Re: [PATCH v3 3/7] slob: Use slab_list instead of lru

[Tobin C. Harding]

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 06:52:25PM +0000, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 04:31:31PM +1100, Tobin C. Harding wrote:
> > Currently we use the page->lru list for maintaining lists of slabs.  We
> > have a list_head in the page structure (slab_list) that can be used for
> > this purpose.  Doing so makes the code cleaner since we are not
> > overloading the lru list.
> > 
> > The slab_list is part of a union within the page struct (included here
> > stripped down):
> > 
> > 	union {
> > 		struct {	/* Page cache and anonymous pages */
> > 			struct list_head lru;
> > 			...
> > 		};
> > 		struct {
> > 			dma_addr_t dma_addr;
> > 		};
> > 		struct {	/* slab, slob and slub */
> > 			union {
> > 				struct list_head slab_list;
> > 				struct {	/* Partial pages */
> > 					struct page *next;
> > 					int pages;	/* Nr of pages left */
> > 					int pobjects;	/* Approximate count */
> > 				};
> > 			};
> > 		...
> > 
> > Here we see that slab_list and lru are the same bits.  We can verify
> > that this change is safe to do by examining the object file produced from
> > slob.c before and after this patch is applied.
> > 
> > Steps taken to verify:
> > 
> >  1. checkout current tip of Linus' tree
> > 
> >     commit a667cb7a94d4 ("Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew)")
> > 
> >  2. configure and build (select SLOB allocator)
> > 
> >     CONFIG_SLOB=y
> >     CONFIG_SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT=y
> > 
> >  3. dissasemble object file `objdump -dr mm/slub.o > before.s
> >  4. apply patch
> >  5. build
> >  6. dissasemble object file `objdump -dr mm/slub.o > after.s
> >  7. diff before.s after.s
> > 
> > Use slab_list list_head instead of the lru list_head for maintaining
> > lists of slabs.
> > 
> > Reviewed-by: Roman Gushchin <guro@xxxxxx>
> > Signed-off-by: Tobin C. Harding <tobin@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  mm/slob.c | 8 ++++----
> >  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/mm/slob.c b/mm/slob.c
> > index 39ad9217ffea..94486c32e0ff 100644
> > --- a/mm/slob.c
> > +++ b/mm/slob.c
> > @@ -112,13 +112,13 @@ static inline int slob_page_free(struct page *sp)
> >  
> >  static void set_slob_page_free(struct page *sp, struct list_head *list)
> >  {
> > -	list_add(&sp->lru, list);
> > +	list_add(&sp->slab_list, list);
> >  	__SetPageSlobFree(sp);
> >  }
> >  
> >  static inline void clear_slob_page_free(struct page *sp)
> >  {
> > -	list_del(&sp->lru);
> > +	list_del(&sp->slab_list);
> >  	__ClearPageSlobFree(sp);
> >  }
> >  
> > @@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ static void *slob_alloc(size_t size, gfp_t gfp, int align, int node)
> >  
> >  	spin_lock_irqsave(&slob_lock, flags);
> >  	/* Iterate through each partially free page, try to find room */
> > -	list_for_each_entry(sp, slob_list, lru) {
> > +	list_for_each_entry(sp, slob_list, slab_list) {
> >  #ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
> >  		/*
> >  		 * If there's a node specification, search for a partial
> 
> 
> Hi Tobin!
> 
> How about list_rotate_to_front(&next->lru, slob_list) from the previous patch?
> Shouldn't it use slab_list instead of lru too?

I'll let this sit for a day or two in case we get any more comments on
the list.h stuff then do another version ready for US Monday morning.

Thanks again,
Tobin.