From: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: mm: fadvise: avoid expensive remote LRU cache draining after FADV_DONTNEED When FADV_DONTNEED cannot drop all pages in the range, it observes that some pages might still be on per-cpu LRU caches after recent instantiation and so initiates remote calls to all CPUs to flush their local caches. However, in most cases, the fadvise happens from the same context that instantiated the pages, and any pre-LRU pages in the specified range are most likely sitting on the local CPU's LRU cache, and so in many cases this results in unnecessary remote calls, which, in a loaded system, can hold up the fadvise() call significantly. [ I didn't record it in the extreme case we observed at Facebook, unfortunately. We had a slow-to-respond system and noticed it lru_add_drain_all() leading the profile during fadvise calls. This patch came out of thinking about the code and how we commonly call FADV_DONTNEED. FWIW, I wrote a silly directory tree walker/searcher that recurses through /usr to read and FADV_DONTNEED each file it finds. On a 2 socket 40 ht machine, over 1% is spent in lru_add_drain_all(). With the patch, that cost is gone; the local drain cost shows at 0.09%. ] Try to avoid the remote call by flushing the local LRU cache before even attempting to invalidate anything. It's a cheap operation, and the local LRU cache is the most likely to hold any pre-LRU pages in the specified fadvise range. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161214210017.GA1465@xxxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx> Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx> Acked-by: Hillf Danton <hillf.zj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/fadvise.c | 15 ++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN mm/fadvise.c~mm-fadvise-avoid-expensive-remote-lru-cache-draining-after-fadv_dontneed mm/fadvise.c --- a/mm/fadvise.c~mm-fadvise-avoid-expensive-remote-lru-cache-draining-after-fadv_dontneed +++ a/mm/fadvise.c @@ -139,7 +139,20 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(fadvise64_64, int, fd, l } if (end_index >= start_index) { - unsigned long count = invalidate_mapping_pages(mapping, + unsigned long count; + + /* + * It's common to FADV_DONTNEED right after + * the read or write that instantiates the + * pages, in which case there will be some + * sitting on the local LRU cache. Try to + * avoid the expensive remote drain and the + * second cache tree walk below by flushing + * them out right away. + */ + lru_add_drain(); + + count = invalidate_mapping_pages(mapping, start_index, end_index); /* _ -- 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
