kernel.git/mm/swap.c, branch linux-3.11.y

mm: fix aio performance regression for database caused by THP

2013-10-01T16:41:02Z

commit 7cb2ef56e6a8b7b368b2e883a0a47d02fed66911 upstream. I am working with a tool that simulates oracle database I/O workload. This tool (orion to be specific - ) allocates hugetlbfs pages using shmget() with SHM_HUGETLB flag. It then does aio into these pages from flash disks using various common block sizes used by database. I am looking at performance with two of the most common block sizes - 1M and 64K. aio performance with these two block sizes plunged after Transparent HugePages was introduced in the kernel. Here are performance numbers: pre-THP 2.6.39 3.11-rc5 1M read 8384 MB/s 5629 MB/s 6501 MB/s 64K read 7867 MB/s 4576 MB/s 4251 MB/s I have narrowed the performance impact down to the overheads introduced by THP in __get_page_tail() and put_compound_page() routines. perf top shows >40% of cycles being spent in these two routines. Every time direct I/O to hugetlbfs pages starts, kernel calls get_page() to grab a reference to the pages and calls put_page() when I/O completes to put the reference away. THP introduced significant amount of locking overhead to get_page() and put_page() when dealing with compound pages because hugepages can be split underneath get_page() and put_page(). It added this overhead irrespective of whether it is dealing with hugetlbfs pages or transparent hugepages. This resulted in 20%-45% drop in aio performance when using hugetlbfs pages. Since hugetlbfs pages can not be split, there is no reason to go through all the locking overhead for these pages from what I can see. I added code to __get_page_tail() and put_compound_page() to bypass all the locking code when working with hugetlbfs pages. This improved performance significantly. Performance numbers with this patch: pre-THP 3.11-rc5 3.11-rc5 + Patch 1M read 8384 MB/s 6501 MB/s 8371 MB/s 64K read 7867 MB/s 4251 MB/s 6510 MB/s Performance with 64K read is still lower than what it was before THP, but still a 53% improvement. It does mean there is more work to be done but I will take a 53% improvement for now. Please take a look at the following patch and let me know if it looks reasonable. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: tweak comments] Signed-off-by: Khalid Aziz Cc: Pravin B Shelar Cc: Christoph Lameter Cc: Andrea Arcangeli Cc: Johannes Weiner Cc: Mel Gorman Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Minchan Kim Cc: Andi Kleen Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

thp, mm: avoid PageUnevictable on active/inactive lru lists

2013-07-31T21:41:03Z

active/inactive lru lists can contain unevicable pages (i.e. ramfs pages that have been placed on the LRU lists when first allocated), but these pages must not have PageUnevictable set - otherwise shrink_[in]active_list goes crazy: kernel BUG at /home/space/kas/git/public/linux-next/mm/vmscan.c:1122! 1090 static unsigned long isolate_lru_pages(unsigned long nr_to_scan, 1091 struct lruvec *lruvec, struct list_head *dst, 1092 unsigned long *nr_scanned, struct scan_control *sc, 1093 isolate_mode_t mode, enum lru_list lru) 1094 { ... 1108 switch (__isolate_lru_page(page, mode)) { 1109 case 0: ... 1116 case -EBUSY: ... 1121 default: 1122 BUG(); 1123 } 1124 } ... 1130 } __isolate_lru_page() returns EINVAL for PageUnevictable(page). For lru_add_page_tail(), it means we should not set PageUnevictable() for tail pages unless we're sure that it will go to LRU_UNEVICTABLE. Let's just copy PG_active and PG_unevictable from head page in __split_huge_page_refcount(), it will simplify lru_add_page_tail(). This will fix one more bug in lru_add_page_tail(): if page_evictable(page_tail) is false and PageLRU(page) is true, page_tail will go to the same lru as page, but nobody cares to sync page_tail active/inactive state with page. So we can end up with inactive page on active lru. The patch will fix it as well since we copy PG_active from head page. Signed-off-by: Kirill A. Shutemov Acked-by: Dave Hansen Cc: Naoya Horiguchi Cc: Mel Gorman Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm/swap.c: clear PageActive before adding pages onto unevictable list

2013-07-31T21:41:03Z

As a result of commit 13f7f78981e4 ("mm: pagevec: defer deciding which LRU to add a page to until pagevec drain time"), pages on unevictable lists can have both of PageActive and PageUnevictable set. This is not only confusing, but also corrupts page migration and shrink_[in]active_list. This patch fixes the problem by adding ClearPageActive before adding pages into unevictable list. It also cleans up VM_BUG_ONs. Signed-off-by: Naoya Horiguchi Cc: Mel Gorman Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: remove lru parameter from __lru_cache_add and lru_cache_add_lru

2013-07-03T23:07:31Z

Similar to __pagevec_lru_add, this patch removes the LRU parameter from __lru_cache_add and lru_cache_add_lru as the caller does not control the exact LRU the page gets added to. lru_cache_add_lru gets renamed to lru_cache_add the name is silly without the lru parameter. With the parameter removed, it is required that the caller indicate if they want the page added to the active or inactive list by setting or clearing PageActive respectively. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: Suggested the patch] [gang.chen@asianux.com: fix used-unintialized warning] Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman Signed-off-by: Chen Gang Cc: Jan Kara Cc: Rik van Riel Acked-by: Johannes Weiner Cc: Alexey Lyahkov Cc: Andrew Perepechko Cc: Robin Dong Cc: Theodore Tso Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: David Howells Cc: Trond Myklebust Cc: Mel Gorman Cc: Rik van Riel Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: remove lru parameter from __pagevec_lru_add and remove parts of pagevec API

2013-07-03T23:07:31Z

Now that the LRU to add a page to is decided at LRU-add time, remove the misleading lru parameter from __pagevec_lru_add. A consequence of this is that the pagevec_lru_add_file, pagevec_lru_add_anon and similar helpers are misleading as the caller no longer has direct control over what LRU the page is added to. Unused helpers are removed by this patch and existing users of pagevec_lru_add_file() are converted to use lru_cache_add_file() directly and use the per-cpu pagevecs instead of creating their own pagevec. Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel Acked-by: Johannes Weiner Cc: Alexey Lyahkov Cc: Andrew Perepechko Cc: Robin Dong Cc: Theodore Tso Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: David Howells Cc: Trond Myklebust Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: activate !PageLRU pages on mark_page_accessed if page is on local pagevec

2013-07-03T23:07:31Z

If a page is on a pagevec then it is !PageLRU and mark_page_accessed() may fail to move a page to the active list as expected. Now that the LRU is selected at LRU drain time, mark pages PageActive if they are on the local pagevec so it gets moved to the correct list at LRU drain time. Using a debugging patch it was found that for a simple git checkout based workload that pages were never added to the active file list in practice but with this patch applied they are. before after LRU Add Active File 0 750583 LRU Add Active Anon 2640587 2702818 LRU Add Inactive File 8833662 8068353 LRU Add Inactive Anon 207 200 Note that only pages on the local pagevec are considered on purpose. A !PageLRU page could be in the process of being released, reclaimed, migrated or on a remote pagevec that is currently being drained. Marking it PageActive is vunerable to races where PageLRU and Active bits are checked at the wrong time. Page reclaim will trigger VM_BUG_ONs but depending on when the race hits, it could also free a PageActive page to the page allocator and trigger a bad_page warning. Similarly a potential race exists between a per-cpu drain on a pagevec list and an activation on a remote CPU. lru_add_drain_cpu __pagevec_lru_add lru = page_lru(page); mark_page_accessed if (PageLRU(page)) activate_page else SetPageActive SetPageLRU(page); add_page_to_lru_list(page, lruvec, lru); In this case a PageActive page is added to the inactivate list and later the inactive/active stats will get skewed. While the PageActive checks in vmscan could be removed and potentially dealt with, a skew in the statistics would be very difficult to detect. Hence this patch deals just with the common case where a page being marked accessed has just been added to the local pagevec. Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman Cc: Jan Kara Cc: Rik van Riel Acked-by: Johannes Weiner Cc: Alexey Lyahkov Cc: Andrew Perepechko Cc: Robin Dong Cc: Theodore Tso Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: David Howells Cc: Trond Myklebust Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: pagevec: defer deciding which LRU to add a page to until pagevec drain time

2013-07-03T23:07:31Z

mark_page_accessed() cannot activate an inactive page that is located on an inactive LRU pagevec. Hints from filesystems may be ignored as a result. In preparation for fixing that problem, this patch removes the per-LRU pagevecs and leaves just one pagevec. The final LRU the page is added to is deferred until the pagevec is drained. This means that fewer pagevecs are available and potentially there is greater contention on the LRU lock. However, this only applies in the case where there is an almost perfect mix of file, anon, active and inactive pages being added to the LRU. In practice I expect that we are adding stream of pages of a particular time and that the changes in contention will barely be measurable. Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman Acked-by: Rik van Riel Cc: Jan Kara Acked-by: Johannes Weiner Cc: Alexey Lyahkov Cc: Andrew Perepechko Cc: Robin Dong Cc: Theodore Tso Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: David Howells Cc: Trond Myklebust Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: add tracepoints for LRU activation and insertions

2013-07-03T23:07:31Z

Andrew Perepechko reported a problem whereby pages are being prematurely evicted as the mark_page_accessed() hint is ignored for pages that are currently on a pagevec -- http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-ext4/msg37340.html . Alexey Lyahkov and Robin Dong have also reported problems recently that could be due to hot pages reaching the end of the inactive list too quickly and be reclaimed. Rather than addressing this on a per-filesystem basis, this series aims to fix the mark_page_accessed() interface by deferring what LRU a page is added to pagevec drain time and allowing mark_page_accessed() to call SetPageActive on a pagevec page. Patch 1 adds two tracepoints for LRU page activation and insertion. Using these processes it's possible to build a model of pages in the LRU that can be processed offline. Patch 2 defers making the decision on what LRU to add a page to until when the pagevec is drained. Patch 3 searches the local pagevec for pages to mark PageActive on mark_page_accessed. The changelog explains why only the local pagevec is examined. Patches 4 and 5 tidy up the API. postmark, a dd-based test and fs-mark both single and threaded mode were run but none of them showed any performance degradation or gain as a result of the patch. Using patch 1, I built a *very* basic model of the LRU to examine offline what the average age of different page types on the LRU were in milliseconds. Of course, capturing the trace distorts the test as it's written to local disk but it does not matter for the purposes of this test. The average age of pages in milliseconds were vanilla deferdrain Average age mapped anon: 1454 1250 Average age mapped file: 127841 155552 Average age unmapped anon: 85 235 Average age unmapped file: 73633 38884 Average age unmapped buffers: 74054 116155 The LRU activity was mostly files which you'd expect for a dd-based workload. Note that the average age of buffer pages is increased by the series and it is expected this is due to the fact that the buffer pages are now getting added to the active list when drained from the pagevecs. Note that the average age of the unmapped file data is decreased as they are still added to the inactive list and are reclaimed before the buffers. There is no guarantee this is a universal win for all workloads and it would be nice if the filesystem people gave some thought as to whether this decision is generally a win or a loss. This patch: Using these tracepoints it is possible to model LRU activity and the average residency of pages of different types. This can be used to debug problems related to premature reclaim of pages of particular types. Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel Cc: Jan Kara Cc: Johannes Weiner Cc: Alexey Lyahkov Cc: Andrew Perepechko Cc: Robin Dong Cc: Theodore Tso Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Rik van Riel Cc: Bernd Schubert Cc: David Howells Cc: Trond Myklebust Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

aio: don't include aio.h in sched.h

2013-05-08T03:16:25Z

Faster kernel compiles by way of fewer unnecessary includes. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix fallout] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix build] Signed-off-by: Kent Overstreet Cc: Zach Brown Cc: Felipe Balbi Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman Cc: Mark Fasheh Cc: Joel Becker Cc: Rusty Russell Cc: Jens Axboe Cc: Asai Thambi S P Cc: Selvan Mani Cc: Sam Bradshaw Cc: Jeff Moyer Cc: Al Viro Cc: Benjamin LaHaise Reviewed-by: "Theodore Ts'o" Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: thp: add split tail pages to shrink page list in page reclaim

2013-04-29T22:54:38Z

In page reclaim, huge page is split. split_huge_page() adds tail pages to LRU list. Since we are reclaiming a huge page, it's better we reclaim all subpages of the huge page instead of just the head page. This patch adds split tail pages to shrink page list so the tail pages can be reclaimed soon. Before this patch, run a swap workload: thp_fault_alloc 3492 thp_fault_fallback 608 thp_collapse_alloc 6 thp_collapse_alloc_failed 0 thp_split 916 With this patch: thp_fault_alloc 4085 thp_fault_fallback 16 thp_collapse_alloc 90 thp_collapse_alloc_failed 0 thp_split 1272 fallback allocation is reduced a lot. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix CONFIG_SWAP=n build] Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li Acked-by: Rik van Riel Acked-by: Minchan Kim Acked-by: Johannes Weiner Reviewed-by: Wanpeng Li Cc: Andrea Arcangeli Cc: Hugh Dickins Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds