mm/compact: why use low watermark to determine whether compact is finished instead of use high watermark?

From: Xishi Qiu
Date: Fri Jul 22 2016 - 05:02:25 EST


Hi,

I find all the watermarks in mm/compaction.c are low_wmark_pages(),
so why not use high watermark to determine whether compact is finished?

e.g.
__alloc_pages_nodemask()
get_page_from_freelist()
this is fast path, use use low_wmark_pages() in __zone_watermark_ok()

__alloc_pages_slowpath()
this is slow path, usually use min_wmark_pages()

kswapd
balance_pgdat()
use high_wmark_pages() to determine whether zone is balanced

Thanks,
Xishi Qiu