d221dd5fea
With cache_trim_mode on, reclaim logic doesn't bother reclaiming anon
pages. However, it should be more careful to use the mode because it's
going to prevent anon pages from being reclaimed even if there are a huge
number of anon pages that are cold and should be reclaimed. Even worse,
that leads kswapd_failures to reach MAX_RECLAIM_RETRIES and stopping
kswapd from functioning until direct reclaim eventually works to resume
kswapd.
So kswapd needs to retry its scan priority loop with cache_trim_mode off
again if the mode doesn't work for reclaim.
The problematic behavior can be reproduced by:
CONFIG_NUMA_BALANCING enabled
sysctl_numa_balancing_mode set to NUMA_BALANCING_MEMORY_TIERING
numa node0 (8GB local memory, 16 CPUs)
numa node1 (8GB slow tier memory, no CPUs)
Sequence:
1) echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
2) To emulate the system with full of cold memory in local DRAM, run
the following dummy program and never touch the region:
mmap(0, 8 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE | MAP_POPULATE, -1, 0);
3) Run any memory intensive work e.g. XSBench.
4) Check if numa balancing is working e.i. promotion/demotion.
5) Iterate 1) ~ 4) until numa balancing stops.
With this, you could see that promotion/demotion are not working because
kswapd has stopped due to ->kswapd_failures >= MAX_RECLAIM_RETRIES.
Interesting vmstat delta's differences between before and after are like:
+-----------------------+-------------------------------+
| interesting vmstat | before | after |
+-----------------------+-------------------------------+
| nr_inactive_anon | 321935 | 1664772 |
| nr_active_anon | 1780700 | 437834 |
| nr_inactive_file | 30425 | 40882 |
| nr_active_file | 14961 | 3012 |
| pgpromote_success | 356 | 1293122 |
| pgpromote_candidate | 21953245 | 1824148 |
| pgactivate | 1844523 | 3311907 |
| pgdeactivate | 50634 |
|
||
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | ||
| LICENSES | ||
| arch | ||
| block | ||
| certs | ||
| crypto | ||
| drivers | ||
| fs | ||
| include | ||
| init | ||
| io_uring | ||
| ipc | ||
| kernel | ||
| lib | ||
| mm | ||
| net | ||
| rust | ||
| samples | ||
| scripts | ||
| security | ||
| sound | ||
| tools | ||
| usr | ||
| virt | ||
| .clang-format | ||
| .cocciconfig | ||
| .editorconfig | ||
| .get_maintainer.ignore | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| .rustfmt.toml | ||
| COPYING | ||
| CREDITS | ||
| Kbuild | ||
| Kconfig | ||
| MAINTAINERS | ||
| Makefile | ||
| README | ||
README
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.