Re: [PATCH 11/12] mm/filemap: make buffered writes work with RWF_UNCACHED

Jens Axboe
2024-12-06T18:22:58Z

On 12/6/24 10:17 AM, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 03, 2024 at 08:31:47AM -0700, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> If RWF_UNCACHED is set for a write, mark new folios being written with
>> uncached. This is done by passing in the fact that it's an uncached write
>> through the folio pointer. We can only get there when IOCB_UNCACHED was
>> allowed, which can only happen if the file system opts in. Opting in means
>> they need to check for the LSB in the folio pointer to know if it's an
>> uncached write or not. If it is, then FGP_UNCACHED should be used if
>> creating new folios is necessary.
>>
>> Uncached writes will drop any folios they create upon writeback
>> completion, but leave folios that may exist in that range alone. Since
>> ->write_begin() doesn't currently take any flags, and to avoid needing
>> to change the callback kernel wide, use the foliop being passed in to
>> ->write_begin() to signal if this is an uncached write or not. File
>> systems can then use that to mark newly created folios as uncached.
>>
>> This provides similar benefits to using RWF_UNCACHED with reads. Testing
>> buffered writes on 32 files:
>>
>> writing bs 65536, uncached 0
>> 1s: 196035MB/sec
>> 2s: 132308MB/sec
>> 3s: 132438MB/sec
>> 4s: 116528MB/sec
>> 5s: 103898MB/sec
>> 6s: 108893MB/sec
>> 7s: 99678MB/sec
>> 8s: 106545MB/sec
>> 9s: 106826MB/sec
>> 10s: 101544MB/sec
>> 11s: 111044MB/sec
>> 12s: 124257MB/sec
>> 13s: 116031MB/sec
>> 14s: 114540MB/sec
>> 15s: 115011MB/sec
>> 16s: 115260MB/sec
>> 17s: 116068MB/sec
>> 18s: 116096MB/sec
>>
>> where it's quite obvious where the page cache filled, and performance
>> dropped from to about half of where it started, settling in at around
>> 115GB/sec. Meanwhile, 32 kswapds were running full steam trying to
>> reclaim pages.
>>
>> Running the same test with uncached buffered writes:
>>
>> writing bs 65536, uncached 1
>> 1s: 198974MB/sec
>> 2s: 189618MB/sec
>> 3s: 193601MB/sec
>> 4s: 188582MB/sec
>> 5s: 193487MB/sec
>> 6s: 188341MB/sec
>> 7s: 194325MB/sec
>> 8s: 188114MB/sec
>> 9s: 192740MB/sec
>> 10s: 189206MB/sec
>> 11s: 193442MB/sec
>> 12s: 189659MB/sec
>> 13s: 191732MB/sec
>> 14s: 190701MB/sec
>> 15s: 191789MB/sec
>> 16s: 191259MB/sec
>> 17s: 190613MB/sec
>> 18s: 191951MB/sec
>>
>> and the behavior is fully predictable, performing the same throughout
>> even after the page cache would otherwise have fully filled with dirty
>> data. It's also about 65% faster, and using half the CPU of the system
>> compared to the normal buffered write.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
>> ---
>> include/linux/fs.h | 5 +++++
>> include/linux/pagemap.h | 9 +++++++++
>> mm/filemap.c | 12 +++++++++++-
>> 3 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/include/linux/fs.h b/include/linux/fs.h
>> index 40383f5cc6a2..32255473f79d 100644
>> --- a/include/linux/fs.h
>> +++ b/include/linux/fs.h
>> @@ -2912,6 +2912,11 @@ static inline ssize_t generic_write_sync(struct kiocb *iocb, ssize_t count)
>> (iocb->ki_flags & IOCB_SYNC) ? 0 : 1);
>> if (ret)
>> return ret;
>> + } else if (iocb->ki_flags & IOCB_UNCACHED) {
>> + struct address_space *mapping = iocb->ki_filp->f_mapping;
>> +
>> + filemap_fdatawrite_range_kick(mapping, iocb->ki_pos,
>> + iocb->ki_pos + count);
>> }
>>
>> return count;
>> diff --git a/include/linux/pagemap.h b/include/linux/pagemap.h
>> index f2d49dccb7c1..e49587c40157 100644
>> --- a/include/linux/pagemap.h
>> +++ b/include/linux/pagemap.h
>> @@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
>> #include <linux/gfp.h>
>> #include <linux/bitops.h>
>> #include <linux/hardirq.h> /* for in_interrupt() */
>> +#include <linux/writeback.h>
>> #include <linux/hugetlb_inline.h>
>>
>> struct folio_batch;
>> @@ -70,6 +71,14 @@ static inline int filemap_write_and_wait(struct address_space *mapping)
>> return filemap_write_and_wait_range(mapping, 0, LLONG_MAX);
>> }
>>
>> +/*
>> + * Value passed in to ->write_begin() if IOCB_UNCACHED is set for the write,
>> + * and the ->write_begin() handler on a file system supporting FOP_UNCACHED
>> + * must check for this and pass FGP_UNCACHED for folio creation.
>> + */
>> +#define foliop_uncached ((struct folio *) 0xfee1c001)
>> +#define foliop_is_uncached(foliop) (*(foliop) == foliop_uncached)
>
> Honestly, I'm not a fan of foliop_uncached or foliop_is_uncached.

It definitely is what I would elegantly refer to as somewhat of a
hack... But it's not _that_ bad imho.

> The first one because it's a magic value and can you guarantee that
> 0xfee1c001 will never be a pointer to an actual struct folio, even on
> 32-bit?

I don't think that should be possible, since it's deliberately 1 at the
end. A struct like folio (or anything else) should at least be sizeof
aligned, and this one is not.

> Second, they're both named "foliop" even though the first one doesn't
> return a (struct folio **) but the second one takes that as an arg.

I just named them as such since they only deal with the folio ** that is
being passed in. I can certainly rename the second one to
folio_uncached, that would be an improvement I think. Thanks!

> I think these two macros are only used for ext4 (or really, !iomap)
> support, right? And that's only to avoid messing with ->write_begin?

Indeed, ideally we'd change ->write_begin() instead. And that probably
should still be done, I just did not want to deal with that nightmare in
terms of managing the patchset. And honestly I think it'd be OK to defer
that part until ->write_begin() needs to be changed for other reasons,
it's a lot of churn just for this particular thing and dealing with the
magic pointer value (at least to me) is liveable.

> What if you dropped ext4 support instead? :D

Hah, yes obviously that'd be a solution, then I'd need to drop btrfs as
well. And I would kind of prefer not doing that ;-)

--
Jens Axboe