The patch titled Subject: mm, page_alloc: make THP-specific decisions more generic has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic.patch This patch should soon appear at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmots/broken-out/mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic.patch and later at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** The -mm tree is included into linux-next and is updated there every 3-4 working days ------------------------------------------------------ From: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx> Subject: mm, page_alloc: make THP-specific decisions more generic Since THP allocations during page faults can be costly, extra decisions are employed for them to avoid excessive reclaim and compaction, if the initial compaction doesn't look promising. The detection has never been perfect as there is no gfp flag specific to THP allocations. At this moment it checks the whole combination of flags that makes up GFP_TRANSHUGE, and hopes that no other users of such combination exist, or would mind being treated the same way. Extra care is also taken to separate allocations from khugepaged, where latency doesn't matter that much. It is however possible to distinguish these allocations in a simpler and more reliable way. The key observation is that after the initial compaction followed by the first iteration of "standard" reclaim/compaction, both __GFP_NORETRY allocations and costly allocations without __GFP_REPEAT are declared as failures: /* Do not loop if specifically requested */ if (gfp_mask & __GFP_NORETRY) goto nopage; /* * Do not retry costly high order allocations unless they are * __GFP_REPEAT */ if (order > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER && !(gfp_mask & __GFP_REPEAT)) goto nopage; This means we can further distinguish allocations that are costly order *and* additionally include the __GFP_NORETRY flag. As it happens, GFP_TRANSHUGE allocations do already fall into this category. This will also allow other costly allocations with similar high-order benefit vs latency considerations to use this semantic. Furthermore, we can distinguish THP allocations that should try a bit harder (such as from khugepageed) by removing __GFP_NORETRY, as will be done in the next patch. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160721073614.24395-6-vbabka@xxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx> Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/page_alloc.c | 22 +++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-) diff -puN mm/page_alloc.c~mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic mm/page_alloc.c --- a/mm/page_alloc.c~mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic +++ a/mm/page_alloc.c @@ -3085,7 +3085,6 @@ out: return page; } - /* * Maximum number of compaction retries wit a progress before OOM * killer is consider as the only way to move forward. @@ -3373,11 +3372,6 @@ bool gfp_pfmemalloc_allowed(gfp_t gfp_ma return false; } -static inline bool is_thp_gfp_mask(gfp_t gfp_mask) -{ - return (gfp_mask & (GFP_TRANSHUGE | __GFP_KSWAPD_RECLAIM)) == GFP_TRANSHUGE; -} - /* * Maximum number of reclaim retries without any progress before OOM killer * is consider as the only way to move forward. @@ -3567,8 +3561,11 @@ __alloc_pages_slowpath(gfp_t gfp_mask, u if (page) goto got_pg; - /* Checks for THP-specific high-order allocations */ - if (is_thp_gfp_mask(gfp_mask)) { + /* + * Checks for costly allocations with __GFP_NORETRY, which + * includes THP page fault allocations + */ + if (gfp_mask & __GFP_NORETRY) { /* * If compaction is deferred for high-order allocations, * it is because sync compaction recently failed. If @@ -3588,11 +3585,10 @@ __alloc_pages_slowpath(gfp_t gfp_mask, u goto nopage; /* - * It can become very expensive to allocate transparent - * hugepages at fault, so use asynchronous memory - * compaction for THP unless it is khugepaged trying to - * collapse. All other requests should tolerate at - * least light sync migration. + * Looks like reclaim/compaction is worth trying, but + * sync compaction could be very expensive, so keep + * using async compaction, unless it's khugepaged + * trying to collapse. */ if (!(current->flags & PF_KTHREAD)) migration_mode = MIGRATE_ASYNC; _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from vbabka@xxxxxxx are mm-frontswap-convert-frontswap_enabled-to-static-key.patch mm-page_alloc-set-alloc_flags-only-once-in-slowpath.patch mm-page_alloc-dont-retry-initial-attempt-in-slowpath.patch mm-page_alloc-restructure-direct-compaction-handling-in-slowpath.patch mm-page_alloc-make-thp-specific-decisions-more-generic.patch mm-thp-remove-__gfp_noretry-from-khugepaged-and-madvised-allocations.patch mm-compaction-introduce-direct-compaction-priority.patch mm-compaction-simplify-contended-compaction-handling.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html