This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled
Don't trigger congestion wait on dirty-but-not-writeout pages
to the 3.15-stable tree which can be found at:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary
The filename of the patch is:
don-t-trigger-congestion-wait-on-dirty-but-not-writeout-pages.patch
and it can be found in the queue-3.15 subdirectory.
If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree,
please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it.
>From b738d764652dc5aab1c8939f637112981fce9e0e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 14:17:00 -0700
Subject: Don't trigger congestion wait on dirty-but-not-writeout pages
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
commit b738d764652dc5aab1c8939f637112981fce9e0e upstream.
shrink_inactive_list() used to wait 0.1s to avoid congestion when all
the pages that were isolated from the inactive list were dirty but not
under active writeback. That makes no real sense, and apparently causes
major interactivity issues under some loads since 3.11.
The ostensible reason for it was to wait for kswapd to start writing
pages, but that seems questionable as well, since the congestion wait
code seems to trigger for kswapd itself as well. Also, the logic behind
delaying anything when we haven't actually started writeback is not
clear - it only delays actually starting that writeback.
We'll still trigger the congestion waiting if
(a) the process is kswapd, and we hit pages flagged for immediate
reclaim
(b) the process is not kswapd, and the zone backing dev writeback is
actually congested.
This probably needs to be revisited, but as it is this fixes a reported
regression.
Reported-by: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx>
Pinpointed-by: Hillf Danton <dhillf@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mhocko@xxxxxxx: backport to 3.12 stable tree]
Fixes: e2be15f6c3ee ('mm: vmscan: stall page reclaim and writeback pages based on dirty/writepage pages encountered')
Reported-by: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx>
Pinpointed-by: Hillf Danton <dhillf@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/vmscan.c | 11 +++++------
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -1554,19 +1554,18 @@ shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to
* If dirty pages are scanned that are not queued for IO, it
* implies that flushers are not keeping up. In this case, flag
* the zone ZONE_TAIL_LRU_DIRTY and kswapd will start writing
- * pages from reclaim context. It will forcibly stall in the
- * next check.
+ * pages from reclaim context.
*/
if (nr_unqueued_dirty == nr_taken)
zone_set_flag(zone, ZONE_TAIL_LRU_DIRTY);
/*
- * In addition, if kswapd scans pages marked marked for
- * immediate reclaim and under writeback (nr_immediate), it
- * implies that pages are cycling through the LRU faster than
+ * If kswapd scans pages marked marked for immediate
+ * reclaim and under writeback (nr_immediate), it implies
+ * that pages are cycling through the LRU faster than
* they are written so also forcibly stall.
*/
- if (nr_unqueued_dirty == nr_taken || nr_immediate)
+ if (nr_immediate)
congestion_wait(BLK_RW_ASYNC, HZ/10);
}
Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx are
queue-3.15/perf-do-not-allow-optimized-switch-for-non-cloned-events.patch
queue-3.15/don-t-trigger-congestion-wait-on-dirty-but-not-writeout-pages.patch
queue-3.15/sched-fix-possible-divide-by-zero-in-avg_atom-calculation.patch
queue-3.15/shmem-fix-splicing-from-a-hole-while-it-s-punched.patch
queue-3.15/x86-tsc-fix-cpufreq-lockup.patch
queue-3.15/shmem-fix-faulting-into-a-hole-not-taking-i_mutex.patch
queue-3.15/locking-mutex-disable-optimistic-spinning-on-some-architectures.patch
queue-3.15/perf-x86-intel-ignore-condchgd-bit-to-avoid-false-nmi-handling.patch
queue-3.15/shmem-fix-faulting-into-a-hole-while-it-s-punched.patch
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html