[PATCH RFC v2 2/2] mm/zswap: reference the pool by index to shrink struct zswap_entry

From: Jianyue Wu

Date: Thu Jul 30 2026 - 20:37:54 EST


struct zswap_entry is one allocation per stored page, so its size is pure
overhead. It currently embeds an 8-byte pool pointer, even though the
live pools now sit in a small fixed array indexed by a u8 slot number.

Replace the per-entry pool pointer with that u8 slot index and resolve it
through a zswap_entry_pool() helper. A live entry holds a reference to
its pool, so the slot cannot be reused under it; the lookup therefore
needs no RCU read-side section (rcu_dereference_protected(..., true)).

The u8 fits in the padding after the bool referenced field, shrinking the
entry from 56 to 48 bytes on x86_64. This raises objs_per_slab from 73
to 85 and saves about 2MiB of metadata per 1GiB of data held in zswap.

Suggested-by: Chris Li <chrisl@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Jianyue Wu <wujianyue000@xxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/zswap.c | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/zswap.c b/mm/zswap.c
index b203934d3be8..d4f4db2999f2 100644
--- a/mm/zswap.c
+++ b/mm/zswap.c
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ static struct shrinker *zswap_shrinker;
* writeback logic. The entry is only reclaimed by the writeback
* logic if referenced is unset. See comments in the shrinker
* section for context.
- * pool - the zswap_pool the entry's data is in
+ * pool_idx - slot of the zswap_pool that the entry's data is in.
* handle - zsmalloc allocation handle that stores the compressed page data
* objcg - the obj_cgroup that the compressed memory is charged to
* lru - handle to the pool's lru used to evict pages.
@@ -199,12 +199,22 @@ struct zswap_entry {
swp_entry_t swpentry;
unsigned int length;
bool referenced;
- struct zswap_pool *pool;
+ u8 pool_idx;
unsigned long handle;
struct obj_cgroup *objcg;
struct list_head lru;
};

+static struct zswap_pool *zswap_entry_pool(struct zswap_entry *entry)
+{
+ /*
+ * A live entry holds a reference to its pool, so the slot cannot be
+ * cleared or reused under it. This is not an RCU read-side walk.
+ */
+ return rcu_dereference_protected(zswap_pools[entry->pool_idx],
+ true /* entry pins pool */);
+}
+
static struct xarray *zswap_trees[MAX_SWAPFILES];
static unsigned int nr_zswap_trees[MAX_SWAPFILES];

@@ -807,9 +817,13 @@ static void zswap_entry_cache_free(struct zswap_entry *entry)
*/
static void zswap_entry_free(struct zswap_entry *entry)
{
+ struct zswap_pool *pool = zswap_entry_pool(entry);
+
zswap_lru_del(&zswap_list_lru, entry);
- zs_free(entry->pool->zs_pool, entry->handle);
- zswap_pool_put(entry->pool);
+ if (!WARN_ON_ONCE(!pool)) {
+ zs_free(pool->zs_pool, entry->handle);
+ zswap_pool_put(pool);
+ }
if (entry->objcg) {
obj_cgroup_uncharge_zswap(entry->objcg, entry->length);
obj_cgroup_put(entry->objcg);
@@ -966,12 +980,15 @@ static bool zswap_compress(struct page *page, struct zswap_entry *entry,

static bool zswap_decompress(struct zswap_entry *entry, struct folio *folio)
{
- struct zswap_pool *pool = entry->pool;
+ struct zswap_pool *pool = zswap_entry_pool(entry);
struct scatterlist input[2]; /* zsmalloc returns an SG list 1-2 entries */
struct scatterlist output;
struct crypto_acomp_ctx *acomp_ctx;
int ret = 0, dlen;

+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!pool))
+ return false;
+
acomp_ctx = raw_cpu_ptr(pool->acomp_ctx);
mutex_lock(&acomp_ctx->mutex);
zs_obj_read_sg_begin(pool->zs_pool, entry->handle, input, entry->length);
@@ -1007,7 +1024,7 @@ static bool zswap_decompress(struct zswap_entry *entry, struct folio *folio)
pr_alert_ratelimited("Decompression error from zswap (%d:%lu %s %u->%d)\n",
swp_type(entry->swpentry),
swp_offset(entry->swpentry),
- entry->pool->tfm_name,
+ pool->tfm_name,
entry->length, dlen);
return false;
}
@@ -1500,7 +1517,7 @@ static bool zswap_store_page(struct page *page,
* The publishing order matters to prevent writeback from seeing
* an incoherent entry.
*/
- entry->pool = pool;
+ entry->pool_idx = pool->idx;
entry->swpentry = page_swpentry;
entry->objcg = objcg;
entry->referenced = true;
@@ -1806,7 +1823,7 @@ static int zswap_setup(void)
struct zswap_pool *pool;
int ret;

- /* Slot indices are stored in a u8 (pool->idx). */
+ /* Slot indices are stored in a u8 (pool->idx and entry->pool_idx). */
BUILD_BUG_ON(ZSWAP_MAX_POOLS - 1 > U8_MAX);

zswap_entry_cache = KMEM_CACHE(zswap_entry, 0);

--
2.43.0