Re: [PATCH 3/5] mm: page_alloc: defrag_mode

[Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>]

On 13 Mar 2025, at 17:05, Johannes Weiner wrote:

> The page allocator groups requests by migratetype to stave off
> fragmentation. However, in practice this is routinely defeated by the
> fact that it gives up *before* invoking reclaim and compaction - which
> may well produce suitable pages. As a result, fragmentation of
> physical memory is a common ongoing process in many load scenarios.
>
> Fragmentation deteriorates compaction's ability to produce huge
> pages. Depending on the lifetime of the fragmenting allocations, those
> effects can be long-lasting or even permanent, requiring drastic
> measures like forcible idle states or even reboots as the only
> reliable ways to recover the address space for THP production.
>
> In a kernel build test with supplemental THP pressure, the THP
> allocation rate steadily declines over 15 runs:
>
>     thp_fault_alloc
>     61988
>     56474
>     57258
>     50187
>     52388
>     55409
>     52925
>     47648
>     43669
>     40621
>     36077
>     41721
>     36685
>     34641
>     33215
>
> This is a hurdle in adopting THP in any environment where hosts are
> shared between multiple overlapping workloads (cloud environments),
> and rarely experience true idle periods. To make THP a reliable and
> predictable optimization, there needs to be a stronger guarantee to
> avoid such fragmentation.
>
> Introduce defrag_mode. When enabled, reclaim/compaction is invoked to
> its full extent *before* falling back. Specifically, ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT
> is enforced on the allocator fastpath and the reclaiming slowpath.
>
> For now, fallbacks are permitted to avert OOMs. There is a plan to add
> defrag_mode=2 to prefer OOMs over fragmentation, but this requires
> additional prep work in compaction and the reserve management to make
> it ready for all possible allocation contexts.
>
> The following test results are from a kernel build with periodic
> bursts of THP allocations, over 15 runs:
>
>                                         vanilla    defrag_mode=1
> @claimer[unmovable]:                        189              103
> @claimer[movable]:                           92              103
> @claimer[reclaimable]:                      207               61
> @pollute[unmovable from movable]:            25                0
> @pollute[unmovable from reclaimable]:        28                0
> @pollute[movable from unmovable]:         38835                0
> @pollute[movable from reclaimable]:      147136                0
> @pollute[reclaimable from unmovable]:       178                0
> @pollute[reclaimable from movable]:          33                0
> @steal[unmovable from movable]:              11                0
> @steal[unmovable from reclaimable]:           5                0
> @steal[reclaimable from unmovable]:         107                0
> @steal[reclaimable from movable]:            90                0
> @steal[movable from reclaimable]:           354                0
> @steal[movable from unmovable]:             130                0
>
> Both types of polluting fallbacks are eliminated in this workload.
>
> Interestingly, whole block conversions are reduced as well. This is
> because once a block is claimed for a type, its empty space remains
> available for future allocations, instead of being padded with
> fallbacks; this allows the native type to group up instead of
> spreading out to new blocks. The assumption in the allocator has been
> that pollution from movable allocations is less harmful than from
> other types, since they can be reclaimed or migrated out should the
> space be needed. However, since fallbacks occur *before*
> reclaim/compaction is invoked, movable pollution will still cause
> non-movable allocations to spread out and claim more blocks.
>
> Without fragmentation, THP rates hold steady with defrag_mode=1:
>
>     thp_fault_alloc
>     32478
>     20725
>     45045
>     32130
>     14018
>     21711
>     40791
>     29134
>     34458
>     45381
>     28305
>     17265
>     22584
>     28454
>     30850
>
> While the downward trend is eliminated, the keen reader will of course
> notice that the baseline rate is much smaller than the vanilla
> kernel's to begin with. This is due to deficiencies in how reclaim and
> compaction are currently driven: ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT increases the extent
> to which smaller allocations are competing with THPs for pageblocks,
> while making no effort themselves to reclaim or compact beyond their
> own request size. This effect already exists with the current usage of
> ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT, but is amplified by defrag_mode insisting on whole
> block stealing much more strongly.
>
> Subsequent patches will address defrag_mode reclaim strategy to raise
> the THP success baseline above the vanilla kernel.

All makes sense to me. But is there a better name than defrag_mode?
It sounds very similar to /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag.
Or it actually means the THP defrag mode?

>
> Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
> ---
>  Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst |  9 +++++++++
>  mm/page_alloc.c                         | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++--
>  2 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>

When I am checking ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT, I find that in get_page_from_freelist(),
ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT is removed when allocation goes into a remote node. I wonder
if this could reduce the anti-fragmentation effort for NUMA systems. Basically,
falling back to a remote node for allocation would fragment the remote node,
even the remote node is trying hard to not fragment itself. Have you tested
on a NUMA system?

Thanks.

Best Regards,
Yan, Zi