From: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
To: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Richard Davies <richard@arachsys.com>, KVM <kvm@vger.kernel.org>,
QEMU-devel <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>,
LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
Linux-MM <linux-mm@kvack.org>, Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>,
Shaohua Li <shli@kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 5/6] mm: compaction: Cache if a pageblock was scanned and no pages were isolated
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:55:22 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <505B669A.1000306@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1348149875-29678-6-git-send-email-mgorman@suse.de>
On 09/20/2012 10:04 AM, Mel Gorman wrote:
> When compaction was implemented it was known that scanning could potentially
> be excessive. The ideal was that a counter be maintained for each pageblock
> but maintaining this information would incur a severe penalty due to a
> shared writable cache line. It has reached the point where the scanning
> costs are an serious problem, particularly on long-lived systems where a
> large process starts and allocates a large number of THPs at the same time.
>
> Instead of using a shared counter, this patch adds another bit to the
> pageblock flags called PG_migrate_skip. If a pageblock is scanned by
> either migrate or free scanner and 0 pages were isolated, the pageblock
> is marked to be skipped in the future. When scanning, this bit is checked
> before any scanning takes place and the block skipped if set.
>
> The main difficulty with a patch like this is "when to ignore the cached
> information?" If it's ignored too often, the scanning rates will still
> be excessive. If the information is too stale then allocations will fail
> that might have otherwise succeeded. In this patch
Big hammer, but I guess it is effective...
Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2012-09-20 18:55 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2012-09-20 14:04 [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/6] Reduce compaction scanning and lock contention Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 1/6] mm: compaction: Abort compaction loop if lock is contended or run too long Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:53 ` Rik van Riel
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 2/6] mm: compaction: Acquire the zone->lru_lock as late as possible Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:54 ` Rik van Riel
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 3/6] mm: compaction: Acquire the zone->lock " Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:54 ` Rik van Riel
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 4/6] Revert "mm: have order > 0 compaction start off where it left" Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:54 ` Rik van Riel
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 5/6] mm: compaction: Cache if a pageblock was scanned and no pages were isolated Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:55 ` Rik van Riel [this message]
2012-09-20 14:04 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 6/6] mm: compaction: Restart compaction from near where it left off Mel Gorman
2012-09-20 18:57 ` Rik van Riel
2012-09-21 9:13 ` [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/6] Reduce compaction scanning and lock contention Richard Davies
2012-09-21 9:15 ` Richard Davies
2012-09-21 9:17 ` Richard Davies
2012-09-21 9:55 ` Mel Gorman
2012-09-21 9:18 ` Richard Davies
2012-09-21 9:35 ` Mel Gorman
2012-09-21 9:49 ` Richard Davies
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