progress use
> >   __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM. bio allocations fall into this category where
> 
>      ^ __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM ? (missed it previously)
> 

I updated the changelog to make this clearer.

> >   kswapd will still be woken but atomic reserves are not used as there
> >   is a one-entry mempool to guarantee progress.
> >
> >o Callers that are checking if they are non-blocking should use the
> >   helper gfpflags_allow_blocking() where possible. This is because
> >   checking for __GFP_WAIT as was done historically now can trigger false
> >   positives. Some exceptions like dm-crypt.c exist where the code intent
> >   is clearer if __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM is used instead of the helper due to
> >   flag manipulations.
> >
> >o Callers that built their own GFP flags instead of starting with GFP_KERNEL
> >   and friends now also need to specify __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM.
> >
> >The first key hazard to watch out for is callers that removed __GFP_WAIT
> >and was depending on access to atomic reserves for inconspicuous reasons.
> >In some cases it may be appropriate for them to use __GFP_HIGH.
> >
> >The second key hazard is callers that assembled their own combination of
> >GFP flags instead of starting with something like GFP_KERNEL. They may
> >now wish to specify __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM. It's almost certainly harmless
> >if it's missed in most cases as other activity will wake kswapd.
> >
> >Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Thanks for the effort!
> 
> Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
> 
> Just last few bits:
> 
> >@@ -2158,7 +2158,7 @@ static bool should_fail_alloc_page(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order)
> >  		return false;
> >  	if (fail_page_alloc.ignore_gfp_highmem && (gfp_mask & __GFP_HIGHMEM))
> >  		return false;
> >-	if (fail_page_alloc.ignore_gfp_wait && (gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT))
> >+	if (fail_page_alloc.ignore_gfp_wait && (gfp_mask & (__GFP_ATOMIC|__GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM)))
> >  		return false;
> >
> >  	return should_fail(&fail_page_alloc.attr, 1 << order);
> 
> IIUC ignore_gfp_wait tells it to assume that reclaimers will eventually
> succeed (for some reason?), so they shouldn't fail. Probably to focus the
> testing on atomic allocations. But your change makes atomic allocation never
> fail, so that goes against the knob IMHO?
> 

Fair point, I'll remove the __GFP_ATOMIC check. I felt this was a sensible
but then again deliberately failing allocations makes my brain twitch a
bit. In retrospect, someone who cared should add a ignore_gfp_atomic knob.

> >@@ -2660,7 +2660,7 @@ void warn_alloc_failed(gfp_t gfp_mask, int order, const char *fmt, ...)
> >  		if (test_thread_flag(TIF_MEMDIE) ||
> >  		    (current->flags & (PF_MEMALLOC | PF_EXITING)))
> >  			filter &= ~SHOW_MEM_FILTER_NODES;
> >-	if (in_interrupt() || !(gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT))
> >+	if (in_interrupt() || !(gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT) || (gfp_mask & __GFP_ATOMIC))
> >  		filter &= ~SHOW_MEM_FILTER_NODES;
> >
> >  	if (fmt) {
> 
> This caught me previously and I convinced myself that it's OK, but now I'm
> not anymore. IIUC this is to not filter nodes by mems_allowed during
> printing, if the allocation itself wasn't limited? In that case it should
> probably only look at __GFP_ATOMIC after this patch? As that's the only
> thing that determines ALLOC_CPUSET.
> I don't know where in_interrupt() comes from, but it was probably considered
> in the past, as can be seen in zlc_setup()?
> 

I assumed the in_interrupt() thing was simply because cpusets were the
primary means of limiting allocations of interest to the author at the
time.

I guess now that I think about it more that a more sensible check would
be against __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM because that covers the interesting
cases.

-- 
Mel Gorman
SUSE Labs
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