Re: [Patch] Scale pidhash_shift/pidhash_size up based on num_possible_cpus().

[ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)]

Robin Holt <holt@sgi.com> writes:

> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 11:35:19AM -0700, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> Robin Holt <holt@sgi.com> writes:
>> 
>> > For large cpu configurations, we find the number of pids in a pidhash
>> > bucket cause things like 'ps' to perform slowly.  Raising pidhash_shift
>> > from 12 to 16 cut the time for 'ps' in half on a 2048 cpu machine.
>> >
>> > This patch makes the upper limit scale based upon num_possible_cpus().
>> > For machines 128 cpus or less, the current upper limit of 12 is
>> > maintained.
>> 
>> It looks like there is a magic limit we are dancing around.
>> 
>> Can we please make the maximum for the hash table size be based
>> on the maximum number of pids.  That is fls(PID_MAX_LIMIT) - 6?
>
> I am happy to base it upon whatever you think is correct.  So long as it
> goes up for machines with lots of cpus, that will satisfy me.  It is
> probably as much a problem on smaller machines, but if you have _THAT_
> many pids in use, you are probably oversubscribing many other resources
> and don't really care.  That limit will essentially become a constant
> (compiler may even do that for us but I have not checked any arch other
> that ia64).  Should I just replace the 12 with a 16 or 17 or some new
> magic number?

I like setting the limit as a maximum hash chain length.
Which is what fls(PID_MAX_LIMIT) - X is.  X is the maximum hash chain
length you can tolerate.

Eric