[PATCH 3.19 035/177] mm: when stealing freepages, also take pages created by splitting buddy page

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2015-03-16T15:58:42Z

From: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>

commit 99592d598eca62bdbbf62b59941c189176dfc614 upstream.

When studying page stealing, I noticed some weird looking decisions in
try_to_steal_freepages(). The first I assume is a bug (Patch 1), the
following two patches were driven by evaluation.

Testing was done with stress-highalloc of mmtests, using the
mm_page_alloc_extfrag tracepoint and postprocessing to get counts of how
often page stealing occurs for individual migratetypes, and what
migratetypes are used for fallbacks. Arguably, the worst case of page
stealing is when UNMOVABLE allocation steals from MOVABLE pageblock.
RECLAIMABLE allocation stealing from MOVABLE allocation is also not ideal,
so the goal is to minimize these two cases.

The evaluation of v2 wasn't always clear win and Joonsoo questioned the
results. Here I used different baseline which includes RFC compaction
improvements from [1]. I found that the compaction improvements reduce
variability of stress-highalloc, so there's less noise in the data.

First, let's look at stress-highalloc configured to do sync compaction,
and how these patches reduce page stealing events during the test. First
column is after fresh reboot, other two are reiterations of test without
reboot. That was all accumulater over 5 re-iterations (so the benchmark
was run 5x3 times with 5 fresh restarts).

Baseline:

3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
5-nothp-1 5-nothp-2 5-nothp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 10264225 8702233 10244125
Extfrag fragmenting 10263271 8701552 10243473
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 13595 17616 15960
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 7989 12193 8447
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 658 1840 1817
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 558 1677 1679
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 10249018 8682096 10225696

With Patch 1:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
6-nothp-1 6-nothp-2 6-nothp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 11834954 9877523 9774860
Extfrag fragmenting 11833993 9876880 9774245
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 7342 16129 11712
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 4191 10547 6270
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 373 1130 923
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 302 906 738
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 11826278 9859621 9761610

With Patch 2:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
7-nothp-1 7-nothp-2 7-nothp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 4725990 3668793 3807436
Extfrag fragmenting 4725104 3668252 3806898
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 6678 7974 7281
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 2051 3829 4017
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 429 1208 1278
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 369 976 1034
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 4717997 3659070 3798339

With Patch 3:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
8-nothp-1 8-nothp-2 8-nothp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 5016183 4700142 3850633
Extfrag fragmenting 5015325 4699613 3850072
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 1312 3154 3088
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 1115 2777 2714
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 437 1193 1097
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 330 969 879
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 5013576 4695266 3845887

In v2 we've seen apparent regression with Patch 1 for unmovable events,
this is now gone, suggesting it was indeed noise. Here, each patch
improves the situation for unmovable events. Reclaimable is improved by
patch 1 and then either the same modulo noise, or perhaps sligtly worse -
a small price for unmovable improvements, IMHO. The number of movable
allocations falling back to other migratetypes is most noisy, but it's
reduced to half at Patch 2 nevertheless. These are least critical as
compaction can move them around.

If we look at success rates, the patches don't affect them, that didn't change.

Baseline:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
5-nothp-1 5-nothp-2 5-nothp-3
Success 1 Min 49.00 ( 0.00%) 42.00 ( 14.29%) 41.00 ( 16.33%)
Success 1 Mean 51.00 ( 0.00%) 45.00 ( 11.76%) 42.60 ( 16.47%)
Success 1 Max 55.00 ( 0.00%) 51.00 ( 7.27%) 46.00 ( 16.36%)
Success 2 Min 53.00 ( 0.00%) 47.00 ( 11.32%) 44.00 ( 16.98%)
Success 2 Mean 59.60 ( 0.00%) 50.80 ( 14.77%) 48.20 ( 19.13%)
Success 2 Max 64.00 ( 0.00%) 56.00 ( 12.50%) 52.00 ( 18.75%)
Success 3 Min 84.00 ( 0.00%) 82.00 ( 2.38%) 78.00 ( 7.14%)
Success 3 Mean 85.60 ( 0.00%) 82.80 ( 3.27%) 79.40 ( 7.24%)
Success 3 Max 86.00 ( 0.00%) 83.00 ( 3.49%) 80.00 ( 6.98%)

Patch 1:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
6-nothp-1 6-nothp-2 6-nothp-3
Success 1 Min 49.00 ( 0.00%) 44.00 ( 10.20%) 44.00 ( 10.20%)
Success 1 Mean 51.80 ( 0.00%) 46.00 ( 11.20%) 45.80 ( 11.58%)
Success 1 Max 54.00 ( 0.00%) 49.00 ( 9.26%) 49.00 ( 9.26%)
Success 2 Min 58.00 ( 0.00%) 49.00 ( 15.52%) 48.00 ( 17.24%)
Success 2 Mean 60.40 ( 0.00%) 51.80 ( 14.24%) 50.80 ( 15.89%)
Success 2 Max 63.00 ( 0.00%) 54.00 ( 14.29%) 55.00 ( 12.70%)
Success 3 Min 84.00 ( 0.00%) 81.00 ( 3.57%) 79.00 ( 5.95%)
Success 3 Mean 85.00 ( 0.00%) 81.60 ( 4.00%) 79.80 ( 6.12%)
Success 3 Max 86.00 ( 0.00%) 82.00 ( 4.65%) 82.00 ( 4.65%)

Patch 2:

3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
7-nothp-1 7-nothp-2 7-nothp-3
Success 1 Min 50.00 ( 0.00%) 44.00 ( 12.00%) 39.00 ( 22.00%)
Success 1 Mean 52.80 ( 0.00%) 45.60 ( 13.64%) 42.40 ( 19.70%)
Success 1 Max 55.00 ( 0.00%) 46.00 ( 16.36%) 47.00 ( 14.55%)
Success 2 Min 52.00 ( 0.00%) 48.00 ( 7.69%) 45.00 ( 13.46%)
Success 2 Mean 53.40 ( 0.00%) 49.80 ( 6.74%) 48.80 ( 8.61%)
Success 2 Max 57.00 ( 0.00%) 52.00 ( 8.77%) 52.00 ( 8.77%)
Success 3 Min 84.00 ( 0.00%) 81.00 ( 3.57%) 79.00 ( 5.95%)
Success 3 Mean 85.00 ( 0.00%) 82.40 ( 3.06%) 79.60 ( 6.35%)
Success 3 Max 86.00 ( 0.00%) 83.00 ( 3.49%) 80.00 ( 6.98%)

Patch 3:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
8-nothp-1 8-nothp-2 8-nothp-3
Success 1 Min 46.00 ( 0.00%) 44.00 ( 4.35%) 42.00 ( 8.70%)
Success 1 Mean 50.20 ( 0.00%) 45.60 ( 9.16%) 44.00 ( 12.35%)
Success 1 Max 52.00 ( 0.00%) 47.00 ( 9.62%) 47.00 ( 9.62%)
Success 2 Min 53.00 ( 0.00%) 49.00 ( 7.55%) 48.00 ( 9.43%)
Success 2 Mean 55.80 ( 0.00%) 50.60 ( 9.32%) 49.00 ( 12.19%)
Success 2 Max 59.00 ( 0.00%) 52.00 ( 11.86%) 51.00 ( 13.56%)
Success 3 Min 84.00 ( 0.00%) 80.00 ( 4.76%) 79.00 ( 5.95%)
Success 3 Mean 85.40 ( 0.00%) 81.60 ( 4.45%) 80.40 ( 5.85%)
Success 3 Max 87.00 ( 0.00%) 83.00 ( 4.60%) 82.00 ( 5.75%)

While there's no improvement here, I consider reduced fragmentation events
to be worth on its own. Patch 2 also seems to reduce scanning for free
pages, and migrations in compaction, suggesting it has somewhat less work
to do:

Patch 1:

Compaction stalls 4153 3959 3978
Compaction success 1523 1441 1446
Compaction failures 2630 2517 2531
Page migrate success 4600827 4943120 5104348
Page migrate failure 19763 16656 17806
Compaction pages isolated 9597640 10305617 10653541
Compaction migrate scanned 77828948 86533283 87137064
Compaction free scanned 517758295 521312840 521462251
Compaction cost 5503 5932 6110

Patch 2:

Compaction stalls 3800 3450 3518
Compaction success 1421 1316 1317
Compaction failures 2379 2134 2201
Page migrate success 4160421 4502708 4752148
Page migrate failure 19705 14340 14911
Compaction pages isolated 8731983 9382374 9910043
Compaction migrate scanned 98362797 96349194 98609686
Compaction free scanned 496512560 469502017 480442545
Compaction cost 5173 5526 5811

As with v2, /proc/pagetypeinfo appears unaffected with respect to numbers
of unmovable and reclaimable pageblocks.

Configuring the benchmark to allocate like THP page fault (i.e. no sync
compaction) gives much noisier results for iterations 2 and 3 after
reboot. This is not so surprising given how [1] offers lower improvements
in this scenario due to less restarts after deferred compaction which
would change compaction pivot.

Baseline:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
5-thp-1 5-thp-2 5-thp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 8148965 6227815 6646741
Extfrag fragmenting 8147872 6227130 6646117
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 10324 12942 15975
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 5972 8495 10907
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 601 1707 2210
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 520 1570 2000
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 8136947 6212481 6627932

Patch 1:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
6-thp-1 6-thp-2 6-thp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 8345457 7574471 7020419
Extfrag fragmenting 8343546 7573777 7019718
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 10256 18535 30716
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 6893 11726 22181
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 465 1208 1023
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 353 996 843
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 8332825 7554034 6987979

Patch 2:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
7-thp-1 7-thp-2 7-thp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 3512847 3020756 2891625
Extfrag fragmenting 3511940 3020185 2891059
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 9017 6892 6191
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 1524 3053 2435
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 445 1081 1160
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 375 918 986
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 3502478 3012212 2883708

Patch 3:
3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4 3.19-rc4
8-thp-1 8-thp-2 8-thp-3
Page alloc extfrag event 3181699 3082881 2674164
Extfrag fragmenting 3180812 3082303 2673611
Extfrag fragmenting for unmovable 1201 4031 4040
Extfrag fragmenting unmovable placed with movable 974 3611 3645
Extfrag fragmenting for reclaimable 478 1165 1294
Extfrag fragmenting reclaimable placed with movable 387 985 1030
Extfrag fragmenting for movable 3179133 3077107 2668277

The improvements for first iteration are clear, the rest is much noisier
and can appear like regression for Patch 1. Anyway, patch 2 rectifies it.

Allocation success rates are again unaffected so there's no point in
making this e-mail any longer.

[1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=142166196321125&w=2

This patch (of 3):

When __rmqueue_fallback() is called to allocate a page of order X, it will
find a page of order Y >= X of a fallback migratetype, which is different
from the desired migratetype. With the help of try_to_steal_freepages(),
it may change the migratetype (to the desired one) also of:

1) all currently free pages in the pageblock containing the fallback page
2) the fallback pageblock itself
3) buddy pages created by splitting the fallback page (when Y > X)

These decisions take the order Y into account, as well as the desired
migratetype, with the goal of preventing multiple fallback allocations
that could e.g. distribute UNMOVABLE allocations among multiple
pageblocks.

Originally, decision for 1) has implied the decision for 3). Commit
47118af076f6 ("mm: mmzone: MIGRATE_CMA migration type added") changed that
(probably unintentionally) so that the buddy pages in case 3) are always
changed to the desired migratetype, except for CMA pageblocks.

Commit fef903efcf0c ("mm/page_allo.c: restructure free-page stealing code
and fix a bug") did some refactoring and added a comment that the case of
3) is intended. Commit 0cbef29a7821 ("mm: __rmqueue_fallback() should
respect pageblock type") removed the comment and tried to restore the
original behavior where 1) implies 3), but due to the previous
refactoring, the result is instead that only 2) implies 3) - and the
conditions for 2) are less frequently met than conditions for 1). This
may increase fragmentation in situations where the code decides to steal
all free pages from the pageblock (case 1)), but then gives back the buddy
pages produced by splitting.

This patch restores the original intended logic where 1) implies 3).
During testing with stress-highalloc from mmtests, this has shown to
decrease the number of events where UNMOVABLE and RECLAIMABLE allocations
steal from MOVABLE pageblocks, which can lead to permanent fragmentation.
In some cases it has increased the number of events when MOVABLE
allocations steal from UNMOVABLE or RECLAIMABLE pageblocks, but these are
fixable by sync compaction and thus less harmful.

Note that evaluation has shown that the behavior introduced by
47118af076f6 for buddy pages in case 3) is actually even better than the
original logic, so the following patch will introduce it properly once
again. For stable backports of this patch it makes thus sense to only fix
versions containing 0cbef29a7821.

[iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com: tracepoint fix]
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Zhang Yanfei <zhangyanfei@cn.fujitsu.com>
Acked-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: "Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

---
include/trace/events/kmem.h | 7 ++++---
mm/page_alloc.c | 12 +++++-------
2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

--- a/include/trace/events/kmem.h
+++ b/include/trace/events/kmem.h
@@ -268,11 +268,11 @@ TRACE_EVENT(mm_page_alloc_extfrag,

TP_PROTO(struct page *page,
int alloc_order, int fallback_order,
- int alloc_migratetype, int fallback_migratetype, int new_migratetype),
+ int alloc_migratetype, int fallback_migratetype),

TP_ARGS(page,
alloc_order, fallback_order,
- alloc_migratetype, fallback_migratetype, new_migratetype),
+ alloc_migratetype, fallback_migratetype),

TP_STRUCT__entry(
__field( struct page *, page )
@@ -289,7 +289,8 @@ TRACE_EVENT(mm_page_alloc_extfrag,
__entry->fallback_order = fallback_order;
__entry->alloc_migratetype = alloc_migratetype;
__entry->fallback_migratetype = fallback_migratetype;
- __entry->change_ownership = (new_migratetype == alloc_migratetype);
+ __entry->change_ownership = (alloc_migratetype ==
+ get_pageblock_migratetype(page));
),

TP_printk("page=%p pfn=%lu alloc_order=%d fallback_order=%d pageblock_order=%d alloc_migratetype=%d fallback_migratetype=%d fragmenting=%d change_ownership=%d",
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -1138,8 +1138,8 @@ static void change_pageblock_range(struc
* nor move CMA pages to different free lists. We don't want unmovable pages
* to be allocated from MIGRATE_CMA areas.
*
- * Returns the new migratetype of the pageblock (or the same old migratetype
- * if it was unchanged).
+ * Returns the allocation migratetype if free pages were stolen, or the
+ * fallback migratetype if it was decided not to steal.
*/
static int try_to_steal_freepages(struct zone *zone, struct page *page,
int start_type, int fallback_type)
@@ -1170,12 +1170,10 @@ static int try_to_steal_freepages(struct

/* Claim the whole block if over half of it is free */
if (pages >= (1 << (pageblock_order-1)) ||
- page_group_by_mobility_disabled) {
-
+ page_group_by_mobility_disabled)
set_pageblock_migratetype(page, start_type);
- return start_type;
- }

+ return start_type;
}

return fallback_type;
@@ -1227,7 +1225,7 @@ __rmqueue_fallback(struct zone *zone, un
set_freepage_migratetype(page, new_type);

trace_mm_page_alloc_extfrag(page, order, current_order,
- start_migratetype, migratetype, new_type);
+ start_migratetype, migratetype);

return page;
}