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SubjectRe: [PATCH 12/12] mm, page_alloc: Only enforce watermarks for order-0 allocations
On Mon 24-08-15 13:30:15, Mel Gorman wrote:
> The primary purpose of watermarks is to ensure that reclaim can always
> make forward progress in PF_MEMALLOC context (kswapd and direct reclaim).
> These assume that order-0 allocations are all that is necessary for
> forward progress.
>
> High-order watermarks serve a different purpose. Kswapd had no high-order
> awareness before they were introduced (https://lkml.org/lkml/2004/9/5/9).

lkml.org sucks. Could you plase replace it by something else e.g.
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/413AA7B2.4000907@yahoo.com.au?

> This was particularly important when there were high-order atomic requests.
> The watermarks both gave kswapd awareness and made a reserve for those
> atomic requests.
>
> There are two important side-effects of this. The most important is that
> a non-atomic high-order request can fail even though free pages are available
> and the order-0 watermarks are ok. The second is that high-order watermark
> checks are expensive as the free list counts up to the requested order must
> be examined.
>
> With the introduction of MIGRATE_HIGHATOMIC it is no longer necessary to
> have high-order watermarks. Kswapd and compaction still need high-order
> awareness which is handled by checking that at least one suitable high-order
> page is free.
>
> With the patch applied, there was little difference in the allocation
> failure rates as the atomic reserves are small relative to the number of
> allocation attempts. The expected impact is that there will never be an
> allocation failure report that shows suitable pages on the free lists.
>
> The one potential side-effect of this is that in a vanilla kernel, the
> watermark checks may have kept a free page for an atomic allocation. Now,
> we are 100% relying on the HighAtomic reserves and an early allocation to
> have allocated them. If the first high-order atomic allocation is after
> the system is already heavily fragmented then it'll fail.
>
> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net>

Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>

[...]
> @@ -2289,7 +2291,7 @@ static bool __zone_watermark_ok(struct zone *z, unsigned int order,
> {
> long min = mark;
> int o;
> - long free_cma = 0;
> + const bool atomic = (alloc_flags & ALLOC_HARDER);

I just find the naming a bit confusing. ALLOC_HARDER != __GFP_ATOMIC. RT tasks
might get access to this reserve as well.

[...]
> + /* Check at least one high-order page is free */
> + for (o = order; o < MAX_ORDER; o++) {
> + struct free_area *area = &z->free_area[o];
> + int mt;
> +
> + if (atomic && area->nr_free)
> + return true;

Didn't you want
if (atomic) {
if (area->nr_free)
return true;
continue;
}

>
> - if (free_pages <= min)
> - return false;
> + for (mt = 0; mt < MIGRATE_PCPTYPES; mt++) {
> + if (!list_empty(&area->free_list[mt]))
> + return true;
> + }
> }
> - return true;
> + return false;
> }
>
> bool zone_watermark_ok(struct zone *z, unsigned int order, unsigned long mark,
> --
> 2.4.6

--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs


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