Re: [PATCH 5/5] xfs: reduce buffer log item shadow allocations

Brian Foster
2021-01-28T16:56:09Z

On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 03:41:54PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> From: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
>
> When we modify btrees repeatedly, we regularly increase the size of
> the logged region by a single chunk at a time (per transaction
> commit). This results in the CIL formatting code having to
> reallocate the log vector buffer every time the buffer dirty region
> grows. Hence over a typical 4kB btree buffer, we might grow the log
> vector 4096/128 = 32x over a short period where we repeatedly add
> or remove records to/from the buffer over a series of running
> transaction. This means we are doing 32 memory allocations and frees
> over this time during a performance critical path in the journal.
>
> The amount of space tracked in the CIL for the object is calculated
> during the ->iop_format() call for the buffer log item, but the
> buffer memory allocated for it is calculated by the ->iop_size()
> call. The size callout determines the size of the buffer, the format
> call determines the space used in the buffer.
>
> Hence we can oversize the buffer space required in the size
> calculation without impacting the amount of space used and accounted
> to the CIL for the changes being logged. This allows us to reduce
> the number of allocations by rounding up the buffer size to allow
> for future growth. This can safe a substantial amount of CPU time in
> this path:
>
> - 46.52% 2.02% [kernel] [k] xfs_log_commit_cil
> - 44.49% xfs_log_commit_cil
> - 30.78% _raw_spin_lock
> - 30.75% do_raw_spin_lock
> 30.27% __pv_queued_spin_lock_slowpath
>
> (oh, ouch!)
> ....
> - 1.05% kmem_alloc_large
> - 1.02% kmem_alloc
> 0.94% __kmalloc
>
> This overhead here us what this patch is aimed at. After:
>
> - 0.76% kmem_alloc_large ▒
> - 0.75% kmem_alloc ▒
> 0.70% __kmalloc ▒
>
>
> Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
> ---
> fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c | 13 +++++++++++--
> 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c b/fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c
> index 17960b1ce5ef..0628a65d9c55 100644
> --- a/fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c
> +++ b/fs/xfs/xfs_buf_item.c
...
> @@ -181,10 +182,18 @@ xfs_buf_item_size(
> * count for the extra buf log format structure that will need to be
> * written.
> */
> + bytes = 0;
> for (i = 0; i < bip->bli_format_count; i++) {
> xfs_buf_item_size_segment(bip, &bip->bli_formats[i],
> - nvecs, nbytes);
> + nvecs, &bytes);
> }
> +
> + /*
> + * Round up the buffer size required to minimise the number of memory
> + * allocations that need to be done as this item grows when relogged by
> + * repeated modifications.
> + */
> + *nbytes = round_up(bytes, 512);

If nbytes starts out as zero anyways, what's the need for the new
variable? Otherwise looks reasonable.

Brian

> trace_xfs_buf_item_size(bip);
> }
>
> --
> 2.28.0
>