[PATCH v13 13/14] mm: multi-gen LRU: admin guide

Yu Zhao
2022-07-06T22:02:10Z

Add an admin guide.

Signed-off-by: Yu Zhao <yuzhao@google.com>
Acked-by: Brian Geffon <bgeffon@google.com>
Acked-by: Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) <heftig@archlinux.org>
Acked-by: Oleksandr Natalenko <oleksandr@natalenko.name>
Acked-by: Steven Barrett <steven@liquorix.net>
Acked-by: Suleiman Souhlal <suleiman@google.com>
Tested-by: Daniel Byrne <djbyrne@mtu.edu>
Tested-by: Donald Carr <d@chaos-reins.com>
Tested-by: Holger Hoffstätte <holger@applied-asynchrony.com>
Tested-by: Konstantin Kharlamov <Hi-Angel@yandex.ru>
Tested-by: Shuang Zhai <szhai2@cs.rochester.edu>
Tested-by: Sofia Trinh <sofia.trinh@edi.works>
Tested-by: Vaibhav Jain <vaibhav@linux.ibm.com>
---
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst | 1 +
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst | 156 ++++++++++++++++++
mm/Kconfig | 3 +-
mm/vmscan.c | 4 +
4 files changed, 163 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
index c21b5823f126..2cf5bae62036 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ the Linux memory management.
idle_page_tracking
ksm
memory-hotplug
+ multigen_lru
nommu-mmap
numa_memory_policy
numaperf
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6355f2b5019d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,156 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=============
+Multi-Gen LRU
+=============
+The multi-gen LRU is an alternative LRU implementation that optimizes
+page reclaim and improves performance under memory pressure. Page
+reclaim decides the kernel's caching policy and ability to overcommit
+memory. It directly impacts the kswapd CPU usage and RAM efficiency.
+
+Quick start
+===========
+Build the kernel with the following configurations.
+
+* ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN=y``
+* ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_ENABLED=y``
+
+All set!
+
+Runtime options
+===============
+``/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/`` contains stable ABIs described in the
+following subsections.
+
+Kill switch
+-----------
+``enabled`` accepts different values to enable or disable the
+following components. Its default value depends on
+``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_ENABLED``. All the components should be enabled
+unless some of them have unforeseen side effects. Writing to
+``enabled`` has no effect when a component is not supported by the
+hardware, and valid values will be accepted even when the main switch
+is off.
+
+====== ===============================================================
+Values Components
+====== ===============================================================
+0x0001 The main switch for the multi-gen LRU.
+0x0002 Clearing the accessed bit in leaf page table entries in large
+ batches, when MMU sets it (e.g., on x86). This behavior can
+ theoretically worsen lock contention (mmap_lock). If it is
+ disabled, the multi-gen LRU will suffer a minor performance
+ degradation for workloads that contiguously map hot pages,
+ whose accessed bits can be otherwise cleared by fewer larger
+ batches.
+0x0004 Clearing the accessed bit in non-leaf page table entries as
+ well, when MMU sets it (e.g., on x86). This behavior was not
+ verified on x86 varieties other than Intel and AMD. If it is
+ disabled, the multi-gen LRU will suffer a negligible
+ performance degradation.
+[yYnN] Apply to all the components above.
+====== ===============================================================
+
+E.g.,
+::
+
+ echo y >/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+ cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+ 0x0007
+ echo 5 >/sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+ cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled
+ 0x0005
+
+Thrashing prevention
+--------------------
+Personal computers are more sensitive to thrashing because it can
+cause janks (lags when rendering UI) and negatively impact user
+experience. The multi-gen LRU offers thrashing prevention to the
+majority of laptop and desktop users who do not have ``oomd``.
+
+Users can write ``N`` to ``min_ttl_ms`` to prevent the working set of
+``N`` milliseconds from getting evicted. The OOM killer is triggered
+if this working set cannot be kept in memory. In other words, this
+option works as an adjustable pressure relief valve, and when open, it
+terminates applications that are hopefully not being used.
+
+Based on the average human detectable lag (~100ms), ``N=1000`` usually
+eliminates intolerable janks due to thrashing. Larger values like
+``N=3000`` make janks less noticeable at the risk of premature OOM
+kills.
+
+The default value ``0`` means disabled.
+
+Experimental features
+=====================
+``/sys/kernel/debug/lru_gen`` accepts commands described in the
+following subsections. Multiple command lines are supported, so does
+concatenation with delimiters ``,`` and ``;``.
+
+``/sys/kernel/debug/lru_gen_full`` provides additional stats for
+debugging. ``CONFIG_LRU_GEN_STATS=y`` keeps historical stats from
+evicted generations in this file.
+
+Working set estimation
+----------------------
+Working set estimation measures how much memory an application needs
+in a given time interval, and it is usually done with little impact on
+the performance of the application. E.g., data centers want to
+optimize job scheduling (bin packing) to improve memory utilizations.
+When a new job comes in, the job scheduler needs to find out whether
+each server it manages can allocate a certain amount of memory for
+this new job before it can pick a candidate. To do so, the job
+scheduler needs to estimate the working sets of the existing jobs.
+
+When it is read, ``lru_gen`` returns a histogram of numbers of pages
+accessed over different time intervals for each memcg and node.
+``MAX_NR_GENS`` decides the number of bins for each histogram. The
+histograms are noncumulative.
+::
+
+ memcg memcg_id memcg_path
+ node node_id
+ min_gen_nr age_in_ms nr_anon_pages nr_file_pages
+ ...
+ max_gen_nr age_in_ms nr_anon_pages nr_file_pages
+
+Each bin contains an estimated number of pages that have been accessed
+within ``age_in_ms``. E.g., ``min_gen_nr`` contains the coldest pages
+and ``max_gen_nr`` contains the hottest pages, since ``age_in_ms`` of
+the former is the largest and that of the latter is the smallest.
+
+Users can write ``+ memcg_id node_id max_gen_nr
+[can_swap [force_scan]]`` to ``lru_gen`` to create a new generation
+``max_gen_nr+1``. ``can_swap`` defaults to the swap setting and, if it
+is set to ``1``, it forces the scan of anon pages when swap is off,
+and vice versa. ``force_scan`` defaults to ``1`` and, if it is set to
+``0``, it employs heuristics to reduce the overhead, which is likely
+to reduce the coverage as well.
+
+A typical use case is that a job scheduler writes to ``lru_gen`` at a
+certain time interval to create new generations, and it ranks the
+servers it manages based on the sizes of their cold pages defined by
+this time interval.
+
+Proactive reclaim
+-----------------
+Proactive reclaim induces page reclaim when there is no memory
+pressure. It usually targets cold pages only. E.g., when a new job
+comes in, the job scheduler wants to proactively reclaim cold pages on
+the server it selected to improve the chance of successfully landing
+this new job.
+
+Users can write ``- memcg_id node_id min_gen_nr [swappiness
+[nr_to_reclaim]]`` to ``lru_gen`` to evict generations less than or
+equal to ``min_gen_nr``. Note that ``min_gen_nr`` should be less than
+``max_gen_nr-1`` as ``max_gen_nr`` and ``max_gen_nr-1`` are not fully
+aged and therefore cannot be evicted. ``swappiness`` overrides the
+default value in ``/proc/sys/vm/swappiness``. ``nr_to_reclaim`` limits
+the number of pages to evict.
+
+A typical use case is that a job scheduler writes to ``lru_gen``
+before it tries to land a new job on a server. If it fails to
+materialize enough cold pages because of the overestimation, it
+retries on the next server according to the ranking result obtained
+from the working set estimation step. This less forceful approach
+limits the impacts on the existing jobs.
diff --git a/mm/Kconfig b/mm/Kconfig
index 0c2ef0af0036..a0f7b6e66410 100644
--- a/mm/Kconfig
+++ b/mm/Kconfig
@@ -1137,7 +1137,8 @@ config LRU_GEN
# make sure folio->flags has enough spare bits
depends on 64BIT || !SPARSEMEM || SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP
help
- A high performance LRU implementation to overcommit memory.
+ A high performance LRU implementation to overcommit memory. See
+ Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details.

config LRU_GEN_ENABLED
bool "Enable by default"
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index fbcd298adca7..7096ff7836db 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -5209,6 +5209,7 @@ static ssize_t show_min_ttl(struct kobject *kobj, struct kobj_attribute *attr, c
return sprintf(buf, "%u\n", jiffies_to_msecs(READ_ONCE(lru_gen_min_ttl)));
}

+/* see Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details */
static ssize_t store_min_ttl(struct kobject *kobj, struct kobj_attribute *attr,
const char *buf, size_t len)
{
@@ -5242,6 +5243,7 @@ static ssize_t show_enabled(struct kobject *kobj, struct kobj_attribute *attr, c
return snprintf(buf, PAGE_SIZE, "0x%04x\n", caps);
}

+/* see Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details */
static ssize_t store_enabled(struct kobject *kobj, struct kobj_attribute *attr,
const char *buf, size_t len)
{
@@ -5389,6 +5391,7 @@ static void lru_gen_seq_show_full(struct seq_file *m, struct lruvec *lruvec,
seq_putc(m, '\n');
}

+/* see Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details */
static int lru_gen_seq_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
{
unsigned long seq;
@@ -5547,6 +5550,7 @@ static int run_cmd(char cmd, int memcg_id, int nid, unsigned long seq,
return err;
}

+/* see Documentation/admin-guide/mm/multigen_lru.rst for details */
static ssize_t lru_gen_seq_write(struct file *file, const char __user *src,
size_t len, loff_t *pos)
{
--
2.37.0.rc0.161.g10f37bed90-goog