[PATCH mm-new v8 0/4] Improve khugepaged scan logic

Vernon Yang
2026-02-21T09:39:47Z

From: Vernon Yang <yanglincheng@kylinos.cn>

Hi all,

This series is improve the khugepaged scan logic, reduce CPU consumption,
prioritize scanning task that access memory frequently.

The following data is traced by bpftrace[1] on a desktop system. After
the system has been left idle for 10 minutes upon booting, a lot of
SCAN_PMD_MAPPED or SCAN_NO_PTE_TABLE are observed during a full scan by
khugepaged.

@scan_pmd_status[1]: 1 ## SCAN_SUCCEED
@scan_pmd_status[6]: 2 ## SCAN_EXCEED_SHARED_PTE
@scan_pmd_status[3]: 142 ## SCAN_PMD_MAPPED
@scan_pmd_status[2]: 178 ## SCAN_NO_PTE_TABLE
total progress size: 674 MB
Total time : 419 seconds ## include khugepaged_scan_sleep_millisecs

The khugepaged has below phenomenon: the khugepaged list is scanned in a
FIFO manner, as long as the task is not destroyed,
1. the task no longer has memory that can be collapsed into hugepage,
continues scan it always.
2. the task at the front of the khugepaged scan list is cold, they are
still scanned first.
3. everyone scan at intervals of khugepaged_scan_sleep_millisecs
(default 10s). If we always scan the above two cases first, the valid
scan will have to wait for a long time.

For the first case, when the memory is either SCAN_PMD_MAPPED or
SCAN_NO_PTE_TABLE or SCAN_PTE_MAPPED_HUGEPAGE [5], just skip it.

For the second case, if the user has explicitly informed us via
MADV_FREE that these folios will be freed, just skip it only.

The below is some performance test results.

kernbench results (testing on x86_64 machine):

baseline w/o patches test w/ patches
Amean user-32 18522.51 ( 0.00%) 18333.64 * 1.02%*
Amean syst-32 1137.96 ( 0.00%) 1113.79 * 2.12%*
Amean elsp-32 666.04 ( 0.00%) 659.44 * 0.99%*
BAmean-95 user-32 18520.01 ( 0.00%) 18323.57 ( 1.06%)
BAmean-95 syst-32 1137.68 ( 0.00%) 1110.50 ( 2.39%)
BAmean-95 elsp-32 665.92 ( 0.00%) 659.06 ( 1.03%)
BAmean-99 user-32 18520.01 ( 0.00%) 18323.57 ( 1.06%)
BAmean-99 syst-32 1137.68 ( 0.00%) 1110.50 ( 2.39%)
BAmean-99 elsp-32 665.92 ( 0.00%) 659.06 ( 1.03%)

Create three task[2]: hot1 -> cold -> hot2. After all three task are
created, each allocate memory 128MB. the hot1/hot2 task continuously
access 128 MB memory, while the cold task only accesses its memory
briefly andthen call madvise(MADV_FREE). Here are the performance test
results:
(Throughput bigger is better, other smaller is better)

Testing on x86_64 machine:

| task hot2 | without patch | with patch | delta |
|---------------------|---------------|---------------|---------|
| total accesses time | 3.14 sec | 2.93 sec | -6.69% |
| cycles per access | 4.96 | 2.21 | -55.44% |
| Throughput | 104.38 M/sec | 111.89 M/sec | +7.19% |
| dTLB-load-misses | 284814532 | 69597236 | -75.56% |

Testing on qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm:

| task hot2 | without patch | with patch | delta |
|---------------------|---------------|---------------|---------|
| total accesses time | 3.35 sec | 2.96 sec | -11.64% |
| cycles per access | 7.29 | 2.07 | -71.60% |
| Throughput | 97.67 M/sec | 110.77 M/sec | +13.41% |
| dTLB-load-misses | 241600871 | 3216108 | -98.67% |

This series is based on mm-new.

Thank you very much for your comments and discussions.

V7 -> V8:
- Just not skip collapse for lazyfree folios in VM_DROPPABLE mappings.
- "cur_progress" equal to 1 when SCAN_PTE_MAPPED_HUGEPAGE in file case.
- V7 PATCH #5 has been merged into the mm-new branch.
- Some cleaning, more detail commit log, and pickup Reviewed-by.

V6 -> V7:
- Use "*cur_progress += 1" at the beginning of the loop in anon case.
- Always "cur_progress" equal to HPAGE_PMD_NR in file case.
- Some cleaning, and pickup Acked-by and Reviewed-by.

V5 -> V6:
- Simplify hpage_collapse_scan_file() [3] and hpage_collapse_scan_pmd().
- Skip lazy-free folios in the khugepaged only [4].
- pickup Reviewed-by.

V4 -> V5:
- Patch #3 are squashed to Patch #2
- File patch utilize "xas->xa_index" to fix issue.
- folio_is_lazyfree() to folio_test_lazyfree()
- Just skip lazyfree folio simply.
- Again test kernbench in the performance mode to improve stability.
- pickup Acked-by and Reviewed-by.

V3 -> V4:
- Rebase on mm-new.
- Make Patch #2 cleaner
- Fix the lazyfree folio continue to be collapsed when skipped ahead.

V2 -> V3:
- Refine scan progress number, add folio_is_lazyfree helper
- Fix warnings at SCAN_PTE_MAPPED_HUGEPAGE.
- For MADV_FREE, we will skip the lazy-free folios instead.
- For MADV_COLD, remove it.
- Used hpage_collapse_test_exit_or_disable() instead of vma = NULL.
- pickup Reviewed-by.

V1 -> V2:
- Rename full to full_scan_finished, pickup Acked-by.
- Just skip SCAN_PMD_MAPPED/NO_PTE_TABLE memory, not remove mm.
- Set VM_NOHUGEPAGE flag when MADV_COLD/MADV_FREE to just skip, not move mm.
- Again test performance at the v6.19-rc2.

V7 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260207081613.588598-1-vernon2gm@gmail.com
V6 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260201122554.1470071-1-vernon2gm@gmail.com
V5 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260123082232.16413-1-vernon2gm@gmail.com
V4 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260111121909.8410-1-yanglincheng@kylinos.cn
V3 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260104054112.4541-1-yanglincheng@kylinos.cn
V2 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20251229055151.54887-1-yanglincheng@kylinos.cn
V1 : https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20251215090419.174418-1-yanglincheng@kylinos.cn

[1] https://github.com/vernon2gh/app_and_module/blob/main/khugepaged/khugepaged_mm.bt
[2] https://github.com/vernon2gh/app_and_module/blob/main/khugepaged/app.c
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/4c35391e-a944-4e62-9103-4a1c4961f62a@arm.com
[4] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/CACZaFFNY8+UKLzBGnmB3ij9amzBdKJgytcSNtA8fLCake8Ua=A@mail.gmail.com
[5] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/4qdu7owpmxfh3ugsue775fxarw5g2gcggbxdf5psj75nnu7z2u@cv2uu2yocaxq

Vernon Yang (4):
mm: khugepaged: add trace_mm_khugepaged_scan event
mm: khugepaged: refine scan progress number
mm: add folio_test_lazyfree helper
mm: khugepaged: skip lazy-free folios

include/linux/page-flags.h | 5 +++
include/trace/events/huge_memory.h | 26 ++++++++++++++
mm/khugepaged.c | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++++------
mm/rmap.c | 2 +-
mm/vmscan.c | 5 ++-
5 files changed, 81 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

base-commit: a6fdc327de4678e54b5122441c970371014117b0
--
2.51.0