RFC: Memory Tiering Kernel Interfaces (v3)

Wei Xu
2022-05-26T21:22:44Z

Changes since v2
================
* Updated the design and examples to use "rank" instead of device ID
to determine the order between memory tiers for better flexibility.

Overview
========

The current kernel has the basic memory tiering support: Inactive
pages on a higher tier NUMA node can be migrated (demoted) to a lower
tier NUMA node to make room for new allocations on the higher tier
NUMA node. Frequently accessed pages on a lower tier NUMA node can be
migrated (promoted) to a higher tier NUMA node to improve the
performance.

In the current kernel, memory tiers are defined implicitly via a
demotion path relationship between NUMA nodes, which is created during
the kernel initialization and updated when a NUMA node is hot-added or
hot-removed. The current implementation puts all nodes with CPU into
the top tier, and builds the tier hierarchy tier-by-tier by
establishing the per-node demotion targets based on the distances
between nodes.

This current memory tier kernel interface needs to be improved for
several important use cases:

* The current tier initialization code always initializes
each memory-only NUMA node into a lower tier. But a memory-only
NUMA node may have a high performance memory device (e.g. a DRAM
device attached via CXL.mem or a DRAM-backed memory-only node on
a virtual machine) and should be put into a higher tier.

* The current tier hierarchy always puts CPU nodes into the top
tier. But on a system with HBM (e.g. GPU memory) devices, these
memory-only HBM NUMA nodes should be in the top tier, and DRAM nodes
with CPUs are better to be placed into the next lower tier.

* Also because the current tier hierarchy always puts CPU nodes
into the top tier, when a CPU is hot-added (or hot-removed) and
triggers a memory node from CPU-less into a CPU node (or vice
versa), the memory tier hierarchy gets changed, even though no
memory node is added or removed. This can make the tier
hierarchy unstable and make it difficult to support tier-based
memory accounting.

* A higher tier node can only be demoted to selected nodes on the
next lower tier as defined by the demotion path, not any other
node from any lower tier. This strict, hard-coded demotion order
does not work in all use cases (e.g. some use cases may want to
allow cross-socket demotion to another node in the same demotion
tier as a fallback when the preferred demotion node is out of
space), and has resulted in the feature request for an interface to
override the system-wide, per-node demotion order from the
userspace. This demotion order is also inconsistent with the page
allocation fallback order when all the nodes in a higher tier are
out of space: The page allocation can fall back to any node from
any lower tier, whereas the demotion order doesn't allow that.

* There are no interfaces for the userspace to learn about the memory
tier hierarchy in order to optimize its memory allocations.

I'd like to propose revised memory tier kernel interfaces based on
the discussions in the threads:

- https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220425201728.5kzm4seu7rep7ndr@offworld/T/
- https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20220426114300.00003ad8@Huawei.com/t/
- https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/867bc216386eb6cbf54648f23e5825830f5b922e.camel@intel.com/T/
- https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/d6314cfe1c7898a6680bed1e7cc93b0ab93e3155.camel@intel.com/T/

High-level Design Ideas
=======================

* Define memory tiers explicitly, not implicitly.

* Memory tiers are defined based on hardware capabilities of memory
nodes, not their relative node distances between each other.

* The tier assignment of each node is independent from each other.
Moving a node from one tier to another tier doesn't affect the tier
assignment of any other node.

* The node-tier association is stable. A node can be reassigned to a
different tier only under the specific conditions that don't block
future tier-based memory cgroup accounting.

* A node can demote its pages to any nodes of any lower tiers. The
demotion target node selection follows the allocation fallback order
of the source node, which is built based on node distances. The
demotion targets are also restricted to only the nodes from the tiers
lower than the source node. We no longer need to maintain a separate
per-node demotion order (node_demotion[]).

Sysfs Interfaces
================

* /sys/devices/system/memtier/

This is the directory containing the information about memory tiers.

Each memory tier has its own subdirectory.

The order of memory tiers is determined by their rank values, not by
their memtier device names.

- /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible

Format: ordered list of "memtier(rank)"
Example: 0(64), 1(128), 2(192)

Read-only. When read, list all available memory tiers and their
associated ranks, ordered by the rank values (from the highest
tier to the lowest tier).

* /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtierN/

This is the directory containing the information about a particular
memory tier, memtierN, where N is the memtier device ID (e.g. 0, 1).

The memtier device ID number itself is just an identifier and has no
special meaning, i.e. memtier device ID numbers do not determine the
order of memory tiers.

- /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtierN/rank

Format: int
Example: 100

Read-only. When read, list the "rank" value associated with memtierN.

"Rank" is an opaque value. Its absolute value doesn't have any
special meaning. But the rank values of different memtiers can be
compared with each other to determine the memory tier order.
For example, if we have 3 memtiers: memtier0, memtier1, memiter2, and
their rank values are 10, 20, 15, then the memory tier order is:
memtier0 -> memtier2 -> memtier1, where memtier0 is the highest tier
and memtier1 is the lowest tier.

The rank value of each memtier should be unique.

- /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtierN/nodelist

Format: node_list
Example: 1-2

Read-only. When read, list the memory nodes in the specified tier.

If a memory tier has no memory nodes, the kernel can hide the sysfs
directory of this memory tier, though the tier itself can still be
visible from /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible.

* /sys/devices/system/node/nodeN/memtier

where N = 0, 1, ...

Format: int or empty
Example: 1

When read, list the device ID of the memory tier that the node belongs
to. Its value is empty for a CPU-only NUMA node.

When written, the kernel moves the node into the specified memory
tier if the move is allowed. The tier assignment of all other nodes
are not affected.

Initially, we can make this interface read-only.

Kernel Representation
=====================

* All memory tiering code is guarded by CONFIG_TIERED_MEMORY.

* #define MAX_MEMORY_TIERS 3

Support 3 memory tiers for now. This can be a kconfig option.

* #define MEMORY_DEFAULT_TIER_DEVICE 1

The default tier device that a memory node is assigned to.

* struct memtier_dev {
nodemask_t nodelist;
int rank;
int tier;
} memtier_devices[MAX_MEMORY_TIERS]

Store memory tiers by device IDs.

* struct memtier_dev *memory_tier(int tier)

Returns the memtier device for a given memory tier.

* int node_tier_dev_map[MAX_NUMNODES]

Map a node to its tier device ID..

For each CPU-only node c, node_tier_dev_map[c] = -1.

Memory Tier Initialization
==========================

By default, all memory nodes are assigned to the default tier
(MEMORY_DEFAULT_TIER_DEVICE). The default tier device has a rank value
in the middle of the possible rank value range (e.g. 127 if the range
is [0..255]).

A device driver can move up or down its memory nodes from the default
tier. For example, PMEM can move down its memory nodes below the
default tier, whereas GPU can move up its memory nodes above the
default tier.

The kernel initialization code makes the decision on which exact tier
a memory node should be assigned to based on the requests from the
device drivers as well as the memory device hardware information
provided by the firmware.

Memory Tier Reassignment
========================

After a memory node is hot-removed, it can be hot-added back to a
different memory tier. This is useful for supporting dynamically
provisioned CXL.mem NUMA nodes, which may connect to different
memory devices across hot-plug events. Such tier changes should
be compatible with tier-based memory accounting.

The userspace may also reassign an existing online memory node to a
different tier. However, this should only be allowed when no pages
are allocated from the memory node or when there are no non-root
memory cgroups (e.g. during the system boot). This restriction is
important for keeping memory tier hierarchy stable enough for
tier-based memory cgroup accounting.

Hot-adding/removing CPUs doesn't affect memory tier hierarchy.

Memory Allocation for Demotion
==============================

To allocate a new page as the demotion target for a page, the kernel
calls the allocation function (__alloc_pages_nodemask) with the
source page node as the preferred node and the union of all lower
tier nodes as the allowed nodemask. The actual target node selection
then follows the allocation fallback order that the kernel has
already defined.

The pseudo code looks like:

targets = NODE_MASK_NONE;
src_nid = page_to_nid(page);
src_tier = memtier_devices[node_tier_dev_map[src_nid]].tier;
for (i = src_tier + 1; i < MAX_MEMORY_TIERS; i++)
nodes_or(targets, targets, memory_tier(i)->nodelist);
new_page = __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp, order, src_nid, targets);

The memopolicy of cpuset, vma and owner task of the source page can
be set to refine the demotion target nodemask, e.g. to prevent
demotion or select a particular allowed node as the demotion target.

Memory Allocation for Promotion
===============================

The page allocation for promotion is similar to demotion, except that (1)
the target nodemask uses the promotion tiers, (2) the preferred node can
be the accessing CPU node, not the source page node.

Examples
========

* Example 1:

Node 0 & 1 are DRAM nodes, node 2 & 3 are PMEM nodes.

20
Node 0 (DRAM) ---- Node 1 (DRAM)
| \ / |
| 30 40 X 40 | 30
| / \ |
Node 2 (PMEM) ---- Node 3 (PMEM)
40

node distances:
node 0 1 2 3
0 10 20 30 40
1 20 10 40 30
2 30 40 10 40
3 40 30 40 10

$ cat /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible
0(64), 1(128), 2(192)

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/rank
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/rank:128
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/rank:192

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/nodelist
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/nodelist:0-1
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/nodelist:2-3

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/node/node*/memtier
/sys/devices/system/node/node0/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/memtier:2
/sys/devices/system/node/node3/memtier:2

Demotion fallback order:
node 0: 2, 3
node 1: 3, 2
node 2: empty
node 3: empty

To prevent cross-socket demotion and memory access, the user can set
mempolicy, e.g. cpuset.mems=0,2.

* Example 2:

Node 0 & 1 are DRAM nodes.
Node 2 is a PMEM node and closer to node 0.

20
Node 0 (DRAM) ---- Node 1 (DRAM)
| /
| 30 / 40
| /
Node 2 (PMEM)

node distances:
node 0 1 2
0 10 20 30
1 20 10 40
2 30 40 10

$ cat /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible
0(64), 1(128), 2(192)

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/rank
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/rank:128
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/rank:192

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/nodelist
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/nodelist:0-1
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/nodelist:2

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/node/node*/memtier
/sys/devices/system/node/node0/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/memtier:2

Demotion fallback order:
node 0: 2
node 1: 2
node 2: empty

* Example 3:

Node 0 & 1 are DRAM nodes, Node 2 is a memory-only DRAM node.

All nodes are in the same tier.

20
Node 0 (DRAM) ---- Node 1 (DRAM)
\ /
\ 30 / 30
\ /
Node 2 (PMEM)

node distances:
node 0 1 2
0 10 20 30
1 20 10 30
2 30 30 10

$ cat /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible
0(64), 1(128), 2(192)

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/rank
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/rank:128

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/nodelist
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/nodelist:0-2

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/node/node*/memtier
/sys/devices/system/node/node0/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/memtier:1

Demotion fallback order:
node 0: empty
node 1: empty
node 2: empty

* Example 4:

Node 0 is a DRAM node with CPU.
Node 1 is a PMEM node.
Node 2 is a GPU node.

50
Node 0 (DRAM) ---- Node 2 (GPU)
\ /
\ 30 / 60
\ /
Node 1 (PMEM)

node distances:
node 0 1 2
0 10 30 50
1 30 10 60
2 50 60 10

$ cat /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible
0(64), 1(128), 2(192)

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/rank
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0/rank:64
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/rank:128
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/rank:192

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/nodelist
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0/nodelist:2
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/nodelist:0
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/nodelist:1

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/node/node*/memtier
/sys/devices/system/node/node0/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/memtier:2
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/memtier:0

Demotion fallback order:
node 0: 1
node 1: empty
node 2: 0, 1

* Example 5:

Node 0 is a DRAM node with CPU.
Node 1 is a GPU node.
Node 2 is a PMEM node.
Node 3 is a large, slow DRAM node without CPU.

100
Node 0 (DRAM) ---- Node 1 (GPU)
/ | / |
/40 |30 120 / | 110
| | / |
| Node 2 (PMEM) ---- /
| \ /
\ 80 \ /
------- Node 3 (Slow DRAM)

node distances:
node 0 1 2 3
0 10 100 30 40
1 100 10 120 110
2 30 120 10 80
3 40 110 80 10

MAX_MEMORY_TIERS=4 (memtier3 is a memory tier added later).

$ cat /sys/devices/system/memtier/possible
0(64), 1(128), 3(160), 2(192)

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/rank
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0/rank:64
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/rank:128
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/rank:192
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier3/rank:160

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier*/nodelist
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0/nodelist:1
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1/nodelist:0
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier2/nodelist:2
/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier3/nodelist:3

$ grep '' /sys/devices/system/node/node*/memtier
/sys/devices/system/node/node0/memtier:1
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/memtier:0
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/memtier:2
/sys/devices/system/node/node3/memtier:3

Demotion fallback order:
node 0: 2, 3
node 1: 0, 3, 2
node 2: empty
node 3: 2