Re: [patch 0/8] mm: memcg naturalization -rc2

[Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>]

On Wed, Jun 01, 2011 at 09:05:18PM -0700, Ying Han wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Hiroyuki Kamezawa
> <kamezawa.hiroyuki@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2011/6/1 Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> this is the second version of the memcg naturalization series.  The
> >> notable changes since the first submission are:
> >>
> >>    o the hierarchy walk is now intermittent and will abort and
> >>      remember the last scanned child after sc->nr_to_reclaim pages
> >>      have been reclaimed during the walk in one zone (Rik)
> >>
> >>    o the global lru lists are never scanned when memcg is enabled
> >>      after #2 'memcg-aware global reclaim', which makes this patch
> >>      self-sufficient and complete without requiring the per-memcg lru
> >>      lists to be exclusive (Michal)
> >>
> >>    o renamed sc->memcg and sc->current_memcg to sc->target_mem_cgroup
> >>      and sc->mem_cgroup and fixed their documentation, I hope this is
> >>      better understandable now (Rik)
> >>
> >>    o the reclaim statistic counters have been renamed.  there is no
> >>      more distinction between 'pgfree' and 'pgsteal', it is now
> >>      'pgreclaim' in both cases; 'kswapd' has been replaced by
> >>      'background'
> >>
> >>    o fixed a nasty crash in the hierarchical soft limit check that
> >>      happened during global reclaim in memcgs that are hierarchical
> >>      but have no hierarchical parents themselves
> >>
> >>    o properly implemented the memcg-aware unevictable page rescue
> >>      scanner, there were several blatant bugs in there
> >>
> >>    o documentation on new public interfaces
> >>
> >> Thanks for your input on the first version.
> >>
> >> I ran microbenchmarks (sparse file catting, essentially) to stress
> >> reclaim and LRU operations.  There is no measurable overhead for
> >> !CONFIG_MEMCG, memcg disabled during boot, memcg enabled but no
> >> configured groups, and hard limit reclaim.
> >>
> >> I also ran single-threaded kernbenchs in four unlimited memcgs in
> >> parallel, contained in a hard-limited hierarchical parent that put
> >> constant pressure on the workload.  There is no measurable difference
> >> in runtime, the pgpgin/pgpgout counters, and fairness among memcgs in
> >> this test compared to an unpatched kernel.  Needs more evaluation,
> >> especially with a higher number of memcgs.
> >>
> >> The soft limit changes are also proven to work in so far that it is
> >> possible to prioritize between children in a hierarchy under pressure
> >> and that runtime differences corresponded directly to the soft limit
> >> settings in the previously described kernbench setup with staggered
> >> soft limits on the groups, but this needs quantification.
> >>
> >> Based on v2.6.39.
> >>
> >
> > Hmm, I welcome and will review this patches but.....some points I want to say.
> >
> > 1. No more conflict with Ying's work ?
> >    Could you explain what she has and what you don't in this v2 ?
> >    If Ying's one has something good to be merged to your set, please
> > include it.
> 
> My patch I sent out last time was doing rework of soft_limit reclaim.
> It convert the RB-tree based to
> a linked list round-robin fashion of all memcgs across their soft
> limit per-zone.
> 
> I will apply this patch and try to test it. After that i will get
> better idea whether or not it is being covered here.

Thanks!!

> > 4. This work can be splitted into some small works.
> >     a) fix for current code and clean ups
> 
> >     a') statistics
> 
> >     b) soft limit rework
> 
> >     c) change global reclaim
> 
> My last patchset starts with a patch reverting the RB-tree
> implementation of the soft_limit
> reclaim, and then the new round-robin implementation comes on the
> following patches.
> 
> I like the ordering here, and that is consistent w/ the plan we
> discussed earlier in LSF. Changing
> the global reclaim would be the last step when the changes before that
> have been well understood
> and tested.
> 
> Sorry If that is how it is done here. I will read through the patchset.

It's not.  The way I implemented soft limits depends on global reclaim
performing hierarchical reclaim.  I don't see how I can reverse the
order with this dependency.