linux

Commit Graph

Author	SHA1	Message	Date
Christoph Lameter	2244b95a7b	[PATCH] zoned vm counters: basic ZVC (zoned vm counter) implementation Per zone counter infrastructure The counters that we currently have for the VM are split per processor. The processor however has not much to do with the zone these pages belong to. We cannot tell f.e. how many ZONE_DMA pages are dirty. So we are blind to potentially inbalances in the usage of memory in various zones. F.e. in a NUMA system we cannot tell how many pages are dirty on a particular node. If we knew then we could put measures into the VM to balance the use of memory between different zones and different nodes in a NUMA system. For example it would be possible to limit the dirty pages per node so that fast local memory is kept available even if a process is dirtying huge amounts of pages. Another example is zone reclaim. We do not know how many unmapped pages exist per zone. So we just have to try to reclaim. If it is not working then we pause and try again later. It would be better if we knew when it makes sense to reclaim unmapped pages from a zone. This patchset allows the determination of the number of unmapped pages per zone. We can remove the zone reclaim interval with the counters introduced here. Futhermore the ability to have various usage statistics available will allow the development of new NUMA balancing algorithms that may be able to improve the decision making in the scheduler of when to move a process to another node and hopefully will also enable automatic page migration through a user space program that can analyse the memory load distribution and then rebalance memory use in order to increase performance. The counter framework here implements differential counters for each processor in struct zone. The differential counters are consolidated when a threshold is exceeded (like done in the current implementation for nr_pageache), when slab reaping occurs or when a consolidation function is called. Consolidation uses atomic operations and accumulates counters per zone in the zone structure and also globally in the vm_stat array. VM functions can access the counts by simply indexing a global or zone specific array. The arrangement of counters in an array also simplifies processing when output has to be generated for /proc/. Counters can be updated by calling inc/dec_zone_page_state or _inc/dec_zone_page_state analogous to _page_state. The second group of functions can be called if it is known that interrupts are disabled. Special optimized increment and decrement functions are provided. These can avoid certain checks and use increment or decrement instructions that an architecture may provide. We also add a new CONFIG_DMA_IS_NORMAL that signifies that an architecture can do DMA to all memory and therefore ZONE_NORMAL will not be populated. This is only currently set for IA64 SGI SN2 and currently only affects node_page_state(). In the best case node_page_state can be reduced to retrieving a single counter for the one zone on the node. [akpm@osdl.org: cleanups] [akpm@osdl.org: export vm_stat[] for filesystems] Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>	2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00
Christoph Lameter	f6ac2354d7	[PATCH] zoned vm counters: create vmstat.c/.h from page_alloc.c/.h NOTE: ZVC are not the lightweight event counters. ZVCs are reliable whereas event counters do not need to be. Zone based VM statistics are necessary to be able to determine what the state of memory in one zone is. In a NUMA system this can be helpful for local reclaim and other memory optimizations that may be able to shift VM load in order to get more balanced memory use. It is also useful to know how the computing load affects the memory allocations on various zones. This patchset allows the retrieval of that data from userspace. The patchset introduces a framework for counters that is a cross between the existing page_stats --which are simply global counters split per cpu-- and the approach of deferred incremental updates implemented for nr_pagecache. Small per cpu 8 bit counters are added to struct zone. If the counter exceeds certain thresholds then the counters are accumulated in an array of atomic_long in the zone and in a global array that sums up all zone values. The small 8 bit counters are next to the per cpu page pointers and so they will be in high in the cpu cache when pages are allocated and freed. Access to VM counter information for a zone and for the whole machine is then possible by simply indexing an array (Thanks to Nick Piggin for pointing out that approach). The access to the total number of pages of various types does no longer require the summing up of all per cpu counters. Benefits of this patchset right now: - Ability for UP and SMP configuration to determine how memory is balanced between the DMA, NORMAL and HIGHMEM zones. - loops over all processors are avoided in writeback and reclaim paths. We can avoid caching the writeback information because the needed information is directly accessible. - Special handling for nr_pagecache removed. - zone_reclaim_interval vanishes since VM stats can now determine when it is worth to do local reclaim. - Fast inline per node page state determination. - Accurate counters in /sys/devices/system/node/node*/meminfo. Current counters are counting simply which processor allocated a page somewhere and guestimate based on that. So the counters were not useful to show the actual distribution of page use on a specific zone. - The swap_prefetch patch requires per node statistics in order to figure out when processors of a node can prefetch. This patch provides some of the needed numbers. - Detailed VM counters available in more /proc and /sys status files. References to earlier discussions: V1 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113511649910826&w=2 V2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114980851924230&w=2 V3 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115014697910351&w=2 V4 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115024767318740&w=2 Performance tests with AIM7 did not show any regressions. Seems to be a tad faster even. Tested on ia64/NUMA. Builds fine on i386, SMP / UP. Includes fixes for s390/arm/uml arch code. This patch: Move counter code from page_alloc.c/page-flags.h to vmstat.c/h. Create vmstat.c/vmstat.h by separating the counter code and the proc functions. Move the vm_stat_text array before zoneinfo_show. [akpm@osdl.org: s390 build fix] [akpm@osdl.org: HOTPLUG_CPU build fix] Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Cc: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com> Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com> Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>	2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00

Author

SHA1

Message

Date

Christoph Lameter

2244b95a7b

[PATCH] zoned vm counters: basic ZVC (zoned vm counter) implementation

Per zone counter infrastructure

The counters that we currently have for the VM are split per processor.  The
processor however has not much to do with the zone these pages belong to.  We
cannot tell f.e.  how many ZONE_DMA pages are dirty.

So we are blind to potentially inbalances in the usage of memory in various
zones.  F.e.  in a NUMA system we cannot tell how many pages are dirty on a
particular node.  If we knew then we could put measures into the VM to balance
the use of memory between different zones and different nodes in a NUMA
system.  For example it would be possible to limit the dirty pages per node so
that fast local memory is kept available even if a process is dirtying huge
amounts of pages.

Another example is zone reclaim.  We do not know how many unmapped pages exist
per zone.  So we just have to try to reclaim.  If it is not working then we
pause and try again later.  It would be better if we knew when it makes sense
to reclaim unmapped pages from a zone.  This patchset allows the determination
of the number of unmapped pages per zone.  We can remove the zone reclaim
interval with the counters introduced here.

Futhermore the ability to have various usage statistics available will allow
the development of new NUMA balancing algorithms that may be able to improve
the decision making in the scheduler of when to move a process to another node
and hopefully will also enable automatic page migration through a user space
program that can analyse the memory load distribution and then rebalance
memory use in order to increase performance.

The counter framework here implements differential counters for each processor
in struct zone.  The differential counters are consolidated when a threshold
is exceeded (like done in the current implementation for nr_pageache), when
slab reaping occurs or when a consolidation function is called.

Consolidation uses atomic operations and accumulates counters per zone in the
zone structure and also globally in the vm_stat array.  VM functions can
access the counts by simply indexing a global or zone specific array.

The arrangement of counters in an array also simplifies processing when output
has to be generated for /proc/*.

Counters can be updated by calling inc/dec_zone_page_state or
_inc/dec_zone_page_state analogous to *_page_state.  The second group of
functions can be called if it is known that interrupts are disabled.

Special optimized increment and decrement functions are provided.  These can
avoid certain checks and use increment or decrement instructions that an
architecture may provide.

We also add a new CONFIG_DMA_IS_NORMAL that signifies that an architecture can
do DMA to all memory and therefore ZONE_NORMAL will not be populated.  This is
only currently set for IA64 SGI SN2 and currently only affects
node_page_state().  In the best case node_page_state can be reduced to
retrieving a single counter for the one zone on the node.

[akpm@osdl.org: cleanups]
[akpm@osdl.org: export vm_stat[] for filesystems]
Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00

Christoph Lameter

f6ac2354d7

[PATCH] zoned vm counters: create vmstat.c/.h from page_alloc.c/.h

NOTE: ZVC are *not* the lightweight event counters.  ZVCs are reliable whereas
event counters do not need to be.

Zone based VM statistics are necessary to be able to determine what the state
of memory in one zone is.  In a NUMA system this can be helpful for local
reclaim and other memory optimizations that may be able to shift VM load in
order to get more balanced memory use.

It is also useful to know how the computing load affects the memory
allocations on various zones.  This patchset allows the retrieval of that data
from userspace.

The patchset introduces a framework for counters that is a cross between the
existing page_stats --which are simply global counters split per cpu-- and the
approach of deferred incremental updates implemented for nr_pagecache.

Small per cpu 8 bit counters are added to struct zone.  If the counter exceeds
certain thresholds then the counters are accumulated in an array of
atomic_long in the zone and in a global array that sums up all zone values.
The small 8 bit counters are next to the per cpu page pointers and so they
will be in high in the cpu cache when pages are allocated and freed.

Access to VM counter information for a zone and for the whole machine is then
possible by simply indexing an array (Thanks to Nick Piggin for pointing out
that approach).  The access to the total number of pages of various types does
no longer require the summing up of all per cpu counters.

Benefits of this patchset right now:

- Ability for UP and SMP configuration to determine how memory
  is balanced between the DMA, NORMAL and HIGHMEM zones.

- loops over all processors are avoided in writeback and
  reclaim paths. We can avoid caching the writeback information
  because the needed information is directly accessible.

- Special handling for nr_pagecache removed.

- zone_reclaim_interval vanishes since VM stats can now determine
  when it is worth to do local reclaim.

- Fast inline per node page state determination.

- Accurate counters in /sys/devices/system/node/node*/meminfo. Current
  counters are counting simply which processor allocated a page somewhere
  and guestimate based on that. So the counters were not useful to show
  the actual distribution of page use on a specific zone.

- The swap_prefetch patch requires per node statistics in order to
  figure out when processors of a node can prefetch. This patch provides
  some of the needed numbers.

- Detailed VM counters available in more /proc and /sys status files.

References to earlier discussions:
V1 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113511649910826&w=2
V2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114980851924230&w=2
V3 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115014697910351&w=2
V4 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115024767318740&w=2

Performance tests with AIM7 did not show any regressions.  Seems to be a tad
faster even.  Tested on ia64/NUMA.  Builds fine on i386, SMP / UP.  Includes
fixes for s390/arm/uml arch code.

This patch:

Move counter code from page_alloc.c/page-flags.h to vmstat.c/h.

Create vmstat.c/vmstat.h by separating the counter code and the proc
functions.

Move the vm_stat_text array before zoneinfo_show.

[akpm@osdl.org: s390 build fix]
[akpm@osdl.org: HOTPLUG_CPU build fix]
Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Cc: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00

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102 Commits