This patch is an attempt to support MADV_FREE for Linux. Rationale is following as. Allocators call munmap(2) when user call free(3) if ptr is in mmaped area. But munmap isn't cheap because it have to clean up all pte entries, unlinking a vma and returns free pages to page allocator so that overhead would be increased linearly by mmaped area's size. In the end, userspace allocators like MADV_DONTNEED rather than munmap. Because MADV_DONTNEED holds read-side lock of mmap_sem so other threads of the process could go with concurrent page faults so it is better than munmap if it's not lack of address space. But a problem of this approach is that most of allocator reuses freed memory space soonish so users of allocator will see page fault, page allocation, page zeroing if allocator already called MADV_DONNEED on the address space. For avoidng that overheads, other OS have supported MADV_FREE. The idea is just clear dirty bit from pte when the syscall is called and purge them if memory pressure happens. If there is write(ie, store) operation in MADV_FREEed page, VM checks pte_dirty and don't purge the page so users could the page without any corruption. For testing, I tweaked jamalloc to use MADV_FREE. diff --git a/src/chunk_mmap.c b/src/chunk_mmap.c index 8a42e75..20e31af 100644 --- a/src/chunk_mmap.c +++ b/src/chunk_mmap.c @@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ pages_purge(void *addr, size_t length) # else # error "No method defined for purging unused dirty pages." # endif - int err = madvise(addr, length, JEMALLOC_MADV_PURGE); + int err = madvise(addr, length, 5); unzeroed = (JEMALLOC_MADV_ZEROS == false || err != 0); # undef JEMALLOC_MADV_PURGE # undef JEMALLOC_MADV_ZEROS RAM 2G, CPU 4, ebizzy benchmark(./ebizzy -S 30 -n 512) (1.1) stands for 1 process and 1 thread so for exmaple, (1.4) means 1 process and 4 thread. vanilla jemalloc patched jemalloc 1.1 1.1 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 7417.80 avg: 13866.00 std: 82.53(1.11%) std: 323.16(2.33%) max: 7559.00 max: 14264.00 min: 7309.00 min: 13543.00 1.4 1.4 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 16353.80 avg: 30380.00 std: 423.30(2.59%) std: 852.16(2.81%) max: 16823.00 max: 31819.00 min: 15788.00 min: 29310.00 1.8 1.8 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 15766.00 avg: 27498.40 std: 1073.76(6.81%) std: 1838.82(6.69%) max: 17259.00 max: 30070.00 min: 13919.00 min: 24810.00 4.1 4.1 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 4000.40 avg: 7926.60 std: 9.75(0.24%) std: 126.84(1.60%) max: 4013.00 max: 8171.00 min: 3984.00 min: 7805.00 4.4 4.4 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 3920.40 avg: 7046.80 std: 73.11(1.86%) std: 148.47(2.11%) max: 4044.00 max: 7320.00 min: 3838.00 min: 6876.00 4.8 4.8 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 3951.80 avg: 7024.60 std: 51.47(1.30%) std: 150.76(2.15%) max: 4048.00 max: 7284.00 min: 3893.00 min: 6814.00 8.1 8.1 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 1919.80 avg: 3354.00 std: 39.33(2.05%) std: 100.58(3.00%) max: 1989.00 max: 3529.00 min: 1870.00 min: 3227.00 8.4 8.4 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 1946.60 avg: 2800.40 std: 22.69(1.17%) std: 246.64(8.81%) max: 1977.00 max: 3081.00 min: 1915.00 min: 2394.00 8.8 8.8 records: 5 records: 5 avg: 1947.20 avg: 2249.60 std: 19.54(1.00%) std: 131.43(5.84%) max: 1973.00 max: 2505.00 min: 1929.00 min: 2149.00 MADV_FREE is about 2 time faster than MADV_DONTNEED but it starts slow down as memory pressure is heavy compared to DONTNEED. It's natural because MADV_FREE needs more steps to free pages so one thing I have a mind to overcome is just purge them if memory pressure is severe(ex, kswapd active) rather than giving a chance to promote freeing page from inactive LRU when madvise_free is called. (just wondering, when I used PG_lazyfree(ie, PG_private) in previous internal version, I didn't see the above regression in same test. I will investigate what's culprit in there.) Still, I didn't test a lot and surely needs more description and a few TODO(ex, lazyfree page accoutning and work with swapless system but it's further enhance, not necessary in this stage) but it's enough to show the concept and direction before LSF/MM. Patchset is based on 3.14-rc6. Welcome any comment! * From v1 * Use custom page table walker for madvise_free - Johannes * Remove PG_lazypage flag - Johannes * Do madvise_dontneed instead of madvise_freein swapless system Minchan Kim (3): mm: support madvise(MADV_FREE) mm: work deactivate_page with anon pages mm: deactivate lazyfree pages include/linux/mm.h | 2 + include/linux/mm_inline.h | 9 ++ include/linux/rmap.h | 6 ++ include/linux/vm_event_item.h | 1 + include/uapi/asm-generic/mman-common.h | 1 + mm/madvise.c | 25 +++++ mm/memory.c | 162 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- mm/rmap.c | 31 ++++++- mm/swap.c | 20 ++-- mm/swap_state.c | 3 +- mm/vmscan.c | 12 +++ mm/vmstat.c | 1 + 12 files changed, 255 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-) -- 1.9.0 -- 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/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx"> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>