Re: [RFC][PATCH v3 1/5] mm/zsmalloc: introduce class auto-compaction

[Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky.work@gmail.com>]

Hello Minchan,

On (03/15/16 15:17), Minchan Kim wrote:
[..]
> > hm, in this scenario both solutions are less than perfect. we jump
> > X times over 40% margin, we have X*NR_CLASS compaction scans in the
> > end. the difference is that we queue less works, yes, but we don't
> > have to use workqueue in the first place; compaction can be done
> > asynchronously by a pool's dedicated kthread. so we will just
> > wake_up() the process.
> 
> Hmm, kthread is over-engineered to me. If we want to create new kthread
> in the system, I guess we should persuade many people to merge in.
> Surely, we should have why it couldn't be done by others(e.g., workqueue).
> 
> I think your workqueue approach is good to me.
> Only problem I can see with it is we cannot start compaction when
> we want instantly so my conclusion is we need both direct and
> background compaction.

well, if we will keep the shrinker callbacks then it's not such a huge
issue, IMHO. for that type of forward progress guarantees we can have
our own, dedicated, workqueue with a rescuer thread (WQ_MEM_RECLAIM).

> > > If zs_free(or something) realizes current fragment is over 4M,
> > > kick compacion backgroud job.
> > 
> > yes, zs_free() is the only place that introduces fragmentation.
> > 
> > > The job scans from highest to lower class and compact zspages
> > > in each size_class until it meets high watermark(e.g, 4M + 4M /2 =
> > > 6M fragment ratio).

just thought... I think it'll be tricky to implement this. We scan classes
from HIGH class_size to SMALL class_size, counting fragmentation value and
re-calculating the global fragmentation all the time; once the global
fragmentation passes the watermark, we start compacting from HIGH to
SMALL. the problem here is that as soon as we calculated the class B
fragmentation index and moved to class A we can't trust B anymore. classes
are not locked and absolutely free to change. so the global fragmentation
index likely will be inaccurate.

so I'm thinking about triggering a global compaction from zs_free() (to
queue less works), but instead of calculating global watermark and compacting
afterwards, just compact every class that has fragmentation over XY% (for
example 30%). "iterate from HI to LO and compact everything that is too
fragmented".

we still need some sort of a pool->compact_ts timestamp to prevent too
frequent compaction jobs.

	-ss

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