WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] [linux-2.6.39.x for xen] tmem: self-ballooning a

To: Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] [linux-2.6.39.x for xen] tmem: self-ballooning and frontswap-selfshrinking
From: Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2011 10:34:03 +0100
Cc: "jeremy@xxxxxxxx" <jeremy@xxxxxxxx>, "xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dushmanta Mohapatra <dmpatra@xxxxxxxxx>, "JBeulich@xxxxxxxxxx" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxxxx>, Konrad Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:34:38 -0700
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <292df482-2d4c-4a4f-b5f4-4c808692156e@default>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
Organization: Citrix Systems, Inc.
References: <292df482-2d4c-4a4f-b5f4-4c808692156e@default>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 23:12 +0100, Dan Magenheimer wrote:
> Hi Konrad (and anyone else interested in reviewing) --
> 
> Here is the patch for self-ballooning and frontswap-selfshrinking on
> top of 2.6.39, and on top of the frontswap commit-set you recently
> merged into your tree.
> 
> Since this is the first time I've ported this code to a kernel
> later than 2.6.34(?), and since this code hasn't gotten formal
> review even though it's been floating about in various forms
> for 18 months, I thought I would post it publicly for review,
> rather than just ask for a pull.  (I'll put it in a git tree after
> a round or two of feedback.)
> 
> This code complements the cleancache and frontswap patchsets to
> optimize support for Xen Transcendent Memory.  The policy it
> implements is rudimentary, so will almost certainly need to
> improve over time.
> 
> (Sorry if this line-wraps... attached also...)
> 
> Thanks,
> Dan
> 
> P.S. Anybody who actually uses this patch is encouraged to read
> http://oss.oracle.com/projects/tmem/dist/documentation/internals/linuxpatch
> from which the following brief documentation was extracted,
> which will probably be the git commit comment.
> 
> =
> 
> [PATCH] [linux-2.6.39.x for xen] tmem: self-ballooning and 
> frontswap-selfshrinking
> 
> Selfballooning creates memory pressure by using the Xen balloon driver
> to decrease and increase available kernel memory, tracking a target value
> of "Committed_AS" (see /proc/meminfo).  Sysfs tunables are provided to
> adjust the frequency at which memory size is adjusted, the rate at
> which ballooning is used to approach the target, and to disable
> selfballooning completely.  As of 100827, selfballooning runs in a
> separate kernel thread, "selfballooning".
> 
> Frontswap shrinking accounts for the fact that pages swapped to disk
> may sit on disk for a very long time, even if very rarely used or if
> the kernel knows they will never be used again.  This is because
> the kernel need not reclaim disk space because the disk space costs
> very little and can be overwritten when necessary.  When the same
> pages are in frontswap, however, they are taking up valuable RAM
> real estate.  So when frontswap activity is otherwise stable and the
> guest kernel is not under memory pressure, the frontswap shrinker
> removes some pages from frontswap and returns them to kernel memory.
> Sysfs tunables are provided to adjust the frequency of shrinking
> opportunities and the shrinking rate, and to create more "inertia".
> 
> Signed-off-by: Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@xxxxxxxxxx>

checkpatch.pl says:

total: 8 errors, 14 warnings, 395 lines checked

most of them look valid to me. (I commented on a few below before it
became clear you hadn't run it yourself)

>  drivers/xen/Kconfig       |   10 +++
>  drivers/xen/balloon.c     |  109 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  drivers/xen/tmem.c        |    1 +
>  drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c |  191 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
>  include/xen/balloon.h     |   11 +++
>  mm/mmap.c                 |    7 ++
>  6 files changed, 328 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
> 
> ===
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/xen/Kconfig b/drivers/xen/Kconfig
> index d589fe7..8f21fad 100644
> --- a/drivers/xen/Kconfig
> +++ b/drivers/xen/Kconfig
> @@ -9,6 +9,16 @@ config XEN_BALLOON
>           the system to expand the domain's memory allocation, or 
> alternatively
>           return unneeded memory to the system.
> 
> +config XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +       bool "dynamically self-balloon kernel memory to target"
> +       depends on XEN && XEN_BALLOON && CLEANCACHE
> +       default y
> +       help
> +         Self-ballooning dynamically balloons available kernel memory driven
> +         by the current usage of anonymous memory ("committed AS") and
> +         controlled by various sysfs-settable parameters.  May be overridden
> +         by the noselfballooning kernel boot parameter
> +
>  config XEN_SCRUB_PAGES
>         bool "Scrub pages before returning them to system"
>         depends on XEN_BALLOON
> diff --git a/drivers/xen/balloon.c b/drivers/xen/balloon.c
> index f54290b..a35b056 100644
> --- a/drivers/xen/balloon.c
> +++ b/drivers/xen/balloon.c
> @@ -56,6 +56,7 @@
>  #include <xen/balloon.h>
>  #include <xen/features.h>
>  #include <xen/page.h>
> +#include <linux/frontswap.h>
> 
>  /*
>   * balloon_process() state:
> @@ -74,6 +75,14 @@ enum bp_state {
> 
>  static DEFINE_MUTEX(balloon_mutex);
> 
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +extern int tmem_enabled;

No externs in .c files please.

> +static int use_selfballooning __read_mostly = 1;
> +#ifdef CONFIG_FRONTSWAP
> +static int use_frontswap_selfshrink __read_mostly = 1;
> +#endif
> +#endif
> +
>  struct balloon_stats balloon_stats;
>  EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(balloon_stats);
> 
> @@ -94,6 +103,10 @@ static LIST_HEAD(ballooned_pages);
>  /* Main work function, always executed in process context. */
>  static void balloon_process(struct work_struct *work);
>  static DECLARE_DELAYED_WORK(balloon_worker, balloon_process);
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +static void selfballoon_process(struct work_struct *work);
> +DECLARE_DELAYED_WORK(selfballoon_worker, selfballoon_process);
> +#endif
> 
>  /* When ballooning out (allocating memory to return to Xen) we don't really
>     want the kernel to try too hard since that can trigger the oom killer. */
> @@ -428,6 +441,86 @@ void free_xenballooned_pages(int nr_pages, struct page** 
> pages)
>  }
>  EXPORT_SYMBOL(free_xenballooned_pages);
> 
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +#ifdef CONFIG_FRONTSWAP
> +#define frontswap_selfshrinking_enabled balloon_stats.frontswap_selfshrinking
> +
> +unsigned long frontswap_inertia_counter = 0;

static?

> +
> +static void frontswap_selfshrink(void)
> +{
> +       static unsigned long cur_frontswap_pages = 0;
> +       static unsigned long last_frontswap_pages = 0;
> +       static unsigned long tgt_frontswap_pages = 0;
> +
> +       if (!balloon_stats.frontswap_selfshrinking)
> +               return;
> +       if (!balloon_stats.frontswap_hysteresis)
> +               return;
> +       last_frontswap_pages = cur_frontswap_pages;
> +       cur_frontswap_pages = frontswap_curr_pages();
> +       if (!cur_frontswap_pages || (cur_frontswap_pages > 
> last_frontswap_pages)) {
> +               frontswap_inertia_counter = balloon_stats.frontswap_inertia;
> +               return;
> +       }
> +       if (frontswap_inertia_counter && --frontswap_inertia_counter)
> +               return;
> +       //frontswap_inertia_counter = balloon_stats.frontswap_inertia;

Please drop this.

> +       if ( cur_frontswap_pages <= balloon_stats.frontswap_hysteresis)
> +               tgt_frontswap_pages = 0;
> +       else tgt_frontswap_pages = cur_frontswap_pages -
> +               (cur_frontswap_pages / balloon_stats.frontswap_hysteresis);
> +       frontswap_shrink(tgt_frontswap_pages);
> +}
> +
> +static int __init no_frontswap_selfshrink_setup(char *s)
> +{
> +       use_frontswap_selfshrink = 0;
> +       return 1;
> +}
> +
> +__setup("noselfshrink", no_frontswap_selfshrink_setup);
> +#else
> +#define frontswap_selfshrink() do {} while (0)
> +#define frontswap_selfshrinking_enabled 0
> +#endif
> +
> +static void selfballoon_process(struct work_struct *work)
> +{
> +       extern unsigned long vm_get_committed_as(void);

In a header please.

> +       unsigned long cur_pages, goal_pages, tgt_pages;
> +       int reset_timer = 0;
> +
> +       if (balloon_stats.selfballooning_enabled) {
> +               tgt_pages = cur_pages = totalram_pages;
> +               goal_pages = vm_get_committed_as();
> +               if (cur_pages > goal_pages)
> +                       tgt_pages = cur_pages -
> +                               (cur_pages - goal_pages) / 
> balloon_stats.selfballoon_downhysteresis;
> +               else if (cur_pages < goal_pages)
> +                       tgt_pages = cur_pages +
> +                               (goal_pages - cur_pages) / 
> balloon_stats.selfballoon_uphysteresis;
> +               balloon_set_new_target(tgt_pages);
> +               reset_timer = 1;
> +       }
> +       if (frontswap_selfshrinking_enabled) {
> +               frontswap_selfshrink();
> +               reset_timer = 1;
> +       }
> +       if (reset_timer)
> +               schedule_delayed_work(&selfballoon_worker,
> +                       balloon_stats.selfballoon_interval * HZ);
> +}
> +
> +static int __init noselfballooning_setup(char *s)
> +{
> +       use_selfballooning = 0;
> +       return 1;
> +}
> +
> +__setup("noselfballooning", noselfballooning_setup);
> +#endif
> +
>  static int __init balloon_init(void)
>  {
>         unsigned long pfn, extra_pfn_end;
> @@ -468,6 +561,22 @@ static int __init balloon_init(void)
>                 __balloon_append(page);
>         }
> 
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +       balloon_stats.selfballooning_enabled = tmem_enabled &&
> +                                               use_selfballooning;
> +       balloon_stats.selfballoon_interval = 5;
> +       balloon_stats.selfballoon_downhysteresis = 8;
> +       balloon_stats.selfballoon_uphysteresis = 1;
> +#ifdef CONFIG_FRONTSWAP
> +       balloon_stats.frontswap_selfshrinking =
> +               use_frontswap_selfshrink && frontswap_enabled;
> +       balloon_stats.frontswap_hysteresis = 20;
> +       balloon_stats.frontswap_inertia = 3;
> +#endif
> +       schedule_delayed_work(&selfballoon_worker,
> +               balloon_stats.selfballoon_interval * HZ);
> +#endif

balloon_init already has paragraphs initialising balloon_stats -- this
should go up with them I think.

> +
>         return 0;
>  }

> diff --git a/drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c b/drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c
> index a4ff225..5e30fc9 100644
> --- a/drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c
> +++ b/drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c
> @@ -190,6 +190,184 @@ static ssize_t store_target(struct sys_device *dev,
>  static SYSDEV_ATTR(target, S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR,
>                    show_target, store_target);
> 
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +extern struct delayed_work selfballoon_worker;
> +
> +static ssize_t show_selfballooning(struct sys_device *dev, struct 
> sysdev_attribute *attr,
> +                             char *buf)
> +{
> +       return sprintf(buf, "%d\n", balloon_stats.selfballooning_enabled);
> +}

For the show_* you define here you could largely use BALLOON_SHOW to
define the function, I think.

>  static struct sysdev_attribute *balloon_attrs[] = {
>         &attr_target_kb,
> @@ -197,7 +375,18 @@ static struct sysdev_attribute *balloon_attrs[] = {
>         &attr_schedule_delay.attr,
>         &attr_max_schedule_delay.attr,
>         &attr_retry_count.attr,
> -       &attr_max_retry_count.attr
> +       &attr_max_retry_count.attr,
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +       &attr_selfballooning,
> +       &attr_selfballoon_interval,
> +       &attr_selfballoon_downhysteresis,
> +       &attr_selfballoon_uphysteresis,
> +#ifdef CONFIG_FRONTSWAP
> +       &attr_frontswap_selfshrinking,
> +       &attr_frontswap_hysteresis,
> +       &attr_frontswap_inertia,
> +#endif
> +#endif
>  };
> 
>  static struct attribute *balloon_info_attrs[] = {
> diff --git a/include/xen/balloon.h b/include/xen/balloon.h
> index a2b22f0..aa36b82 100644
> --- a/include/xen/balloon.h
> +++ b/include/xen/balloon.h
> @@ -15,6 +15,17 @@ struct balloon_stats {
>         unsigned long max_schedule_delay;
>         unsigned long retry_count;
>         unsigned long max_retry_count;
> +#ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING
> +       int selfballooning_enabled;
> +       unsigned int selfballoon_interval;
> +       unsigned int selfballoon_downhysteresis;
> +       unsigned int selfballoon_uphysteresis;
> +#ifdef CONFIG_FRONTSWAP
> +       unsigned int frontswap_selfshrinking;
> +       unsigned int frontswap_hysteresis;
> +       unsigned int frontswap_inertia;
> +#endif
> +#endif
>  };
> 
>  extern struct balloon_stats balloon_stats;
> diff --git a/mm/mmap.c b/mm/mmap.c
> index 772140c..030a47b 100644
> --- a/mm/mmap.c
> +++ b/mm/mmap.c
> @@ -89,6 +89,13 @@ int sysctl_overcommit_ratio = 50;    /* default is 50% */
>  int sysctl_max_map_count __read_mostly = DEFAULT_MAX_MAP_COUNT;
>  struct percpu_counter vm_committed_as;
> 
> +unsigned long vm_get_committed_as(void)
> +{
> +       return percpu_counter_read_positive(&vm_committed_as);
> +
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL(vm_get_committed_as);
> +

This needs to be split out and go upstream via the mm maintainers (with
an extern in a header, not a C file).

You add a lot of code to {xen-,}balloon.c which is entirely encased in
#ifdef CONFIG_THIS_AND_THAT, without very much interaction with existing
code in those files. That suggests to me that the code should live in
its own file.

Some careful consideration needs to go into the split between balloon.c
(core kernel functionality, non-modular), xen-balloon.c (user
interfaces, potentially modular, not actually at the moment) and
$NEWFILE.c.

In fact it seems as if all this functionality is a second user of the
core functionality exposed by balloon.c which is independent of the
existing xen-balloon.c user of that API. Therefore it should all live in
a new module next to xen-balloon.c module rather than be intertwined
with both xen-balloon.c and balloon.c.

Is there any particular reason this (all) needs to be in the kernel at
all? Can a userspace daemon, using (possibly new) statistics exported
via /sys and /proc plus the existing balloon interfaces not implement
much the same thing? One nice advantage of doing that is that a
userspace daemon can more easily implement complex (or multiple)
algorithms, tune them etc. If there is a good reason for this to be in
kernel I think it should be expanded upon in the commit message.

Ian.


_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel