From: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com
I went to go add a new RECLAIM_* mode for the zone_reclaim_mode sysctl. Like a good kernel developer, I also went to go update the documentation. I noticed that the bits in the documentation didn't match the bits in the #defines.
The VM never explicitly checks the RECLAIM_ZONE bit. The bit is, however implicitly checked when checking 'node_reclaim_mode==0'. The RECLAIM_ZONE #define was removed in a cleanup. That, by itself is fine.
But, when the bit was removed (bit 0) the _other_ bit locations also got changed. That's not OK because the bit values are documented to mean one specific thing and users surely rely on them meaning that one thing and not changing from kernel to kernel. The end result is that if someone had a script that did:
sysctl vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1
That script went from doing nothing to writing out pages during node reclaim after the commit in question. That's not great.
Put the bits back the way they were and add a comment so something like this is a bit harder to do again. Update the documentation to make it clear that the first bit is ignored.
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com Fixes: 648b5cf368e0 ("mm/vmscan: remove unused RECLAIM_OFF/RECLAIM_ZONE") Cc: Ben Widawsky ben.widawsky@intel.com Cc: Alex Shi alex.shi@linux.alibaba.com Cc: Daniel Wagner dwagner@suse.de Cc: "Tobin C. Harding" tobin@kernel.org Cc: Christoph Lameter cl@linux.com Cc: Andrew Morton akpm@linux-foundation.org Cc: Huang Ying ying.huang@intel.com Cc: Dan Williams dan.j.williams@intel.com Cc: Qian Cai cai@lca.pw Cc: Daniel Wagner dwagner@suse.de Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org ---
b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst | 10 +++++----- b/mm/vmscan.c | 9 +++++++-- 2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
diff -puN Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi 2020-07-01 08:22:11.354955336 -0700 +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst 2020-07-01 08:22:11.360955336 -0700 @@ -948,11 +948,11 @@ that benefit from having their data cach left disabled as the caching effect is likely to be more important than data locality.
-zone_reclaim may be enabled if it's known that the workload is partitioned -such that each partition fits within a NUMA node and that accessing remote -memory would cause a measurable performance reduction. The page allocator -will then reclaim easily reusable pages (those page cache pages that are -currently not used) before allocating off node pages. +Consider enabling one or more zone_reclaim mode bits if it's known that the +workload is partitioned such that each partition fits within a NUMA node +and that accessing remote memory would cause a measurable performance +reduction. The page allocator will take additional actions before +allocating off node pages.
Allowing zone reclaim to write out pages stops processes that are writing large amounts of data from dirtying pages on other nodes. Zone diff -puN mm/vmscan.c~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi mm/vmscan.c --- a/mm/vmscan.c~mm-vmscan-restore-old-zone_reclaim_mode-abi 2020-07-01 08:22:11.356955336 -0700 +++ b/mm/vmscan.c 2020-07-01 08:22:11.362955336 -0700 @@ -4090,8 +4090,13 @@ module_init(kswapd_init) */ int node_reclaim_mode __read_mostly;
-#define RECLAIM_WRITE (1<<0) /* Writeout pages during reclaim */ -#define RECLAIM_UNMAP (1<<1) /* Unmap pages during reclaim */ +/* + * These bit locations are exposed in the vm.zone_reclaim_mode sysctl + * ABI. New bits are OK, but existing bits can never change. + */ +#define RECLAIM_ZONE (1<<0) /* Run shrink_inactive_list on the zone */ +#define RECLAIM_WRITE (1<<1) /* Writeout pages during reclaim */ +#define RECLAIM_UNMAP (1<<2) /* Unmap pages during reclaim */
/* * Priority for NODE_RECLAIM. This determines the fraction of pages _
On Wed, 1 Jul 2020, Dave Hansen wrote:
From: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com
I went to go add a new RECLAIM_* mode for the zone_reclaim_mode sysctl. Like a good kernel developer, I also went to go update the documentation. I noticed that the bits in the documentation didn't match the bits in the #defines.
The VM never explicitly checks the RECLAIM_ZONE bit. The bit is, however implicitly checked when checking 'node_reclaim_mode==0'. The RECLAIM_ZONE #define was removed in a cleanup. That, by itself is fine.
But, when the bit was removed (bit 0) the _other_ bit locations also got changed. That's not OK because the bit values are documented to mean one specific thing and users surely rely on them meaning that one thing and not changing from kernel to kernel. The end result is that if someone had a script that did:
sysctl vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1
That script went from doing nothing to writing out pages during node reclaim after the commit in question. That's not great.
Put the bits back the way they were and add a comment so something like this is a bit harder to do again. Update the documentation to make it clear that the first bit is ignored.
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com Fixes: 648b5cf368e0 ("mm/vmscan: remove unused RECLAIM_OFF/RECLAIM_ZONE") Cc: Ben Widawsky ben.widawsky@intel.com Cc: Alex Shi alex.shi@linux.alibaba.com Cc: Daniel Wagner dwagner@suse.de Cc: "Tobin C. Harding" tobin@kernel.org Cc: Christoph Lameter cl@linux.com Cc: Andrew Morton akpm@linux-foundation.org Cc: Huang Ying ying.huang@intel.com Cc: Dan Williams dan.j.williams@intel.com Cc: Qian Cai cai@lca.pw Cc: Daniel Wagner dwagner@suse.de Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Acked-by: David Rientjes rientjes@google.com
Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com writes:
From: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com
I went to go add a new RECLAIM_* mode for the zone_reclaim_mode sysctl. Like a good kernel developer, I also went to go update the documentation. I noticed that the bits in the documentation didn't match the bits in the #defines.
The VM never explicitly checks the RECLAIM_ZONE bit. The bit is, however implicitly checked when checking 'node_reclaim_mode==0'. The RECLAIM_ZONE #define was removed in a cleanup. That, by itself is fine.
But, when the bit was removed (bit 0) the _other_ bit locations also got changed. That's not OK because the bit values are documented to mean one specific thing and users surely rely on them meaning that one thing and not changing from kernel to kernel. The end result is that if someone had a script that did:
sysctl vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1
That script went from doing nothing
Per my understanding, this script would have enabled node reclaim for clean unmapped pages before commit 648b5cf368e0 ("mm/vmscan: remove unused RECLAIM_OFF/RECLAIM_ZONE"). So we should revise the description here?
to writing out pages during node reclaim after the commit in question. That's not great.
Put the bits back the way they were and add a comment so something like this is a bit harder to do again. Update the documentation to make it clear that the first bit is ignored.
Best Regards, Huang, Ying
On 7/2/20 4:28 AM, Huang, Ying wrote:
But, when the bit was removed (bit 0) the _other_ bit locations also got changed. That's not OK because the bit values are documented to mean one specific thing and users surely rely on them meaning that one thing and not changing from kernel to kernel. The end result is that if someone had a script that did:
sysctl vm.zone_reclaim_mode=1
That script went from doing nothing
Per my understanding, this script would have enabled node reclaim for clean unmapped pages before commit 648b5cf368e0 ("mm/vmscan: remove unused RECLAIM_OFF/RECLAIM_ZONE"). So we should revise the description here?
Yes, you're right. I updated the patch with the updated understanding about the implicit use of the bit but didn't update the changelog. I'll do that for v3.
linux-stable-mirror@lists.linaro.org
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Dave Hansen -
Dave Hansen -
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Huang, Ying