Re: [PATCH V5] mm: compaction: support triggering of proactive compaction by user

Vlastimil Babka
2021-07-30T14:47:49Z

On 7/30/21 4:46 PM, Charan Teja Kalla wrote:
> Thanks Vlastimil!!
>
> On 7/30/2021 7:36 PM, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
>>> The proactive compaction[1] gets triggered for every 500msec and run
>>> compaction on the node for COMPACTION_HPAGE_ORDER (usually order-9)
>>> pages based on the value set to sysctl.compaction_proactiveness.
>>> Triggering the compaction for every 500msec in search of
>>> COMPACTION_HPAGE_ORDER pages is not needed for all applications,
>>> especially on the embedded system usecases which may have few MB's of
>>> RAM. Enabling the proactive compaction in its state will endup in
>>> running almost always on such systems.
>>>
>>> Other side, proactive compaction can still be very much useful for
>>> getting a set of higher order pages in some controllable
>>> manner(controlled by using the sysctl.compaction_proactiveness). So, on
>>> systems where enabling the proactive compaction always may proove not
>>> required, can trigger the same from user space on write to its sysctl
>>> interface. As an example, say app launcher decide to launch the memory
>>> heavy application which can be launched fast if it gets more higher
>>> order pages thus launcher can prepare the system in advance by
>>> triggering the proactive compaction from userspace.
>>>
>>> This triggering of proactive compaction is done on a write to
>>> sysctl.compaction_proactiveness by user.
>>>
>>> [1]https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit?id=facdaa917c4d5a376d09d25865f5a863f906234a
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Charan Teja Reddy <charante@codeaurora.org>
>> Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
>
> Thanks for the tag here.

Np.

>>
>>> @@ -2895,9 +2920,16 @@ static int kcompactd(void *p)
>>> while (!kthread_should_stop()) {
>>> unsigned long pflags;
>>>
>>> + /*
>>> + * Avoid the unnecessary wakeup for proactive compaction
>>> + * when it is disabled.
>>> + */
>>> + if (!sysctl_compaction_proactiveness)
>>> + timeout = MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT;
>> Does this part actually logically belong more to your previous patch that
>> optimized the deferred timeouts?
>
> IMO, it won't fit there. Reason is that when user writes
> sysctl_compaction_proactiveness = 0, it will goes to sleep with
> MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT. Say now user writes non-zero value to
> sysctl_compaction_proactiveness then no condition is there to wake it up
> for proactive compaction, means, it will still be in sleep with
> MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT.

Good point!

> Thus this logic is put in this patch, where, proactive compaction work
> will be scheduled immediately on switch of proactiveness value from zero
> to a non-zero.

Agreed. Thanks!

>>
>