From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail190.messagelabs.com (mail190.messagelabs.com [216.82.249.51]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A02B6B01E9 for ; Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:47:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:46:31 -0700 From: Randy Dunlap Subject: Re: [PATCH][RF C/T/D] Unmapped page cache control - via boot parameter Message-Id: <20100315084631.a350f066.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> In-Reply-To: <20100315072214.GA18054@balbir.in.ibm.com> References: <20100315072214.GA18054@balbir.in.ibm.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org To: balbir@linux.vnet.ibm.com Cc: KVM development list , Rik van Riel , KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki , "linux-mm@kvack.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" List-ID: On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:52:15 +0530 Balbir Singh wrote: > Selectively control Unmapped Page Cache (nospam version) > > From: Balbir Singh > > This patch implements unmapped page cache control via preferred > page cache reclaim. The current patch hooks into kswapd and reclaims > page cache if the user has requested for unmapped page control. > This is useful in the following scenario > > - In a virtualized environment with cache!=none, we see > double caching - (one in the host and one in the guest). As > we try to scale guests, cache usage across the system grows. > The goal of this patch is to reclaim page cache when Linux is running > as a guest and get the host to hold the page cache and manage it. > There might be temporary duplication, but in the long run, memory > in the guests would be used for mapped pages. > - The option is controlled via a boot option and the administrator > can selectively turn it on, on a need to use basis. > > A lot of the code is borrowed from zone_reclaim_mode logic for > __zone_reclaim(). One might argue that the with ballooning and > KSM this feature is not very useful, but even with ballooning, > we need extra logic to balloon multiple VM machines and it is hard > to figure out the correct amount of memory to balloon. With these > patches applied, each guest has a sufficient amount of free memory > available, that can be easily seen and reclaimed by the balloon driver. > The additional memory in the guest can be reused for additional > applications or used to start additional guests/balance memory in > the host. > > KSM currently does not de-duplicate host and guest page cache. The goal > of this patch is to help automatically balance unmapped page cache when > instructed to do so. > > There are some magic numbers in use in the code, UNMAPPED_PAGE_RATIO > and the number of pages to reclaim when unmapped_page_control argument > is supplied. These numbers were chosen to avoid aggressiveness in > reaping page cache ever so frequently, at the same time providing control. > > The sysctl for min_unmapped_ratio provides further control from > within the guest on the amount of unmapped pages to reclaim. > > The patch is applied against mmotm feb-11-2010. Hi, If you go ahead with this, please add the boot parameter & its description to Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt. > TODOS > ----- > 1. Balance slab cache as well > 2. Invoke the balance routines from the balloon driver --- ~Randy -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: email@kvack.org