RE: [PATCH v2 repost 4/7] virtio-balloon: speed up inflate/deflate process

[Li, Liang Z]

> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 03:06:37AM +0000, Li, Liang Z wrote:
> > > > + * VIRTIO_BALLOON_PFNS_LIMIT is used to limit the size of page
> > > > +bitmap
> > > > + * to prevent a very large page bitmap, there are two reasons for this:
> > > > + * 1) to save memory.
> > > > + * 2) allocate a large bitmap may fail.
> > > > + *
> > > > + * The actual limit of pfn is determined by:
> > > > + * pfn_limit = min(max_pfn, VIRTIO_BALLOON_PFNS_LIMIT);
> > > > + *
> > > > + * If system has more pages than VIRTIO_BALLOON_PFNS_LIMIT, we
> > > > +will scan
> > > > + * the page list and send the PFNs with several times. To reduce
> > > > +the
> > > > + * overhead of scanning the page list. VIRTIO_BALLOON_PFNS_LIMIT
> > > > +should
> > > > + * be set with a value which can cover most cases.
> > >
> > > So what if it covers 1/32 of the memory? We'll do 32 exits and not
> > > 1, still not a big deal for a big guest.
> > >
> >
> > The issue here is the overhead is too high for scanning the page list for 32
> times.
> > Limit the page bitmap size to a fixed value is better for a big guest?
> >
> 
> I'd say avoid scanning free lists completely. Scan pages themselves and check
> the refcount to see whether they are free.
> This way each page needs to be tested once.
> 
> And skip the whole optimization if less than e.g. 10% is free.

That's better than rescanning the free list. Will change in next version.

Thanks!

Liang