Re: [PATCH -mm -v3 6/6] mm, swap: Don't use VMA based swap readahead if HDD is used as swap

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Tue Jul 25 2017 - 16:51:06 EST


On Tue, 25 Jul 2017 09:51:51 +0800 "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Huang Ying <ying.huang@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> VMA based swap readahead will readahead the virtual pages that is
> continuous in the virtual address space. While the original swap
> readahead will readahead the swap slots that is continuous in the swap
> device. Although VMA based swap readahead is more correct for the
> swap slots to be readahead, it will trigger more small random
> readings, which may cause the performance of HDD (hard disk) to
> degrade heavily, and may finally exceed the benefit.
>
> To avoid the issue, in this patch, if the HDD is used as swap, the VMA
> based swap readahead will be disabled, and the original swap readahead
> will be used instead.
>
> ...
>
> --- a/include/linux/swap.h
> +++ b/include/linux/swap.h
> @@ -399,16 +399,17 @@ extern struct page *do_swap_page_readahead(swp_entry_t fentry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
> struct vm_fault *vmf,
> struct vma_swap_readahead *swap_ra);
>
> -static inline bool swap_use_vma_readahead(void)
> -{
> - return READ_ONCE(swap_vma_readahead);
> -}
> -
> /* linux/mm/swapfile.c */
> extern atomic_long_t nr_swap_pages;
> extern long total_swap_pages;
> +extern atomic_t nr_rotate_swap;

This is rather ugly. If the system is swapping to both an SSD and to a
spinning disk, we'll treat the spinning disk as SSD.

Surely this decision can be made in a per-device fashion?

> extern bool has_usable_swap(void);
>
> +static inline bool swap_use_vma_readahead(void)
> +{
> + return READ_ONCE(swap_vma_readahead) && !atomic_read(&nr_rotate_swap);
> +}
> +
> /* Swap 50% full? Release swapcache more aggressively.. */
> static inline bool vm_swap_full(void)
> {
> diff --git a/mm/swapfile.c b/mm/swapfile.c
> index 6ba4aab2db0b..2685b9951cc1 100644
> --- a/mm/swapfile.c
> +++ b/mm/swapfile.c
> @@ -96,6 +96,8 @@ static DECLARE_WAIT_QUEUE_HEAD(proc_poll_wait);
> /* Activity counter to indicate that a swapon or swapoff has occurred */
> static atomic_t proc_poll_event = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
>
> +atomic_t nr_rotate_swap = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
> +
> static inline unsigned char swap_count(unsigned char ent)
> {
> return ent & ~SWAP_HAS_CACHE; /* may include SWAP_HAS_CONT flag */
> @@ -2387,6 +2389,9 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE1(swapoff, const char __user *, specialfile)
> if (p->flags & SWP_CONTINUED)
> free_swap_count_continuations(p);
>
> + if (!p->bdev || !blk_queue_nonrot(bdev_get_queue(p->bdev)))
> + atomic_dec(&nr_rotate_swap);

What's that p->bdev test for? It's not symmetrical with the
sys_swapon() change and one wonders if the counter can get out of sync.


> mutex_lock(&swapon_mutex);
> spin_lock(&swap_lock);
> spin_lock(&p->lock);
> @@ -2963,7 +2968,8 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE2(swapon, const char __user *, specialfile, int, swap_flags)
> cluster = per_cpu_ptr(p->percpu_cluster, cpu);
> cluster_set_null(&cluster->index);
> }
> - }
> + } else
> + atomic_inc(&nr_rotate_swap);
>
> error = swap_cgroup_swapon(p->type, maxpages);
> if (error)
> --
> 2.13.2