Re: [RFC] mm/vmscan.c: avoid possible long latency caused by too_many_isolated()

Yu Zhao
2021-04-28T15:05:23Z

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 5:55 AM Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com> wrote:
>
> [Cc Rik and Andrea]
>
> On Thu 22-04-21 11:13:34, Yu Zhao wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 04:36:19PM +0800, Xing Zhengjun wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > In the system with very few file pages (nr_active_file + nr_inactive_file
> > > < 100), it is easy to reproduce "nr_isolated_file > nr_inactive_file", then
> > > too_many_isolated return true, shrink_inactive_list enter "msleep(100)", the
> > > long latency will happen.
> > >
> > > The test case to reproduce it is very simple: allocate many huge pages(near
> > > the DRAM size), then do free, repeat the same operation many times.
> > > In the test case, the system with very few file pages (nr_active_file +
> > > nr_inactive_file < 100), I have dumpped the numbers of
> > > active/inactive/isolated file pages during the whole test(see in the
> > > attachments) , in shrink_inactive_list "too_many_isolated" is very easy to
> > > return true, then enter "msleep(100)",in "too_many_isolated" sc->gfp_mask is
> > > 0x342cca ("_GFP_IO" and "__GFP_FS" is masked) , it is also very easy to
> > > enter “inactive >>=3”, then “isolated > inactive” will be true.
> > >
> > > So I have a proposal to set a threshold number for the total file pages to
> > > ignore the system with very few file pages, and then bypass the 100ms sleep.
> > > It is hard to set a perfect number for the threshold, so I just give an
> > > example of "256" for it.
> > >
> > > I appreciate it if you can give me your suggestion/comments. Thanks.
> >
> > Hi Zhengjun,
> >
> > It seems to me using the number of isolated pages to keep a lid on
> > direct reclaimers is not a good solution. We shouldn't keep going
> > that direction if we really want to fix the problem because migration
> > can isolate many pages too, which in turn blocks page reclaim.
> >
> > Here is something works a lot better. Please give it a try. Thanks.
>
> O do have a very vague recollection that number of reclaimers used to be
> a criterion in very old days and it has proven to be quite bad in the
> end. I am sorry but I do not have an reference at hands and do not have
> time to crawl git history. Maybe Rik/Andrea will remember details.

Well, I found nothing.

> The existing throttling mechanism is quite far from optimal but it aims
> at handling close to OOM situations where effectivelly a large part of
> the existing LRUs can be already isolated. We already have a retry
> logic which is LRU aware in the page allocator
> (should_reclaim_retry). The logic would have to be extended but that
> sounds like a better fit for the back off to me.
>
> > diff --git a/include/linux/mmzone.h b/include/linux/mmzone.h
> > index 507d216610bf2..9a09f7e76f6b8 100644
> > --- a/include/linux/mmzone.h
> > +++ b/include/linux/mmzone.h
> > @@ -951,6 +951,8 @@ typedef struct pglist_data {
> >
> > /* Fields commonly accessed by the page reclaim scanner */
> >
> > + atomic_t nr_reclaimers;
> > +
> > /*
> > * NOTE: THIS IS UNUSED IF MEMCG IS ENABLED.
> > *
> > diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
> > index 1c080fafec396..f7278642290a6 100644
> > --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> > +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> > @@ -1786,43 +1786,6 @@ int isolate_lru_page(struct page *page)
> > return ret;
> > }
> >
> > -/*
> > - * A direct reclaimer may isolate SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX pages from the LRU list and
> > - * then get rescheduled. When there are massive number of tasks doing page
> > - * allocation, such sleeping direct reclaimers may keep piling up on each CPU,
> > - * the LRU list will go small and be scanned faster than necessary, leading to
> > - * unnecessary swapping, thrashing and OOM.
> > - */
> > -static int too_many_isolated(struct pglist_data *pgdat, int file,
> > - struct scan_control *sc)
> > -{
> > - unsigned long inactive, isolated;
> > -
> > - if (current_is_kswapd())
> > - return 0;
> > -
> > - if (!writeback_throttling_sane(sc))
> > - return 0;
> > -
> > - if (file) {
> > - inactive = node_page_state(pgdat, NR_INACTIVE_FILE);
> > - isolated = node_page_state(pgdat, NR_ISOLATED_FILE);
> > - } else {
> > - inactive = node_page_state(pgdat, NR_INACTIVE_ANON);
> > - isolated = node_page_state(pgdat, NR_ISOLATED_ANON);
> > - }
> > -
> > - /*
> > - * GFP_NOIO/GFP_NOFS callers are allowed to isolate more pages, so they
> > - * won't get blocked by normal direct-reclaimers, forming a circular
> > - * deadlock.
> > - */
> > - if ((sc->gfp_mask & (__GFP_IO | __GFP_FS)) == (__GFP_IO | __GFP_FS))
> > - inactive >>= 3;
> > -
> > - return isolated > inactive;
> > -}
> > -
> > /*
> > * move_pages_to_lru() moves pages from private @list to appropriate LRU list.
> > * On return, @list is reused as a list of pages to be freed by the caller.
> > @@ -1924,19 +1887,6 @@ shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan, struct lruvec *lruvec,
> > struct pglist_data *pgdat = lruvec_pgdat(lruvec);
> > bool stalled = false;
> >
> > - while (unlikely(too_many_isolated(pgdat, file, sc))) {
> > - if (stalled)
> > - return 0;
> > -
> > - /* wait a bit for the reclaimer. */
> > - msleep(100);
> > - stalled = true;
> > -
> > - /* We are about to die and free our memory. Return now. */
> > - if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> > - return SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX;
> > - }
> > -
> > lru_add_drain();
> >
> > spin_lock_irq(&lruvec->lru_lock);
> > @@ -3302,6 +3252,7 @@ static bool throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_t gfp_mask, struct zonelist *zonelist,
> > unsigned long try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist, int order,
> > gfp_t gfp_mask, nodemask_t *nodemask)
> > {
> > + int nr_cpus;
> > unsigned long nr_reclaimed;
> > struct scan_control sc = {
> > .nr_to_reclaim = SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX,
> > @@ -3334,8 +3285,17 @@ unsigned long try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist, int order,
> > set_task_reclaim_state(current, &sc.reclaim_state);
> > trace_mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_begin(order, sc.gfp_mask);
> >
> > + nr_cpus = current_is_kswapd() ? 0 : num_online_cpus();
> > + while (nr_cpus && !atomic_add_unless(&pgdat->nr_reclaimers, 1, nr_cpus)) {
> > + if (schedule_timeout_killable(HZ / 10))
> > + return SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX;
> > + }
> > +
> > nr_reclaimed = do_try_to_free_pages(zonelist, &sc);
> >
> > + if (nr_cpus)
> > + atomic_dec(&pgdat->nr_reclaimers);
> > +
> > trace_mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_end(nr_reclaimed);
> > set_task_reclaim_state(current, NULL);
>
> This will surely break any memcg direct reclaim.

Mind elaborating how it will "surely" break any memcg direct reclaim?