During allocator-intensive workloads, kswapd will be woken frequently causing free memory to oscillate between the high and min watermark. This is expected behaviour. A problem occurs if the highest zone is small. balance_pgdat() only considers unreclaimable zones when priority is DEF_PRIORITY but sleeping_prematurely considers all zones. It's possible for this sequence to occur 1. kswapd wakes up and enters balance_pgdat() 2. At DEF_PRIORITY, marks highest zone unreclaimable 3. At DEF_PRIORITY-1, ignores highest zone setting end_zone 4. At DEF_PRIORITY-1, calls shrink_slab freeing memory from highest zone, clearing all_unreclaimable. Highest zone is still unbalanced 5. kswapd returns and calls sleeping_prematurely 6. sleeping_prematurely looks at *all* zones, not just the ones being considered by balance_pgdat. The highest small zone has all_unreclaimable cleared but but the zone is not balanced. all_zones_ok is false so kswapd stays awake This patch corrects the behaviour of sleeping_prematurely to check the zones balance_pgdat() checked. Reported-and-tested-by: Pádraig Brady <P@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx> --- mm/vmscan.c | 2 +- 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-) diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c index 8ff834e..841e3bf 100644 --- a/mm/vmscan.c +++ b/mm/vmscan.c @@ -2323,7 +2323,7 @@ static bool sleeping_prematurely(pg_data_t *pgdat, int order, long remaining, return true; /* Check the watermark levels */ - for (i = 0; i < pgdat->nr_zones; i++) { + for (i = 0; i <= classzone_idx; i++) { struct zone *zone = pgdat->node_zones + i; if (!populated_zone(zone)) -- 1.7.3.4 -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx"> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>