Re: [v5 PATCH 1/2] mm: swap: check if swap backing device is congested or not

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Fri,  4 Jan 2019 03:27:52 +0800 Yang Shi <yang.shi@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:

> Swap readahead would read in a few pages regardless if the underlying
> device is busy or not.  It may incur long waiting time if the device is
> congested, and it may also exacerbate the congestion.
> 
> Use inode_read_congested() to check if the underlying device is busy or
> not like what file page readahead does.  Get inode from swap_info_struct.
> Although we can add inode information in swap_address_space
> (address_space->host), it may lead some unexpected side effect, i.e.
> it may break mapping_cap_account_dirty().  Using inode from
> swap_info_struct seems simple and good enough.
> 
> ...
>
> --- a/mm/swap_state.c
> +++ b/mm/swap_state.c
> @@ -538,11 +538,18 @@ struct page *swap_cluster_readahead(swp_entry_t entry, gfp_t gfp_mask,
>  	bool do_poll = true, page_allocated;
>  	struct vm_area_struct *vma = vmf->vma;
>  	unsigned long addr = vmf->address;
> +	struct inode *inode = NULL;
>  
>  	mask = swapin_nr_pages(offset) - 1;
>  	if (!mask)
>  		goto skip;
>  
> +	if (si->flags & (SWP_BLKDEV | SWP_FS)) {

I re-read your discussion with Tim and I must say the reasoning behind
this test remain foggy.

What goes wrong if we just remove it?

What is the status of shmem swap readahead?

Can we at least get a comment in here which explains the reasoning?

Thanks.

> +		inode = si->swap_file->f_mapping->host;
> +		if (inode_read_congested(inode))
> +			goto skip;
> +	}
> +
>  	do_poll = false;
>  	/* Read a page_cluster sized and aligned cluster around offset. */