On 3 March 2016 at 01:36, Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org> wrote:

> On Wed 02-03-16 14:20:38, Jerry Lee wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a x86_64 system with 2G RAM using linux-3.12.x.  During copying
> > large
> > files (e.g. 100GB), kswapd easily consumes 100% CPU until the file is
> > deleted
> > or the page cache is dropped.  With setting the min_free_kbytes from
> 16384
> > to
> > 65536, the symptom is mitigated but I can't totally get rid of the
> problem.
> >
> > After some trial and error, I found that highest zone is always
> unbalanced
> > with
> > order-0 page request so that pgdat_blanaced() continuously return false
> and
> > kswapd can't sleep.
> >
> > Here's the watermarks (min_free_kbytes = 65536) in my system:
> > Node 0, zone      DMA
> >   pages free     2167
> >         min      138
> >         low      172
> >         high     207
> >         scanned  0
> >         spanned  4095
> >         present  3996
> >         managed  3974
> >
> > Node 0, zone    DMA32
> >   pages free     215375
> >         min      16226
> >         low      20282
> >         high     24339
> >         scanned  0
> >         spanned  1044480
> >         present  490971
> >         managed  464223
> >
> > Node 0, zone   Normal
> >   pages free     7
> >         min      18
> >         low      22
> >         high     27
> >         scanned  0
> >         spanned  1536
> >         present  1536
> >         managed  523
>
> The zone Normal is just too small and that confuses the reclaim path.
>
> >
> > Besides, when the kswapd crazily spins, the value of the following
> entries
> > in vmstat increases quickly even when I stop copying file:
> >
> > pgalloc_dma 17719
> > pgalloc_dma32 3262823
> > slabs_scanned 937728
> > kswapd_high_wmark_hit_quickly 54333233
> > pageoutrun 54333235
> >
> > Is there anything I could do to totally get rid of the problem?
>
> I would try to sacrifice those few megs and get rid of zone normal
> completely. AFAIR mem=4G should limit the max_pfn to 4G so DMA32 should
> cover the shole memory.
>

I came up with a patch that seem to work well on my system.  But, I am
afraid
that it breaks the rule that all zones must be balanced for order-0 request
and
It may cause some other side-effect?  I thought that the patch is just a
workaround
(a bad one) and not a cure-all.

BTW, if I upgrade the RAM from 2G to 4G, the problem is gone because the
Normal zone won't confuse the reclaim path as you said before.

Thanks


--- a/linux-3.12.6/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/linux-3.12.6/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2755,6 +2755,7 @@ static bool pgdat_balanced(pg_data_t *pgdat, int
order, int classzone_idx)
        unsigned long managed_pages = 0;
        unsigned long balanced_pages = 0;
        int i;
+#define HWMARK_THRESHOLD 128

        /* Check the watermark levels */
        for (i = 0; i <= classzone_idx; i++) {
@@ -2779,7 +2780,8 @@ static bool pgdat_balanced(pg_data_t *pgdat, int
order, int classzone_idx)

                if (zone_balanced(zone, order, 0, i))
                        balanced_pages += zone->managed_pages;
-               else if (!order)
+               else if (!order &&
+                        (high_wmark_pages(zone) > HWMARK_THRESHOLD))
                        return false;
        }



> --
> Michal Hocko
> SUSE Labs
>