Re: [PATCH] mm/vmscan: restore zone_reclaim_mode ABI

[Daniel Wagner]

Hi Dave

On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 05:34:59PM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> 
> From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> I went to go add a new RECLAIM_* mode for the zone_reclaim_mode
> sysctl.  Like a good kernel developer, I also went to go update the
> documentation.  I noticed that the bits in the documentation didn't
> match the bits in the #defines.

Drop the this paragraph from the commit message. It doesn't add
any necessart information.

Please have a look at

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/submitting-patches.html#describe-your-changes

> The VM evidently stopped caring about RECLAIM_ZONE at some point (or
> never cared) and the #define itself was later removed as a cleanup.
> Those things by themselves are fine.
> 
> But, the _other_ bit locations also got changed.  That's not OK because
> the bit values are documented to mean one specific thing and users
> surely rely on them meaning that one thing and not changing from
> kernel to kernel.  The end result is that if someone had a script
> that did:
> 
> 	sysctl vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1
> 
> That script went from doing nothing to writing out pages during
> node reclaim after the commit in question.  That's not great.
> 
> Put the bits back the way they were and add a comment so something
> like this is a bit harder to do again.  Update the documentation to
> make it clear that the first bit is ignored.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Fixes: commit 648b5cf368e0 ("mm/vmscan: remove unused RECLAIM_OFF/RECLAIM_ZONE")
> Acked-by: Ben Widawsky <ben.widawsky@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Alex Shi <alex.shi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Daniel Wagner <dwagner@xxxxxxx>
> Cc: "Tobin C. Harding" <tobin@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxx
> ---
> 
>  b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst |   12 ++++++------
>  b/mm/vmscan.c                             |    9 +++++++--
>  2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
> 
> diff -puN mm/vmscan.c~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi mm/vmscan.c
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi	2020-06-25 17:32:11.559165912 -0700
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c	2020-06-25 17:32:11.572165912 -0700
> @@ -4090,8 +4090,13 @@ module_init(kswapd_init)
>   */
>  int node_reclaim_mode __read_mostly;
>  
> -#define RECLAIM_WRITE (1<<0)	/* Writeout pages during reclaim */
> -#define RECLAIM_UNMAP (1<<1)	/* Unmap pages during reclaim */
> +/*
> + * These bit locations are exposed in the vm.zone_reclaim_mode sysctl
> + * ABI.  New bits are OK, but existing bits can never change.
> + */
> +#define RECLAIM_RSVD  (1<<0)	/* (currently ignored/unused) */
> +#define RECLAIM_WRITE (1<<1)	/* Writeout pages during reclaim */
> +#define RECLAIM_UNMAP (1<<2)	/* Unmap pages during reclaim */
>  
>  /*
>   * Priority for NODE_RECLAIM. This determines the fraction of pages
> diff -puN Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi	2020-06-25 17:32:11.562165912 -0700
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst	2020-06-25 17:32:11.572165912 -0700
> @@ -938,7 +938,7 @@ in the system.
>  This is value OR'ed together of
>  
>  =	===================================
> -1	Zone reclaim on
> +1	(bit currently ignored)
>  2	Zone reclaim writes dirty pages out
>  4	Zone reclaim swaps pages
>  =	===================================
> @@ -948,11 +948,11 @@ that benefit from having their data cach
>  left disabled as the caching effect is likely to be more important than
>  data locality.
>  
> -zone_reclaim may be enabled if it's known that the workload is partitioned
> -such that each partition fits within a NUMA node and that accessing remote
> -memory would cause a measurable performance reduction.  The page allocator
> -will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page cache pages that are
> -currently not used) before allocating off node pages.
> +Consider enabling one or more zone_reclaim mode bits if it's known that the
> +workload is partitioned such that each partition fits within a NUMA node
> +and that accessing remote memory would cause a measurable performance
> +reduction.  The page allocator will take additional actions before
> +allocating off node pages.

I think the documentation update should not be part of this patch.
This makes the back porting to stable more difficult.

Thanks,
Daniel