Re: [PATCH 0/3] Use one zonelist per node instead of multiple zonelists v2

From: Mel Gorman
Date: Thu Aug 09 2007 - 10:47:45 EST


On (08/08/07 18:40), Lee Schermerhorn didst pronounce:
> On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 22:44 +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
> > With the patch currently, a a nodemask is passed in for
> > filtering which should be enough as the zonelist being used should be enough
> > information to indicate the starting node.
>
> It'll take me a while to absorb the patch, so I'll just ask: Where does
> the zonelist for the argument come from? If the the bind policy
> zonelist is removed, then does it come from a node?

Yes, it gets the zonelist from the node and uses a nodemask to ignore
zones within it.

> There'll be only
> one per node with your other patches, right? So you had to have a node
> id, to look up the zonelist?

You have the local node_id to lookup the zonelist with. The policy
provides a nodemask then instead of a zonelist for filtering purposes.

> Do you need the zonelist elsewhere,
> outside of alloc_pages()? If not, why not just let alloc_pages look it
> up from a starting node [which I think can be determined from the
> policy]?
>

The starting node can be determined from where we are currently running
on. Even if the local node is not in the nodemask, we'd still filter it
as normal.

> OK, that's a lot of questions. no need to answer. That's just what I'm
> thinking re: all this. I'll wait and see how the patch develops.
>
> >
> > The signature of __alloc_pages() becomes
> >
> > static page * fastcall
> > __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_t gfp_mask, nodemask_t *nodemask,
> > unsigned int order, struct zonelist *zonelist)
> >
> > > For various policies, the arguments would look like this:
> > > Policy start node nodemask
> > >
> > > default local node cpuset_current_mems_allowed
> > >
> > > preferred preferred_node cpuset_current_mems_allowed
> > >
> > > interleave computed node cpuset_current_mems_allowed
> > >
> > > bind local node policy nodemask [replaces bind
> > > zonelist in mempolicy]
> > >
> >
> > The last one is the most interesting. Much of the patch in development
> > involves deleting the custom node stuff. I've included the patch below if
> > you're curious. I wanted to get one-zonelist out first to see if we could
> > agree on that before going further with it.
>
> Again, it'll be a while.
>

Thanks anyway.

--
Mel Gorman
Part-time Phd Student Linux Technology Center
University of Limerick IBM Dublin Software Lab
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