[PATCH v10 13/14] mm: multi-gen LRU: admin guide

[Yu Zhao]

Add an admin guide.

Signed-off-by: Yu Zhao <yuzhao@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Brian Geffon <bgeffon@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) <heftig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Oleksandr Natalenko <oleksandr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Steven Barrett <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Suleiman Souhlal <suleiman@xxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Daniel Byrne <djbyrne@xxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Donald Carr <d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Holger Hoffstätte <holger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Konstantin Kharlamov <Hi-Angel@xxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Shuang Zhai <szhai2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Sofia Trinh <sofia.trinh@edi.works>
Tested-by: Vaibhav Jain <vaibhav@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst        |   1 +
 Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst | 152 ++++++++++++++++++
 mm/Kconfig                                    |   3 +-
 3 files changed, 155 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
index c21b5823f126..2cf5bae62036 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ the Linux memory management.
    idle_page_tracking
    ksm
    memory-hotplug
+   multigen_lru
    nommu-mmap
    numa_memory_policy
    numaperf
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..3d9a6ef84229
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,152 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=============
+Multi-Gen LRU
+=============
+The multi-gen LRU is an alternative LRU implementation that optimizes
+page reclaim and improves performance under memory pressure. Page
+reclaim decides the kernel's caching policy and ability to overcommit
+memory. It directly impacts the kswapd CPU usage and RAM efficiency.
+
+Quick start
+===========
+Build the kernel with the following configurations.
+
+* ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN=y``
+* ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_ENABLED=y``
+
+All set!
+
+Runtime options
+===============
+``/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/`` contains stable ABIs described in the
+following subsections.
+
+Kill switch
+-----------
+``enable`` accepts different values to enable or disable the following
+components. Its default value depends on ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_ENABLED``.
+All the components should be enabled unless some of them have
+unforeseen side effects. Writing to ``enable`` has no effect when a
+component is not supported by the hardware, and valid values will be
+accepted even when the main switch is off.
+
+====== ===============================================================
+Values Components
+====== ===============================================================
+0x0001 The main switch for the multi-gen LRU.
+0x0002 Clearing the accessed bit in leaf page table entries in large
+       batches, when MMU sets it (e.g., on x86). This behavior can
+       theoretically worsen lock contention (mmap_lock). If it is
+       disabled, the multi-gen LRU will suffer a minor performance
+       degradation.
+0x0004 Clearing the accessed bit in non-leaf page table entries as
+       well, when MMU sets it (e.g., on x86). This behavior was not
+       verified on x86 varieties other than Intel and AMD. If it is
+       disabled, the multi-gen LRU will suffer a negligible
+       performance degradation.
+[yYnN] Apply to all the components above.
+====== ===============================================================
+
+E.g.,
+::
+
+    echo y >/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+    cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+    0x0007
+    echo 5 >/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+    cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+    0x0005
+
+Thrashing prevention
+--------------------
+Personal computers are more sensitive to thrashing because it can
+cause janks (lags when rendering UI) and negatively impact user
+experience. The multi-gen LRU offers thrashing prevention to the
+majority of laptop and desktop users who do not have ``oomd``.
+
+Users can write ``N`` to ``min_ttl_ms`` to prevent the working set of
+``N`` milliseconds from getting evicted. The OOM killer is triggered
+if this working set cannot be kept in memory. In other words, this
+option works as an adjustable pressure relief valve, and when open, it
+terminates applications that are hopefully not being used.
+
+Based on the average human detectable lag (~100ms), ``N=1000`` usually
+eliminates intolerable janks due to thrashing. Larger values like
+``N=3000`` make janks less noticeable at the risk of premature OOM
+kills.
+
+The default value ``0`` means disabled.
+
+Experimental features
+=====================
+``/sys/kernel/debug/lru_gen`` accepts commands described in the
+following subsections. Multiple command lines are supported, so does
+concatenation with delimiters ``,`` and ``;``.
+
+``/sys/kernel/debug/lru_gen_full`` provides additional stats for
+debugging. ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_STATS=y`` keeps historical stats from
+evicted generations in this file.
+
+Working set estimation
+----------------------
+Working set estimation measures how much memory an application
+requires in a given time interval, and it is usually done with little
+impact on the performance of the application. E.g., data centers want
+to optimize job scheduling (bin packing) to improve memory
+utilizations. When a new job comes in, the job scheduler needs to find
+out whether each server it manages can allocate a certain amount of
+memory for this new job before it can pick a candidate. To do so, this
+job scheduler needs to estimate the working sets of the existing jobs.
+
+When it is read, ``lru_gen`` returns a histogram of numbers of pages
+accessed over different time intervals for each memcg and node.
+``MAX_NR_GENS`` decides the number of bins for each histogram.
+::
+
+    memcg  memcg_id  memcg_path
+       node  node_id
+           min_gen_nr  age_in_ms  nr_anon_pages  nr_file_pages
+           ...
+           max_gen_nr  age_in_ms  nr_anon_pages  nr_file_pages
+
+Each generation contains an estimated number of pages that have been
+accessed within ``age_in_ms`` non-cumulatively. E.g., ``min_gen_nr``
+contains the coldest pages and ``max_gen_nr`` contains the hottest
+pages, since ``age_in_ms`` of the former is the largest and that of
+the latter is the smallest.
+
+Users can write ``+ memcg_id node_id max_gen_nr
+[can_swap[full_scan]]`` to ``lru_gen`` to create a new generation
+``max_gen_nr+1``. ``can_swap`` defaults to the swap setting and, if it
+is set to ``1``, it forces the scan of anon pages when swap is off.
+``full_scan`` defaults to ``1`` and, if it is set to ``0``, it reduces
+the overhead as well as the coverage when scanning page tables.
+
+A typical use case is that a job scheduler writes to ``lru_gen`` at a
+certain time interval to create new generations, and it ranks the
+servers it manages based on the sizes of their cold memory defined by
+this time interval.
+
+Proactive reclaim
+-----------------
+Proactive reclaim induces memory reclaim when there is no memory
+pressure and usually targets cold memory only. E.g., when a new job
+comes in, the job scheduler wants to proactively reclaim memory on the
+server it has selected to improve the chance of successfully landing
+this new job.
+
+Users can write ``- memcg_id node_id min_gen_nr [swappiness
+[nr_to_reclaim]]`` to ``lru_gen`` to evict generations less than or
+equal to ``min_gen_nr``. Note that ``min_gen_nr`` should be less than
+``max_gen_nr-1`` as ``max_gen_nr`` and ``max_gen_nr-1`` are not fully
+aged and therefore cannot be evicted. ``swappiness`` overrides the
+default value in ``/proc/sys/vm/swappiness``. ``nr_to_reclaim`` limits
+the number of pages to evict.
+
+A typical use case is that a job scheduler writes to ``lru_gen``
+before it tries to land a new job on a server, and if it fails to
+materialize the cold memory without impacting the existing jobs on
+this server, it retries on the next server according to the ranking
+result obtained from the working set estimation step described
+earlier.
diff --git a/mm/Kconfig b/mm/Kconfig
index b55546191369..2fb9d5efcf89 100644
--- a/mm/Kconfig
+++ b/mm/Kconfig
@@ -916,7 +916,8 @@ config LRU_GEN
 	# the following options can use up the spare bits in page flags
 	depends on !MAXSMP && (64BIT || !SPARSEMEM || SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP)
 	help
-	  A high performance LRU implementation to overcommit memory.
+	  A high performance LRU implementation to overcommit memory. See
+	  Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details.
 
 config LRU_GEN_ENABLED
 	bool "Enable by default"
-- 
2.35.1.1094.g7c7d902a7c-goog