linux/mm
Mel Gorman 1c30844d2d mm: reclaim small amounts of memory when an external fragmentation event occurs
An external fragmentation event was previously described as

    When the page allocator fragments memory, it records the event using
    the mm_page_alloc_extfrag event. If the fallback_order is smaller
    than a pageblock order (order-9 on 64-bit x86) then it's considered
    an event that will cause external fragmentation issues in the future.

The kernel reduces the probability of such events by increasing the
watermark sizes by calling set_recommended_min_free_kbytes early in the
lifetime of the system.  This works reasonably well in general but if
there are enough sparsely populated pageblocks then the problem can still
occur as enough memory is free overall and kswapd stays asleep.

This patch introduces a watermark_boost_factor sysctl that allows a zone
watermark to be temporarily boosted when an external fragmentation causing
events occurs.  The boosting will stall allocations that would decrease
free memory below the boosted low watermark and kswapd is woken if the
calling context allows to reclaim an amount of memory relative to the size
of the high watermark and the watermark_boost_factor until the boost is
cleared.  When kswapd finishes, it wakes kcompactd at the pageblock order
to clean some of the pageblocks that may have been affected by the
fragmentation event.  kswapd avoids any writeback, slab shrinkage and swap
from reclaim context during this operation to avoid excessive system
disruption in the name of fragmentation avoidance.  Care is taken so that
kswapd will do normal reclaim work if the system is really low on memory.

This was evaluated using the same workloads as "mm, page_alloc: Spread
allocations across zones before introducing fragmentation".

1-socket Skylake machine
config-global-dhp__workload_thpfioscale XFS (no special madvise)
4 fio threads, 1 THP allocating thread
--------------------------------------

4.20-rc3 extfrag events < order 9:   804694
4.20-rc3+patch:                      408912 (49% reduction)
4.20-rc3+patch1-4:                    18421 (98% reduction)

                                   4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                                 lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Amean     fault-base-1      653.58 (   0.00%)      652.71 (   0.13%)
Amean     fault-huge-1        0.00 (   0.00%)      178.93 * -99.00%*

                              4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                            lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Percentage huge-1        0.00 (   0.00%)        5.12 ( 100.00%)

Note that external fragmentation causing events are massively reduced by
this path whether in comparison to the previous kernel or the vanilla
kernel.  The fault latency for huge pages appears to be increased but that
is only because THP allocations were successful with the patch applied.

1-socket Skylake machine
global-dhp__workload_thpfioscale-madvhugepage-xfs (MADV_HUGEPAGE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

4.20-rc3 extfrag events < order 9:  291392
4.20-rc3+patch:                     191187 (34% reduction)
4.20-rc3+patch1-4:                   13464 (95% reduction)

thpfioscale Fault Latencies
                                   4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                                 lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Min       fault-base-1      912.00 (   0.00%)      905.00 (   0.77%)
Min       fault-huge-1      127.00 (   0.00%)      135.00 (  -6.30%)
Amean     fault-base-1     1467.55 (   0.00%)     1481.67 (  -0.96%)
Amean     fault-huge-1     1127.11 (   0.00%)     1063.88 *   5.61%*

                              4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                            lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Percentage huge-1       77.64 (   0.00%)       83.46 (   7.49%)

As before, massive reduction in external fragmentation events, some jitter
on latencies and an increase in THP allocation success rates.

2-socket Haswell machine
config-global-dhp__workload_thpfioscale XFS (no special madvise)
4 fio threads, 5 THP allocating threads
----------------------------------------------------------------

4.20-rc3 extfrag events < order 9:  215698
4.20-rc3+patch:                     200210 (7% reduction)
4.20-rc3+patch1-4:                   14263 (93% reduction)

                                   4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                                 lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Amean     fault-base-5     1346.45 (   0.00%)     1306.87 (   2.94%)
Amean     fault-huge-5     3418.60 (   0.00%)     1348.94 (  60.54%)

                              4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                            lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Percentage huge-5        0.78 (   0.00%)        7.91 ( 910.64%)

There is a 93% reduction in fragmentation causing events, there is a big
reduction in the huge page fault latency and allocation success rate is
higher.

2-socket Haswell machine
global-dhp__workload_thpfioscale-madvhugepage-xfs (MADV_HUGEPAGE)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

4.20-rc3 extfrag events < order 9: 166352
4.20-rc3+patch:                    147463 (11% reduction)
4.20-rc3+patch1-4:                  11095 (93% reduction)

thpfioscale Fault Latencies
                                   4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                                 lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Amean     fault-base-5     6217.43 (   0.00%)     7419.67 * -19.34%*
Amean     fault-huge-5     3163.33 (   0.00%)     3263.80 (  -3.18%)

                              4.20.0-rc3             4.20.0-rc3
                            lowzone-v5r8             boost-v5r8
Percentage huge-5       95.14 (   0.00%)       87.98 (  -7.53%)

There is a large reduction in fragmentation events with some jitter around
the latencies and success rates.  As before, the high THP allocation
success rate does mean the system is under a lot of pressure.  However, as
the fragmentation events are reduced, it would be expected that the
long-term allocation success rate would be higher.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181123114528.28802-5-mgorman@techsingularity.net
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
Cc: Zi Yan <zi.yan@cs.rutgers.edu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
..
kasan mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
backing-dev.c blkcg: delay blkg destruction until after writeback has finished 2018-08-31 14:48:56 -06:00
balloon_compaction.c
cleancache.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
cma_debug.c mm/cma: remove unsupported gfp_mask parameter from cma_alloc() 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
cma.c kasan, mm, arm64: tag non slab memory allocated via pagealloc 2018-12-28 12:11:44 -08:00
cma.h
compaction.c mm: move zone watermark accesses behind an accessor 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
debug_page_ref.c
debug.c mm: lower the printk loglevel for __dump_page messages 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
dmapool.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
early_ioremap.c
fadvise.c vfs: implement readahead(2) using POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED 2018-08-30 20:01:32 +02:00
failslab.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
filemap.c vfs: rework data cloning infrastructure 2018-11-02 09:33:08 -07:00
frame_vector.c
frontswap.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
gup_benchmark.c mm/gup_benchmark.c: prevent integer overflow in ioctl 2018-10-31 08:54:12 -07:00
gup.c mm/gup: finish consolidating error handling 2018-11-30 14:56:13 -08:00
highmem.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
hmm.c mm, hmm: mark hmm_devmem_{add, add_resource} EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
huge_memory.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
hugetlb_cgroup.c mm: rename page_counter's count/limit into usage/max 2018-06-07 17:34:35 -07:00
hugetlb.c hugetlbfs: call VM_BUG_ON_PAGE earlier in free_huge_page() 2018-12-14 15:05:45 -08:00
hwpoison-inject.c mm/memory_failure: Remove unused trapno from memory_failure 2018-01-23 12:17:42 -06:00
init-mm.c mm: Allocate the mm_cpumask (mm->cpu_bitmap[]) dynamically based on nr_cpu_ids 2018-07-17 09:35:30 +02:00
internal.h mm: use alloc_flags to record if kswapd can wake 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
interval_tree.c mm/interval_tree.c: use vma_pages() helper 2018-01-31 17:18:37 -08:00
Kconfig ksm: replace jhash2 with xxhash 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
Kconfig.debug mm: clarify CONFIG_PAGE_POISONING and usage 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
khugepaged.c Merge branch 'for-mingo' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/linux-rcu into core/rcu 2018-12-04 07:52:30 +01:00
kmemleak-test.c
kmemleak.c mm: remove include/linux/bootmem.h 2018-10-31 08:54:16 -07:00
ksm.c ksm: replace jhash2 with xxhash 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
list_lru.c mm/list_lru: introduce list_lru_shrink_walk_irq() 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
maccess.c x86/fault: BUG() when uaccess helpers fault on kernel addresses 2018-09-03 15:12:09 +02:00
madvise.c Merge branch 'xarray' of git://git.infradead.org/users/willy/linux-dax 2018-10-28 11:35:40 -07:00
Makefile mm: remove nobootmem 2018-10-31 08:54:16 -07:00
memblock.c memblock: replace usage of __memblock_free_early() with memblock_free() 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
memcontrol.c mm: handle no memcg case in memcg_kmem_charge() properly 2018-11-03 10:09:37 -07:00
memfd.c memfd: Convert memfd_tag_pins to XArray 2018-10-21 10:46:41 -04:00
memory_hotplug.c mm/memory_hotplug: drop "online" parameter from add_memory_resource() 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
memory-failure.c dax: Fix unlock mismatch with updated API 2018-12-04 21:32:00 -08:00
memory.c mm: Fix warning in insert_pfn() 2018-10-31 08:54:17 -07:00
mempolicy.c Revert "mm, thp: consolidate THP gfp handling into alloc_hugepage_direct_gfpmask" 2018-12-08 10:26:20 -08:00
mempool.c mm/mempool.c: add missing parameter description 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
memtest.c
migrate.c Merge branch 'xarray' of git://git.infradead.org/users/willy/linux-dax 2018-10-28 11:35:40 -07:00
mincore.c xarray: Replace exceptional entries 2018-09-29 22:47:49 -04:00
mlock.c dax: remove VM_MIXEDMAP for fsdax and device dax 2018-08-17 16:20:27 -07:00
mm_init.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
mmap.c mm/mmap.c: remove verify_mm_writelocked() 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
mmu_context.c
mmu_gather.c mm: Replace call_rcu_sched() with call_rcu() 2018-11-27 09:21:46 -08:00
mmu_notifier.c mm/mmu_notifier.c: remove mmu_notifier_synchronize() 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
mmzone.c
mprotect.c x86/speculation/l1tf: Disallow non privileged high MMIO PROT_NONE mappings 2018-06-20 19:10:01 +02:00
mremap.c mm: mremap: downgrade mmap_sem to read when shrinking 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
msync.c
nommu.c mm/gup: cache dev_pagemap while pinning pages 2018-10-26 16:38:15 -07:00
oom_kill.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
page_alloc.c mm: reclaim small amounts of memory when an external fragmentation event occurs 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
page_counter.c memcg: introduce memory.min 2018-06-07 17:34:36 -07:00
page_ext.c mm: remove include/linux/bootmem.h 2018-10-31 08:54:16 -07:00
page_idle.c mm: remove include/linux/bootmem.h 2018-10-31 08:54:16 -07:00
page_io.c for-linus-20181102 2018-11-02 11:25:48 -07:00
page_isolation.c mm: only report isolation failures when offlining memory 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
page_owner.c mm/page_owner: clamp read count to PAGE_SIZE 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
page_poison.c virtio, vhost: fixes, tweaks 2018-11-01 14:42:49 -07:00
page_vma_mapped.c mm/rmap: map_pte() was not handling private ZONE_DEVICE page properly 2018-10-31 08:54:11 -07:00
page-writeback.c Merge branch 'xarray' of git://git.infradead.org/users/willy/linux-dax 2018-10-28 11:35:40 -07:00
pagewalk.c mm: kernel-doc: add missing parameter descriptions 2018-04-05 21:36:27 -07:00
percpu-internal.h
percpu-km.c percpu: allow select gfp to be passed to underlying allocators 2018-02-18 05:33:01 -08:00
percpu-stats.c treewide: Use array_size() in vmalloc() 2018-06-12 16:19:22 -07:00
percpu-vm.c percpu: allow select gfp to be passed to underlying allocators 2018-02-18 05:33:01 -08:00
percpu.c Merge branch 'for-4.20' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dennis/percpu 2018-11-01 09:27:57 -07:00
pgtable-generic.c x86/mm: Page size aware flush_tlb_mm_range() 2018-10-09 16:51:11 +02:00
process_vm_access.c mm: docs: add blank lines to silence sphinx "Unexpected indentation" errors 2018-02-06 18:32:48 -08:00
quicklist.c
readahead.c mm/readahead.c: simplify get_next_ra_size() 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
rmap.c mm/huge_memory: rename freeze_page() to unmap_page() 2018-11-30 14:56:14 -08:00
rodata_test.c
shmem.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
slab_common.c mm, slab: remove unnecessary unlikely() 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
slab.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
slab.h kasan, mm: change hooks signatures 2018-12-28 12:11:43 -08:00
slob.c slab: __GFP_ZERO is incompatible with a constructor 2018-06-07 17:34:34 -07:00
slub.c mm/slub.c: record final state of slub action in deactivate_slab() 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
sparse-vmemmap.c mm: remove include/linux/bootmem.h 2018-10-31 08:54:16 -07:00
sparse.c mm/hotplug: optimize clear_hwpoisoned_pages() 2018-12-28 12:11:46 -08:00
swap_cgroup.c
swap_slots.c mm, swap, get_swap_pages: use entry_size instead of cluster in parameter 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
swap_state.c Merge branch 'xarray' of git://git.infradead.org/users/willy/linux-dax 2018-10-28 11:35:40 -07:00
swap.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
swapfile.c mm/swap: use nr_node_ids for avail_lists in swap_info_struct 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
truncate.c mm: cleancache: fix corruption on missed inode invalidation 2018-11-30 14:56:14 -08:00
usercopy.c usercopy: Allow boot cmdline disabling of hardening 2018-07-04 08:04:52 -07:00
userfaultfd.c userfaultfd: shmem: add i_size checks 2018-11-30 14:56:14 -08:00
util.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
vmacache.c mm: get rid of vmacache_flush_all() entirely 2018-09-13 15:18:04 -10:00
vmalloc.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
vmpressure.c mm/vmpressure.c: convert to use match_string() helper 2018-06-07 17:34:36 -07:00
vmscan.c mm: reclaim small amounts of memory when an external fragmentation event occurs 2018-12-28 12:11:48 -08:00
vmstat.c mm: convert zone->managed_pages to atomic variable 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
workingset.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
z3fold.c z3fold: fix possible reclaim races 2018-11-18 10:15:09 -08:00
zbud.c mm: docs: fix parameter names mismatch 2018-02-06 18:32:48 -08:00
zpool.c mm/zpool.c: zpool_evictable: fix mismatch in parameter name and kernel-doc 2018-02-21 15:35:43 -08:00
zsmalloc.c mm/zsmalloc.c: fix fall-through annotation 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
zswap.c mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00