Re: [RFC] ext4: use kmem_cache for short fname allocation in readdir

["Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 10:42:56PM +0800, David Wang wrote:
> When searching files, ext4_readdir would kzalloc() a fname
> object for each entry. It would be faster if a dedicated
> kmem_cache is used for fname.
> 
> But fnames are of variable length.
> 
> This patch suggests using kmem_cache for fname with short
> length, and resorting to kzalloc when fname needs larger buffer.
> Assuming long file names are not very common.
> 
> Profiling when searching files in kernel code base, with following
> command:
> 	# perf record -g -e cpu-clock --freq=max bash -c \
> 	"for i in {1..100}; do find ./linux -name notfoundatall > /dev/null; done"
> And using sample counts as indicator of performance improvement.

I would think a better indicator of performance improvement would be
to measure the system time when running the find commands.  (i.e.,
either using getrusange with RUSAGE_CHILDREN or wait3 or wait4).

We're trading off some extra memory usage and code complexity with
less CPU time because entries in the kmem_cache might be more TLB
friendly.  But this is only really going to be applicable if the
directory is large enough such that the cycles spent in readdir is
significant compared to the rest of the userspace program, *and* you
are reading the directory multiple times (e.g., calling find on a
directory hierarchy many, many times) such that the disk blocks are
cahed and you don't need to read them from the storage device.
Otherwise the I/O costs will completely dominate and swamp the
marginal TLB cache savings.

Given that it's really rare for readdir() to be the bottleneck of many
workloads, the question is, is it worth it?

						- Ted