[PATCH] Cleanup/rework Unevictable LRU and Mlocked Pages documentation

[PATCH] Cleanup/rework Unevictable LRU and Mlocked Pages documentation

[Lee Schermerhorn]

Cleanup and rework of Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt:

+ typos and such pointed out by Randy Dunlap
+ rework rationale for use of LRU list based on discussion with
  Christoph Lameter
+ a few other area of rewording suggested by the rationale rework.

Signed-off-by:  Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>

 Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt |   62 +++++++++++++++++++----------------
 1 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-)

Index: linux-2.6.27-rc1-mm1/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt
===================================================================
--- linux-2.6.27-rc1-mm1.orig/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt	2008-08-05 09:46:42.000000000 -0400
+++ linux-2.6.27-rc1-mm1/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt	2008-08-06 10:55:04.000000000 -0400
@@ -38,32 +38,36 @@ The Unevictable LRU List
 
 The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-zone, LRU list
 called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to
-indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list.  The PG_unevictable
-flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the PG_active flag in that
-it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when PG_lru is set.  The
-unevictable LRU list is source configurable based on the UNEVICTABLE_LRU Kconfig
-option.
-
-Why maintain unevictable pages on an additional LRU list?  Primarily because
-we want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes--for memory
-deframentation, workload management and memory hotplug.  The linux kernel can
-only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the lru lists.
-Therefore, we want to keep the unevictable pages on an lru-like list, where
-they can be found by isolate_lru_page().
-
-Secondarily, the Linux memory management subsystem has well established
-protocols for managing pages on the LRU.  Vmscan is based on LRU lists.
-LRU list exist per zone, and we want to maintain pages relative to their
-"home zone".  All of these make the use of an additional list, parallel to
-the LRU active and inactive lists, a natural mechanism to employ.  Note,
-however, that the unevictable list does not differentiate between file backed
-and swap backed [anon] pages.  This differentiation is only important while
-the pages are, in fact, evictable.
+indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list.  The
+PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the PG_active
+flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when PG_lru is set.
+The unevictable LRU list is source configurable based on the UNEVICTABLE_LRU
+Kconfig option.
+
+The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional
+LRU list for a few reasons:
+
+1) We get to "treat unevictable pages just like we treat other pages in the
+   system, which means we get to use the same code to manipulate them, the
+   same code to isolate them (for migrate, etc.), the same code to keep track
+   of the statistics, etc..." [Rik van Riel]
+
+2) We want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes--for memory
+   defragmentation, workload management and memory hotplug.  The linux kernel
+   can only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the lru lists.
+   If we were to maintain pages elsewise than on an lru-like list, where they
+   can be found by isolate_lru_page(), we would prevent their migration, unless
+   we reworked migration code to find the unevictable pages.
+
+
+The unevictable LRU list does not differentiate between file backed and swap
+backed [anon] pages.  This differentiation is only important while the pages
+are, in fact, evictable.
 
 The unevictable LRU list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-zone
 LRU lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter.
 
-Note that the unevictable list does not use the lru pagevec mechanism. Rather,
+The unevictable list does not use the lru pagevec mechanism. Rather,
 unevictable pages are placed directly on the page's zone's unevictable
 list under the zone lru_lock.  The reason for this is to prevent stranding
 of pages on the unevictable list when one task has the page isolated from the
@@ -156,14 +160,18 @@ Mlocked Page:  Prior Work
 
 The "Unevictable Mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally
 posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU".
-Nick's posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph
+Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph
 Lameter to achieve the same objective--hiding mlocked pages from vmscan.
 In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page lru list link fields as a count
 of VM_LOCKED vmas that map the page.  This use of the link field for a count
-prevent the management of the pages on an LRU list.  When Nick's patch was
-integrated with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was replaced by walking the
-reverse map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED vmas mapped the page.  More on
-this below.
+prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list.  Thus, mlocked pages were
+not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them and the lru list link
+field was not available to the migration subsystem.  Nick resolved this by
+putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before attempting to isolate them,
+thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED vmas.  When Nick's patch was integrated
+with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was replaced by walking the reverse
+map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED vmas mapped the page.  More on this
+below.
 
 
 Mlocked Pages:  Basic Management


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Re: [PATCH] Cleanup/rework Unevictable LRU and Mlocked Pages documentation

[KOSAKI Motohiro]

> Against: 2.6.27-rc1-mm1
> 
> Cleanup and rework of Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt:
> 
> + typos and such pointed out by Randy Dunlap
> + rework rationale for use of LRU list based on discussion with
>   Christoph Lameter
> + a few other area of rewording suggested by the rationale rework.
> 
> Signed-off-by:  Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>

looks good to me. Thanks.

(but I can't add reviewed-by because I can't believe my english skill..)


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