RE: [PATCH] 2.4.6-pre2 page_launder() improvements

Alok K. Dhir (alok@dhir.net)
Wed, 13 Jun 2001 00:42:45 -0400


Are these page_launder improvements included in 2.4.6-pre3? Linus
mentions "VM tuning has also happened" in the announcement - but there
doesn't seem to be mention of it in his list of changes from -pre2...

Thanks

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
> [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Rik van Riel
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2001 12:41 AM
> To: linux-mm@kvack.org
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: [PATCH] 2.4.6-pre2 page_launder() improvements
>
>
> [Request For Testers ... patch below]
>
> Hi,
>
> during my holidays I've written the following patch
> (forward-ported to 2.4.6-pre2 and improved a tad today),
> which implements these improvements to page_launder():
>
> 1) don't "roll over" inactive_dirty pages to the back of the
> list, but reclaim them in something more resembling LRU
> order; this is especially good when the system has tons
> of inactive_dirty pages due to eg. background scanning
>
> 2) eliminate the infinite penalty clean pages had over dirty
> pages by not scanning the complete inactive_dirty list and
> letting real dirty pages build up near the front of the
> list ... we flush them asynchronously when we have enough
> of them
>
> 3) when going into the launder_loop, we scan a larger fraction
> of the inactive_dirty list; under most workloads this means
> we can always flush the dirty pages asynchronously because
> we'll have clean, freeable pages in the part of the list we
> only scan in the launder_loop
>
> 4) when we have only dirty pages and cannot free pages, we
> remember this for the next run of page_launder() and won't
> waste CPU by scanning pages without flushing them in the
> launder loop (after maxlaunder goes negative)
>
> 5) this same logic is used to control when we use synchronous
> IO; only when we cannot free any pages now do we wait on
> IO, this stops kswapd CPU wastage under heavy write loads
>
> 6) the "sync" argument to page_launder() now means whether
> we're _allowed_ to do synchronous IO or not ... page_launder()
> is now smart enough to determine if we should use asynchronous
> IO only or if we should wait on IO
>
> This patch has given excellent results on my laptop and my
> workstation here and seems to improve kernel behaviour in
> tests quite a bit. I can play mp3's unbuffered during
> moderate write loads or moderately heavy IO ;)
>
> YMMV, please test it. If it works great for everybody I'd
> like to get this improvement merged into the next -pre kernel.
>
> regards,
>
> Rik
> --
> Linux MM bugzilla: http://linux-mm.org/bugzilla.shtml
>
> Virtual memory is like a game you can't win;
> However, without VM there's truly nothing to lose...
>
> http://www.surriel.com/
> http://www.conectiva.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
>
>
> diff -ur linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/include/linux/mm.h
> linux-2.4.6-pre2/include/linux/mm.h
> --- linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/include/linux/mm.h Sun Jun
> 10 00:44:01 2001
> +++ linux-2.4.6-pre2/include/linux/mm.h Sat Jun 9 23:19:54 2001
> @@ -169,6 +169,7 @@
> #define PG_inactive_clean 11
> #define PG_highmem 12
> #define PG_checked 13 /* kill me in 2.5.<early>. */
> +#define PG_marker 14
> /* bits 21-29 unused */
> #define PG_arch_1 30
> #define PG_reserved 31
> @@ -242,6 +243,9 @@
> #define PageInactiveClean(page)
> test_bit(PG_inactive_clean, &(page)->flags)
> #define SetPageInactiveClean(page)
> set_bit(PG_inactive_clean, &(page)->flags)
> #define ClearPageInactiveClean(page)
> clear_bit(PG_inactive_clean, &(page)->flags)
> +
> +#define PageMarker(page) test_bit(PG_marker, &(page)->flags)
> +#define SetPageMarker(page) set_bit(PG_marker, &(page)->flags)
>
> #ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
> #define PageHighMem(page) test_bit(PG_highmem,
> &(page)->flags)
> diff -ur linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/include/linux/swap.h
> linux-2.4.6-pre2/include/linux/swap.h
> --- linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/include/linux/swap.h Sun Jun
> 10 00:44:01 2001
> +++ linux-2.4.6-pre2/include/linux/swap.h Sat Jun 9 23:19:54 2001
> @@ -205,6 +205,16 @@
> page->zone->inactive_dirty_pages++; \
> }
>
> +/* Like the above, but add us after the bookmark. */
> +#define add_page_to_inactive_dirty_list_marker(page) { \
> + DEBUG_ADD_PAGE \
> + ZERO_PAGE_BUG \
> + SetPageInactiveDirty(page); \
> + list_add(&(page)->lru, marker_lru); \
> + nr_inactive_dirty_pages++; \
> + page->zone->inactive_dirty_pages++; \
> +}
> +
> #define add_page_to_inactive_clean_list(page) { \
> DEBUG_ADD_PAGE \
> ZERO_PAGE_BUG \
> diff -ur linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/mm/vmscan.c
> linux-2.4.6-pre2/mm/vmscan.c
> --- linux-2.4.6-pre2-virgin/mm/vmscan.c Sun Jun 10 00:44:02 2001
> +++ linux-2.4.6-pre2/mm/vmscan.c Sun Jun 10 00:57:25 2001
> @@ -407,7 +407,7 @@
> /**
> * page_launder - clean dirty inactive pages, move to
> inactive_clean list
> * @gfp_mask: what operations we are allowed to do
> - * @sync: should we wait synchronously for the cleaning of pages
> + * @sync: are we allowed to do synchronous IO in emergencies ?
> *
> * When this function is called, we are most likely low on free +
> * inactive_clean pages. Since we want to refill those pages
> as @@ -428,20 +428,54 @@
> #define CAN_DO_BUFFERS (gfp_mask & __GFP_BUFFER)
> int page_launder(int gfp_mask, int sync)
> {
> + static int cannot_free_pages;
> int launder_loop, maxscan, cleaned_pages, maxlaunder;
> - struct list_head * page_lru;
> + struct list_head * page_lru, * marker_lru;
> struct page * page;
>
> + /* Our bookmark of where we are in the inactive_dirty list. */
> + struct page marker_page_struct = {
> + flags: (1<<PG_marker),
> + lru: { NULL, NULL },
> + };
> + marker_lru = &marker_page_struct.lru;
> +
> launder_loop = 0;
> maxlaunder = 0;
> cleaned_pages = 0;
>
> dirty_page_rescan:
> spin_lock(&pagemap_lru_lock);
> - maxscan = nr_inactive_dirty_pages;
> - while ((page_lru = inactive_dirty_list.prev) !=
> &inactive_dirty_list &&
> - maxscan-- > 0) {
> + /*
> + * By not scanning all inactive dirty pages we'll write out
> + * really old dirty pages before evicting newer clean pages.
> + * This should cause some LRU behaviour if we have a large
> + * amount of inactive pages (due to eg. drop behind).
> + *
> + * It also makes us accumulate dirty pages until we have enough
> + * to be worth writing to disk without causing excessive disk
> + * seeks and eliminates the infinite penalty clean
> pages incurred
> + * vs. dirty pages.
> + */
> + maxscan = nr_inactive_dirty_pages / 4;
> + if (launder_loop)
> + maxscan *= 2;
> + list_add_tail(marker_lru, &inactive_dirty_list);
> + while ((page_lru = marker_lru->prev) != &inactive_dirty_list &&
> + maxscan-- > 0 && free_shortage()) {
> page = list_entry(page_lru, struct page, lru);
> + /* We move the bookmark forward by flipping the
> page ;) */
> + list_del(page_lru);
> + list_add(page_lru, marker_lru);
> +
> + /* Don't waste CPU if chances are we cannot
> free anything. */
> + if (launder_loop && maxlaunder < 0 && cannot_free_pages)
> + break;
> +
> + /* Skip other people's marker pages. */
> + if (PageMarker(page)) {
> + continue;
> + }
>
> /* Wrong page on list?! (list corruption,
> should not happen) */
> if (!PageInactiveDirty(page)) {
> @@ -454,7 +488,6 @@
>
> /* Page is or was in use? Move it to the
> active list. */
> if (PageReferenced(page) || page->age > 0 ||
> - page->zone->free_pages >
> page->zone->pages_high ||
> (!page->buffers &&
> page_count(page) > 1) ||
> page_ramdisk(page)) {
> del_page_from_inactive_dirty_list(page);
> @@ -464,11 +497,9 @@
>
> /*
> * The page is locked. IO in progress?
> - * Move it to the back of the list.
> + * Skip the page, we'll take a look when it unlocks.
> */
> if (TryLockPage(page)) {
> - list_del(page_lru);
> - list_add(page_lru, &inactive_dirty_list);
> continue;
> }
>
> @@ -482,10 +513,8 @@
> if (!writepage)
> goto page_active;
>
> - /* First time through? Move it to the
> back of the list */
> + /* First time through? Skip the page. */
> if (!launder_loop || !CAN_DO_IO) {
> - list_del(page_lru);
> - list_add(page_lru,
> &inactive_dirty_list);
> UnlockPage(page);
> continue;
> }
> @@ -544,7 +573,7 @@
>
> /* The buffers were not freed. */
> if (!clearedbuf) {
> - add_page_to_inactive_dirty_list(page);
> +
> add_page_to_inactive_dirty_list_marker(page);
>
> /* The page was only in the buffer cache. */
> } else if (!page->mapping) {
> @@ -600,6 +629,8 @@
> UnlockPage(page);
> }
> }
> + /* Remove our marker. */
> + list_del(marker_lru);
> spin_unlock(&pagemap_lru_lock);
>
> /*
> @@ -615,16 +646,29 @@
> */
> if ((CAN_DO_IO || CAN_DO_BUFFERS) && !launder_loop &&
> free_shortage()) {
> launder_loop = 1;
> - /* If we cleaned pages, never do synchronous IO. */
> - if (cleaned_pages)
> + /*
> + * If we, or the previous process running
> page_launder(),
> + * managed to free any pages we never do synchronous IO.
> + */
> + if (cleaned_pages || !cannot_free_pages)
> sync = 0;
> + /* Else, do synchronous IO (if we are allowed to). */
> + else if (sync)
> + sync = 1;
> /* We only do a few "out of order" flushes. */
> maxlaunder = MAX_LAUNDER;
> - /* Kflushd takes care of the rest. */
> + /* Let bdflush take care of the rest. */
> wakeup_bdflush(0);
> goto dirty_page_rescan;
> }
>
> + /*
> + * If we failed to free pages (because all pages are dirty)
> + * we remember this for the next time. This will prevent us
> + * from wasting too much CPU here.
> + */
> + cannot_free_pages = !cleaned_pages;
> +
> /* Return the number of pages moved to the
> inactive_clean list. */
> return cleaned_pages;
> }
> @@ -852,7 +896,7 @@
> * list, so this is a relatively cheap operation.
> */
> if (free_shortage()) {
> - ret += page_launder(gfp_mask, user);
> + ret += page_launder(gfp_mask, 1);
> shrink_dcache_memory(DEF_PRIORITY, gfp_mask);
> shrink_icache_memory(DEF_PRIORITY, gfp_mask);
> }
>
> -
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