Re: ppoll() stuck on POLLIN while TCP peer is sending

Mel Gorman
2013-01-10T19:42:20Z

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 09:25:11AM +0000, Eric Wong wrote:
> Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de> wrote:
> > page->pfmemalloc can be left set for captured pages so try this but as
> > capture is rarely used I'm strongly favouring a partial revert even if
> > this works for you. I haven't reproduced this using your workload yet
> > but I have found that high-order allocation stress tests for 3.8-rc2 are
> > completely screwed. 71% success rates at rest in 3.7 and 6% in 3.8-rc2 so
> > I have to chase that down too.
> >
> > diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > index 9d20c13..c242d21 100644
> > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > @@ -2180,8 +2180,10 @@ __alloc_pages_direct_compact(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
> > current->flags &= ~PF_MEMALLOC;
> >
> > /* If compaction captured a page, prep and use it */
> > - if (page && !prep_new_page(page, order, gfp_mask))
> > + if (page && !prep_new_page(page, order, gfp_mask)) {
> > + page->pfmemalloc = false;
> > goto got_page;
> > + }
> >
> > if (*did_some_progress != COMPACT_SKIPPED) {
> > /* Page migration frees to the PCP lists but we want merging */
>
> This (on top of your previous patch) seems to work great after several
> hours of testing on both my VM and real machine. I haven't tried your
> partial revert, yet. Will try that in a bit on the VM.

Thanks Eric, it's much appreciated. However, I'm still very much in favour
of a partial revert as in retrospect the implementation of capture took the
wrong approach. Could you confirm the following patch works for you?
It's should functionally have the same effect as the first revert and
there are only minor changes from the last revert prototype I sent you
but there is no harm in being sure.

---8<---
mm: compaction: Partially revert capture of suitable high-order page

Eric Wong reported on 3.7 and 3.8-rc2 that ppoll() got stuck when waiting
for POLLIN on a local TCP socket. It was easier to trigger if there was disk
IO and dirty pages at the same time and he bisected it to commit 1fb3f8ca
"mm: compaction: capture a suitable high-order page immediately when it
is made available".

The intention of that patch was to improve high-order allocations under
memory pressure after changes made to reclaim in 3.6 drastically hurt
THP allocations but the approach was flawed. For Eric, the problem was
that page->pfmemalloc was not being cleared for captured pages leading to
a poor interaction with swap-over-NFS support causing the packets to be
dropped. However, I identified a few more problems with the patch including
the fact that it can increase contention on zone->lock in some cases which
could result in async direct compaction being aborted early.

In retrospect the capture patch took the wrong approach. What it should
have done is mark the pageblock being migrated as MIGRATE_ISOLATE if it
was allocating for THP and avoided races that way. While the patch was
showing to improve allocation success rates at the time, the benefit is
marginal given the relative complexity and it should be revisited from
scratch in the context of the other reclaim-related changes that have taken
place since the patch was first written and tested. This patch partially
reverts commit 1fb3f8ca "mm: compaction: capture a suitable high-order
page immediately when it is made available".

Reported-by: Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
---
include/linux/compaction.h | 4 +-
include/linux/mm.h | 1 -
mm/compaction.c | 92 +++++++-------------------------------------
mm/internal.h | 1 -
mm/page_alloc.c | 35 ++++-------------
5 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 110 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/compaction.h b/include/linux/compaction.h
index 6ecb6dc..cc7bdde 100644
--- a/include/linux/compaction.h
+++ b/include/linux/compaction.h
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ extern int sysctl_extfrag_handler(struct ctl_table *table, int write,
extern int fragmentation_index(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order);
extern unsigned long try_to_compact_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist,
int order, gfp_t gfp_mask, nodemask_t *mask,
- bool sync, bool *contended, struct page **page);
+ bool sync, bool *contended);
extern int compact_pgdat(pg_data_t *pgdat, int order);
extern void reset_isolation_suitable(pg_data_t *pgdat);
extern unsigned long compaction_suitable(struct zone *zone, int order);
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ static inline bool compaction_restarting(struct zone *zone, int order)
#else
static inline unsigned long try_to_compact_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist,
int order, gfp_t gfp_mask, nodemask_t *nodemask,
- bool sync, bool *contended, struct page **page)
+ bool sync, bool *contended)
{
return COMPACT_CONTINUE;
}
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 6320407..66e2f7c 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -455,7 +455,6 @@ void put_pages_list(struct list_head *pages);

void split_page(struct page *page, unsigned int order);
int split_free_page(struct page *page);
-int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype);

/*
* Compound pages have a destructor function. Provide a
diff --git a/mm/compaction.c b/mm/compaction.c
index 6b807e4..2c57043 100644
--- a/mm/compaction.c
+++ b/mm/compaction.c
@@ -816,6 +816,7 @@ static isolate_migrate_t isolate_migratepages(struct zone *zone,
static int compact_finished(struct zone *zone,
struct compact_control *cc)
{
+ unsigned int order;
unsigned long watermark;

if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
@@ -850,22 +851,16 @@ static int compact_finished(struct zone *zone,
return COMPACT_CONTINUE;

/* Direct compactor: Is a suitable page free? */
- if (cc->page) {
- /* Was a suitable page captured? */
- if (*cc->page)
+ for (order = cc->order; order < MAX_ORDER; order++) {
+ struct free_area *area = &zone->free_area[order];
+
+ /* Job done if page is free of the right migratetype */
+ if (!list_empty(&area->free_list[cc->migratetype]))
+ return COMPACT_PARTIAL;
+
+ /* Job done if allocation would set block type */
+ if (cc->order >= pageblock_order && area->nr_free)
return COMPACT_PARTIAL;
- } else {
- unsigned int order;
- for (order = cc->order; order < MAX_ORDER; order++) {
- struct free_area *area = &zone->free_area[cc->order];
- /* Job done if page is free of the right migratetype */
- if (!list_empty(&area->free_list[cc->migratetype]))
- return COMPACT_PARTIAL;
-
- /* Job done if allocation would set block type */
- if (cc->order >= pageblock_order && area->nr_free)
- return COMPACT_PARTIAL;
- }
}

return COMPACT_CONTINUE;
@@ -921,60 +916,6 @@ unsigned long compaction_suitable(struct zone *zone, int order)
return COMPACT_CONTINUE;
}

-static void compact_capture_page(struct compact_control *cc)
-{
- unsigned long flags;
- int mtype, mtype_low, mtype_high;
-
- if (!cc->page || *cc->page)
- return;
-
- /*
- * For MIGRATE_MOVABLE allocations we capture a suitable page ASAP
- * regardless of the migratetype of the freelist is is captured from.
- * This is fine because the order for a high-order MIGRATE_MOVABLE
- * allocation is typically at least a pageblock size and overall
- * fragmentation is not impaired. Other allocation types must
- * capture pages from their own migratelist because otherwise they
- * could pollute other pageblocks like MIGRATE_MOVABLE with
- * difficult to move pages and making fragmentation worse overall.
- */
- if (cc->migratetype == MIGRATE_MOVABLE) {
- mtype_low = 0;
- mtype_high = MIGRATE_PCPTYPES;
- } else {
- mtype_low = cc->migratetype;
- mtype_high = cc->migratetype + 1;
- }
-
- /* Speculatively examine the free lists without zone lock */
- for (mtype = mtype_low; mtype < mtype_high; mtype++) {
- int order;
- for (order = cc->order; order < MAX_ORDER; order++) {
- struct page *page;
- struct free_area *area;
- area = &(cc->zone->free_area[order]);
- if (list_empty(&area->free_list[mtype]))
- continue;
-
- /* Take the lock and attempt capture of the page */
- if (!compact_trylock_irqsave(&cc->zone->lock, &flags, cc))
- return;
- if (!list_empty(&area->free_list[mtype])) {
- page = list_entry(area->free_list[mtype].next,
- struct page, lru);
- if (capture_free_page(page, cc->order, mtype)) {
- spin_unlock_irqrestore(&cc->zone->lock,
- flags);
- *cc->page = page;
- return;
- }
- }
- spin_unlock_irqrestore(&cc->zone->lock, flags);
- }
- }
-}
-
static int compact_zone(struct zone *zone, struct compact_control *cc)
{
int ret;
@@ -1054,9 +995,6 @@ static int compact_zone(struct zone *zone, struct compact_control *cc)
goto out;
}
}
-
- /* Capture a page now if it is a suitable size */
- compact_capture_page(cc);
}

out:
@@ -1069,8 +1007,7 @@ out:

static unsigned long compact_zone_order(struct zone *zone,
int order, gfp_t gfp_mask,
- bool sync, bool *contended,
- struct page **page)
+ bool sync, bool *contended)
{
unsigned long ret;
struct compact_control cc = {
@@ -1080,7 +1017,6 @@ static unsigned long compact_zone_order(struct zone *zone,
.migratetype = allocflags_to_migratetype(gfp_mask),
.zone = zone,
.sync = sync,
- .page = page,
};
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&cc.freepages);
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&cc.migratepages);
@@ -1110,7 +1046,7 @@ int sysctl_extfrag_threshold = 500;
*/
unsigned long try_to_compact_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist,
int order, gfp_t gfp_mask, nodemask_t *nodemask,
- bool sync, bool *contended, struct page **page)
+ bool sync, bool *contended)
{
enum zone_type high_zoneidx = gfp_zone(gfp_mask);
int may_enter_fs = gfp_mask & __GFP_FS;
@@ -1136,7 +1072,7 @@ unsigned long try_to_compact_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist,
int status;

status = compact_zone_order(zone, order, gfp_mask, sync,
- contended, page);
+ contended);
rc = max(status, rc);

/* If a normal allocation would succeed, stop compacting */
@@ -1192,7 +1128,6 @@ int compact_pgdat(pg_data_t *pgdat, int order)
struct compact_control cc = {
.order = order,
.sync = false,
- .page = NULL,
};

return __compact_pgdat(pgdat, &cc);
@@ -1203,7 +1138,6 @@ static int compact_node(int nid)
struct compact_control cc = {
.order = -1,
.sync = true,
- .page = NULL,
};

return __compact_pgdat(NODE_DATA(nid), &cc);
diff --git a/mm/internal.h b/mm/internal.h
index d597f94..9ba2110 100644
--- a/mm/internal.h
+++ b/mm/internal.h
@@ -135,7 +135,6 @@ struct compact_control {
int migratetype; /* MOVABLE, RECLAIMABLE etc */
struct zone *zone;
bool contended; /* True if a lock was contended */
- struct page **page; /* Page captured of requested size */
};

unsigned long
diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 4ba5e37..7e4ae85 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -1389,14 +1389,8 @@ void split_page(struct page *page, unsigned int order)
set_page_refcounted(page + i);
}

-/*
- * Similar to the split_page family of functions except that the page
- * required at the given order and being isolated now to prevent races
- * with parallel allocators
- */
-int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype)
+static int __isolate_free_page(struct page *page, unsigned int order)
{
- unsigned int order;
unsigned long watermark;
struct zone *zone;
int mt;
@@ -1404,7 +1398,6 @@ int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype)
BUG_ON(!PageBuddy(page));

zone = page_zone(page);
- order = page_order(page);
mt = get_pageblock_migratetype(page);

if (mt != MIGRATE_ISOLATE) {
@@ -1413,7 +1406,7 @@ int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype)
if (!zone_watermark_ok(zone, 0, watermark, 0, 0))
return 0;

- __mod_zone_freepage_state(zone, -(1UL << alloc_order), mt);
+ __mod_zone_freepage_state(zone, -(1UL << order), mt);
}

/* Remove page from free list */
@@ -1421,11 +1414,7 @@ int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype)
zone->free_area[order].nr_free--;
rmv_page_order(page);

- if (alloc_order != order)
- expand(zone, page, alloc_order, order,
- &zone->free_area[order], migratetype);
-
- /* Set the pageblock if the captured page is at least a pageblock */
+ /* Set the pageblock if the isolated page is at least a pageblock */
if (order >= pageblock_order - 1) {
struct page *endpage = page + (1 << order) - 1;
for (; page < endpage; page += pageblock_nr_pages) {
@@ -1436,7 +1425,7 @@ int capture_free_page(struct page *page, int alloc_order, int migratetype)
}
}

- return 1UL << alloc_order;
+ return 1UL << order;
}

/*
@@ -1454,10 +1443,9 @@ int split_free_page(struct page *page)
unsigned int order;
int nr_pages;

- BUG_ON(!PageBuddy(page));
order = page_order(page);

- nr_pages = capture_free_page(page, order, 0);
+ nr_pages = __isolate_free_page(page, order);
if (!nr_pages)
return 0;

@@ -2163,8 +2151,6 @@ __alloc_pages_direct_compact(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
bool *contended_compaction, bool *deferred_compaction,
unsigned long *did_some_progress)
{
- struct page *page = NULL;
-
if (!order)
return NULL;

@@ -2176,16 +2162,12 @@ __alloc_pages_direct_compact(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
current->flags |= PF_MEMALLOC;
*did_some_progress = try_to_compact_pages(zonelist, order, gfp_mask,
nodemask, sync_migration,
- contended_compaction, &page);
+ contended_compaction);
current->flags &= ~PF_MEMALLOC;

- /* If compaction captured a page, prep and use it */
- if (page) {
- prep_new_page(page, order, gfp_mask);
- goto got_page;
- }
-
if (*did_some_progress != COMPACT_SKIPPED) {
+ struct page *page;
+
/* Page migration frees to the PCP lists but we want merging */
drain_pages(get_cpu());
put_cpu();
@@ -2195,7 +2177,6 @@ __alloc_pages_direct_compact(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
alloc_flags & ~ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS,
preferred_zone, migratetype);
if (page) {
-got_page:
preferred_zone->compact_blockskip_flush = false;
preferred_zone->compact_considered = 0;
preferred_zone->compact_defer_shift = 0;