On Mon, 6 Sep 2010 11:47:26 +0100
Mel Gorman <mel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If congestion_wait() is called with no BDIs congested, the caller will sleep
> for the full timeout and this may be an unnecessary sleep. This patch adds
> a wait_iff_congested() that checks congestion and only sleeps if a BDI is
> congested or if there is a significant amount of writeback going on in an
> interesting zone. Else, it calls cond_resched() to ensure the caller is
> not hogging the CPU longer than its quota but otherwise will not sleep.
>
> This is aimed at reducing some of the major desktop stalls reported during
> IO. For example, while kswapd is operating, it calls congestion_wait()
> but it could just have been reclaiming clean page cache pages with no
> congestion. Without this patch, it would sleep for a full timeout but after
> this patch, it'll just call schedule() if it has been on the CPU too long.
> Similar logic applies to direct reclaimers that are not making enough
> progress.
>
The patch series looks generally good. Would like to see some testing
results ;) A few touchups are planned so I'll await v2.
> --- a/mm/backing-dev.c
> +++ b/mm/backing-dev.c
> @@ -724,6 +724,7 @@ static wait_queue_head_t congestion_wqh[2] = {
> __WAIT_QUEUE_HEAD_INITIALIZER(congestion_wqh[0]),
> __WAIT_QUEUE_HEAD_INITIALIZER(congestion_wqh[1])
> };
> +static atomic_t nr_bdi_congested[2];
Let's remember that a queue can get congested because of reads as well
as writes. It's very rare for this to happen - it needs either a
zillion read()ing threads or someone going berzerk with O_DIRECT aio,
etc. Probably it doesn't matter much, but for memory reclaim purposes
read-congestion is somewhat irrelevant and a bit of thought is warranted.
vmscan currently only looks at *write* congestion, but in this patch
you secretly change that logic to newly look at write-or-read
congestion. Talk to me.
> void clear_bdi_congested(struct backing_dev_info *bdi, int sync)
> {
> @@ -731,7 +732,8 @@ void clear_bdi_congested(struct backing_dev_info *bdi, int sync)
> wait_queue_head_t *wqh = &congestion_wqh[sync];
>
> bit = sync ? BDI_sync_congested : BDI_async_congested;
> - clear_bit(bit, &bdi->state);
> + if (test_and_clear_bit(bit, &bdi->state))
> + atomic_dec(&nr_bdi_congested[sync]);
> smp_mb__after_clear_bit();
> if (waitqueue_active(wqh))
> wake_up(wqh);
Worried. Having a single slow disk getting itself gummed up will
affect the entire machine!
There's potential for pathological corner-case problems here. "When I
do a big aio read from /dev/MySuckyUsbStick, all my CPUs get pegged in
page reclaim!".
What to do?
Of course, we'd very much prefer to know whether a queue which we're
interested in for writeback will block when we try to write to it.
Much better than looking at all queues.
Important question: which of teh current congestion_wait() call sites
are causing appreciable stalls?
I think a more accurate way of implementing this is to be smarter with
the may_write_to_queue()->bdi_write_congested() result. If a previous
attempt to write off this LRU encountered congestion then fine, call
congestion_wait(). But if writeback is not hitting
may_write_to_queue()->bdi_write_congested() then that is the time to
avoid calling congestion_wait().
In other words, save the bdi_write_congested() result in the zone
struct in some fashion and inspect that before deciding to synchronize
behind the underlying device's write rate. Not hitting a congested
device for this LRU? Then don't wait for congested devices.
> @@ -774,3 +777,62 @@ long congestion_wait(int sync, long timeout)
> }
> EXPORT_SYMBOL(congestion_wait);
>
> +/**
> + * congestion_wait - wait for a backing_dev to become uncongested
> + * @zone: A zone to consider the number of being being written back from
That comments needs help.
> + * @sync: SYNC or ASYNC IO
> + * @timeout: timeout in jiffies
> + *
> + * Waits for up to @timeout jiffies for a backing_dev (any backing_dev) to exit
> + * write congestion.'
write or read congestion!!
> If no backing_devs are congested then the number of
> + * writeback pages in the zone are checked and compared to the inactive
> + * list. If there is no sigificant writeback or congestion, there is no point
> + * in sleeping but cond_resched() is called in case the current process has
> + * consumed its CPU quota.
> + */
Document the return value?
> +long wait_iff_congested(struct zone *zone, int sync, long timeout)
> +{
> + long ret;
> + unsigned long start = jiffies;
> + DEFINE_WAIT(wait);
> + wait_queue_head_t *wqh = &congestion_wqh[sync];
> +
> + /*
> + * If there is no congestion, check the amount of writeback. If there
> + * is no significant writeback and no congestion, just cond_resched
> + */
> + if (atomic_read(&nr_bdi_congested[sync]) == 0) {
> + unsigned long inactive, writeback;
> +
> + inactive = zone_page_state(zone, NR_INACTIVE_FILE) +
> + zone_page_state(zone, NR_INACTIVE_ANON);
> + writeback = zone_page_state(zone, NR_WRITEBACK);
> +
> + /*
> + * If less than half the inactive list is being written back,
> + * reclaim might as well continue
> + */
> + if (writeback < inactive / 2) {
This is all getting seriously inaccurate :(
> + cond_resched();
> +
> + /* In case we scheduled, work out time remaining */
> + ret = timeout - (jiffies - start);
> + if (ret < 0)
> + ret = 0;
> +
> + goto out;
> + }
> + }
> +
> + /* Sleep until uncongested or a write happens */
> + prepare_to_wait(wqh, &wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);
> + ret = io_schedule_timeout(timeout);
> + finish_wait(wqh, &wait);
> +
> +out:
> + trace_writeback_wait_iff_congested(jiffies_to_usecs(timeout),
> + jiffies_to_usecs(jiffies - start));
Does this tracepoint tell us how often wait_iff_congested() is sleeping
versus how often it is returning immediately?
> + return ret;
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL(wait_iff_congested);
>
> ...
>
> @@ -1913,10 +1913,28 @@ static unsigned long do_try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist,
> sc->may_writepage = 1;
> }
>
> - /* Take a nap, wait for some writeback to complete */
> + /* Take a nap if congested, wait for some writeback */
> if (!sc->hibernation_mode && sc->nr_scanned &&
> - priority < DEF_PRIORITY - 2)
> - congestion_wait(BLK_RW_ASYNC, HZ/10);
> + priority < DEF_PRIORITY - 2) {
> + struct zone *active_zone = NULL;
> + unsigned long max_writeback = 0;
> + for_each_zone_zonelist(zone, z, zonelist,
> + gfp_zone(sc->gfp_mask)) {
> + unsigned long writeback;
> +
> + /* Initialise for first zone */
> + if (active_zone == NULL)
> + active_zone = zone;
> +
> + writeback = zone_page_state(zone, NR_WRITEBACK);
> + if (writeback > max_writeback) {
> + max_writeback = writeback;
> + active_zone = zone;
> + }
> + }
> +
> + wait_iff_congested(active_zone, BLK_RW_ASYNC, HZ/10);
> + }
Again, we would benefit from more accuracy here. In my above
suggestion I'm assuming that the (congestion) result of the most recent
attempt to perform writeback is a predictor of the next attempt.
Doing that on a kernel-wide basis would be rather inaccurate on large
machines in some scenarios. Storing the state info in the zone would
help.
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