Re: [patch 2/8] mm: memcg-aware global reclaim

Hiroyuki Kamezawa
2011-06-02T16:14:16Z

2011/6/3 Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>:
> On Thu, Jun 02, 2011 at 10:59:01PM +0900, Hiroyuki Kamezawa wrote:
>> 2011/6/1 Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>:

>> > @@ -1927,8 +1980,7 @@ static int mem_cgroup_do_charge(struct mem_cgroup *mem, gfp_t gfp_mask,
>> >        if (!(gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT))
>> >                return CHARGE_WOULDBLOCK;
>> >
>> > -       ret = mem_cgroup_hierarchical_reclaim(mem_over_limit, NULL,
>> > -                                             gfp_mask, flags);
>> > +       ret = mem_cgroup_reclaim(mem_over_limit, gfp_mask, flags);
>> >        if (mem_cgroup_margin(mem_over_limit) >= nr_pages)
>> >                return CHARGE_RETRY;
>> >        /*
>>
>> It seems this clean-up around hierarchy and softlimit can be in an
>> independent patch, no ?
>
> Hm, why do you think it's a cleanup?  The hierarchical target reclaim
> code is moved to vmscan.c and as a result the entry points for hard
> limit and soft limit reclaim differ.  This is why the original
> function, mem_cgroup_hierarchical_reclaim() has to be split into two
> parts.
>
If functionality is unchanged, I think it's clean up.
I agree to move hierarchy walk to vmscan.c. but it can be done as
a clean up patch for current code.
(Make current try_to_free_mem_cgroup_pages() to use this code.)
and then, you can write a patch which only includes a core
logic/purpose of this patch
"use root cgroup's LRU for global and make global reclaim as full-scan
of memcgroup."

In short, I felt this patch is long....and maybe watchers of -mm are
not interested in rewritie of hierarchy walk but are intetested in the
chages in shrink_zone() itself very much.

>> > @@ -1943,6 +1976,31 @@ restart:
>> >        throttle_vm_writeout(sc->gfp_mask);
>> >  }
>> >
>> > +static void shrink_zone(int priority, struct zone *zone,
>> > +                       struct scan_control *sc)
>> > +{
>> > +       unsigned long nr_reclaimed_before = sc->nr_reclaimed;
>> > +       struct mem_cgroup *root = sc->target_mem_cgroup;
>> > +       struct mem_cgroup *first, *mem = NULL;
>> > +
>> > +       first = mem = mem_cgroup_hierarchy_walk(root, mem);
>>
>> Hmm, I think we should add some scheduling here, later.
>> (as select a group over softlimit or select a group which has
>>  easily reclaimable pages on this zone.)
>>
>> This name as hierarchy_walk() sounds like "full scan in round-robin, always".
>> Could you find better name ?
>
> Okay, I'll try.
>
>> > +       for (;;) {
>> > +               unsigned long nr_reclaimed;
>> > +
>> > +               sc->mem_cgroup = mem;
>> > +               do_shrink_zone(priority, zone, sc);
>> > +
>> > +               nr_reclaimed = sc->nr_reclaimed - nr_reclaimed_before;
>> > +               if (nr_reclaimed >= sc->nr_to_reclaim)
>> > +                       break;
>>
>> what this calculation means ?  Shouldn't we do this quit based on the
>> number of "scan"
>> rather than "reclaimed" ?
>
> It aborts the loop once sc->nr_to_reclaim pages have been reclaimed
> from that zone during that hierarchy walk, to prevent overreclaim.
>
> If you have unbalanced sizes of memcgs in the system, it is not
> desirable to have every reclaimer scan all memcgs, but let those quit
> early that have made some progress on the bigger memcgs.
>
Hmm, why not if (sc->nr_reclaimed >= sc->nr_to_reclaim) ?

I'm sorry if I miss something..

> It's essentially a forward progagation of the same check in
> do_shrink_zone().  It trades absolute fairness for average reclaim
> latency.
>
> Note that kswapd sets the reclaim target to infinity, so this
> optimization applies only to direct reclaimers.
>
>> > +               mem = mem_cgroup_hierarchy_walk(root, mem);
>> > +               if (mem == first)
>> > +                       break;
>>
>> Why we quit loop  ?
>
> get_scan_count() for traditional global reclaim returns the scan
> target for the zone.
>
> With this per-memcg reclaimer, get_scan_count() will return scan
> targets for the respective per-memcg zone subsizes.
>
> So once we have gone through all memcgs, we should have scanned the
> amount of pages that global reclaim would have deemed sensible for
> that zone at that priority level.
>
> As such, this is the exit condition based on scan count you referred
> to above.
>
That's what I want as a comment in codes.

Thanks,
-Kame