Re: [RFC][PATCH 6/6] PM/Hibernate: Do not try to allocate too much memory too hard

[Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>]

Hi Rafael,

Sorry for being late.

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 04:42:17PM +0800, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> From: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
> 
> We want to avoid attempting to free too much memory too hard during
> hibernation, so estimate the minimum size of the image to use as the
> lower limit for preallocating memory.
> 
> The approach here is based on the (experimental) observation that we
> can't free more page frames than the sum of:
> 
> * global_page_state(NR_SLAB_RECLAIMABLE)
> * global_page_state(NR_ACTIVE_ANON)
> * global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_ANON)
> * global_page_state(NR_ACTIVE_FILE)
> * global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_FILE)

It's a very good idea to count the numbers in a reverse way.

> and even that is usually impossible to free in practice, because some
> of the pages reported as global_page_state(NR_SLAB_RECLAIMABLE) can't
> in fact be freed.  It turns out, however, that if the sum of the
> above numbers is subtracted from the number of saveable pages in the
> system and the result is multiplied by 1.25, we get a suitable
> estimate of the minimum size of the image.

However, the "*1.25" looks like a hack. We should really apply more
constraints to the individual components.

> Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
> ---
>  kernel/power/snapshot.c |   56 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
>  1 file changed, 52 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> 
> Index: linux-2.6/kernel/power/snapshot.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/power/snapshot.c
> +++ linux-2.6/kernel/power/snapshot.c
> @@ -1213,6 +1213,49 @@ static void free_unnecessary_pages(void)
>  }
>  
>  /**
> + * minimum_image_size - Estimate the minimum acceptable size of an image
> + * @saveable: The total number of saveable pages in the system.
> + *
> + * We want to avoid attempting to free too much memory too hard, so estimate the
> + * minimum acceptable size of a hibernation image to use as the lower limit for
> + * preallocating memory.
> + *
> + * The minimum size of the image is computed as
> + *
> + * ([number of saveable pages] - [number of pages we can free]) * 1.25
> + *
> + * where the second term is the sum of reclaimable slab, anonymouns pages and
> + * active/inactive file pages.
> + *
> + * NOTE: It usually turns out that we can't really free all pages reported as
> + * reclaimable slab, so the number resulting from the subtraction alone is too
> + * low.  Still, it seems reasonable to assume that this number is proportional
> + * to the total number of pages that cannot be freed, which leads to the
> + * formula above.  The coefficient of proportinality in this formula, 1.25, has
> + * been determined experimentally.
> + */
> +static unsigned long minimum_image_size(unsigned long saveable)
> +{
> +	unsigned long size;
> +
> +	/* Compute the number of saveable pages we can free. */
> +	size = global_page_state(NR_SLAB_RECLAIMABLE)
> +		+ global_page_state(NR_ACTIVE_ANON)
> +		+ global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_ANON)
> +		+ global_page_state(NR_ACTIVE_FILE)
> +		+ global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_FILE);

For example, we could drop the 1.25 ratio and calculate the above
reclaimable size with more meaningful constraints:

        /* slabs are not easy to reclaim */
	size = global_page_state(NR_SLAB_RECLAIMABLE) / 2;

        /* keep NR_ACTIVE_ANON */
	size += global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_ANON);

        /* keep mapped files */
	size += global_page_state(NR_ACTIVE_FILE);
	size += global_page_state(NR_INACTIVE_FILE);
        size -= global_page_state(NR_FILE_MAPPED);

That restores the hard core working set logic in the reverse way ;)

Thanks,
Fengguang

> +	if (saveable <= size)
> +		return saveable;
> +
> +	size = saveable - size;
> +	size += (size >> 2);
> +
> +	return size;
> +}
> +
> +
> +/**
>   * hibernate_preallocate_memory - Preallocate memory for hibernation image
>   *
>   * To create a hibernation image it is necessary to make a copy of every page
> @@ -1229,8 +1272,8 @@ static void free_unnecessary_pages(void)
>   *
>   * If image_size is set below the number following from the above formula,
>   * the preallocation of memory is continued until the total number of saveable
> - * pages in the system is below the requested image size or it is impossible to
> - * allocate more memory, whichever happens first.
> + * pages in the system is below the requested image size or the minimum
> + * acceptable image size returned by minimum_image_size(), whichever is greater.
>   */
>  int hibernate_preallocate_memory(void)
>  {
> @@ -1291,6 +1334,11 @@ int hibernate_preallocate_memory(void)
>  		goto out;
>  	}
>  
> +	/* Estimate the minimum size of the image. */
> +	pages = minimum_image_size(saveable);
> +	if (size < pages)
> +		size = min_t(unsigned long, pages, max_size);
> +
>  	/*
>  	 * Let the memory management subsystem know that we're going to need a
>  	 * large number of page frames to allocate and make it free some memory.
> @@ -1303,8 +1351,8 @@ int hibernate_preallocate_memory(void)
>  	 * The number of saveable pages in memory was too high, so apply some
>  	 * pressure to decrease it.  First, make room for the largest possible
>  	 * image and fail if that doesn't work.  Next, try to decrease the size
> -	 * of the image as much as indicated by image_size using allocations
> -	 * from highmem and non-highmem zones separately.
> +	 * of the image as much as indicated by 'size' using allocations from
> +	 * highmem and non-highmem zones separately.
>  	 */
>  	pages_highmem = preallocate_image_highmem(highmem / 2);
>  	max_size += pages_highmem;

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