Re: [PATCH 3/6] mm/page_alloc: Adjust pcp->high after CPU hotplug events

From: Mel Gorman
Date: Mon May 24 2021 - 12:09:25 EST


On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 08:52:02AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > To address your point requires much deeper surgery.
> ...
> > There is value to doing something like this but it's beyond what this
> > series is trying to do and doing the work without introducing regressions
> > would be very difficult.
>
> Agreed, such a solution is outside of the scope of what this set is
> trying to do.
>
> It would be nice to touch on this counter-intuitive property in the
> changelog, and *maybe* add a WARN_ON_ONCE() if we hit an edge case.
> Maybe WARN_ON_ONCE() if pcp->high gets below pcp->batch*SOMETHING.
>

I think it's reasonable to ensure pcp->batch is never above pcp->high so
I have this in zone_highsize now

+ /*
+ * Ensure high is at least batch*4. The multiple is based on the
+ * historical relationship between high and batch.
+ */
+ high = max(high, batch << 2);

Performance tests are running and I'll post a v2 assuming they pass.

--
Mel Gorman
SUSE Labs