[patch] mm: speedup in __early_pfn_to_nid

[Russ Anderson <rja@sgi.com>]

When booting on a large memory system, the kernel spends
considerable time in memmap_init_zone() setting up memory zones.
Analysis shows significant time spent in __early_pfn_to_nid().

The routine memmap_init_zone() checks each PFN to verify the
nid is valid.  __early_pfn_to_nid() sequentially scans the list of
pfn ranges to find the right range and returns the nid.  This does
not scale well.  On a 4 TB (single rack) system there are 308
memory ranges to scan.  The higher the PFN the more time spent
sequentially spinning through memory ranges.

Since memmap_init_zone() increments pfn, it will almost always be
looking for the same range as the previous pfn, so check that
range first.  If it is in the same range, return that nid.
If not, scan the list as before.

A 4 TB (single rack) UV1 system takes 512 seconds to get through
the zone code.  This performance optimization reduces the time
by 189 seconds, a 36% improvement.

A 2 TB (single rack) UV2 system goes from 212.7 seconds to 99.8 seconds,
a 112.9 second (53%) reduction.

Signed-off-by: Russ Anderson <rja@sgi.com>
---
 mm/page_alloc.c |   11 ++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Index: linux/mm/page_alloc.c
===================================================================
--- linux.orig/mm/page_alloc.c	2013-03-18 10:52:11.510988843 -0500
+++ linux/mm/page_alloc.c	2013-03-18 10:52:14.214931348 -0500
@@ -4161,10 +4161,19 @@ int __meminit __early_pfn_to_nid(unsigne
 {
 	unsigned long start_pfn, end_pfn;
 	int i, nid;
+	static unsigned long last_start_pfn, last_end_pfn;
+	static int last_nid;
+
+	if (last_start_pfn <= pfn && pfn < last_end_pfn)
+		return last_nid;
 
 	for_each_mem_pfn_range(i, MAX_NUMNODES, &start_pfn, &end_pfn, &nid)
-		if (start_pfn <= pfn && pfn < end_pfn)
+		if (start_pfn <= pfn && pfn < end_pfn) {
+			last_nid = nid;
+			last_start_pfn = start_pfn;
+			last_end_pfn = end_pfn;
 			return nid;
+		}
 	/* This is a memory hole */
 	return -1;
 }
-- 
Russ Anderson, OS RAS/Partitioning Project Lead  
SGI - Silicon Graphics Inc          rja@sgi.com

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in
the body to majordomo@kvack.org.  For more info on Linux MM,
see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ .
Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@kvack.org"> email@kvack.org </a>