RE: [PATCH v7 6/8] mm: zswap: Support mTHP swapout in zswap_store().

["Sridhar, Kanchana P" <kanchana.p.sridhar@intel.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nhat Pham <nphamcs@gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2024 10:34 AM
> To: Sridhar, Kanchana P <kanchana.p.sridhar@intel.com>
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; linux-mm@kvack.org;
> hannes@cmpxchg.org; yosryahmed@google.com;
> chengming.zhou@linux.dev; usamaarif642@gmail.com;
> shakeel.butt@linux.dev; ryan.roberts@arm.com; Huang, Ying
> <ying.huang@intel.com>; 21cnbao@gmail.com; akpm@linux-foundation.org;
> Zou, Nanhai <nanhai.zou@intel.com>; Feghali, Wajdi K
> <wajdi.k.feghali@intel.com>; Gopal, Vinodh <vinodh.gopal@intel.com>
> Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 6/8] mm: zswap: Support mTHP swapout in
> zswap_store().
> 
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 6:17 PM Kanchana P Sridhar
> <kanchana.p.sridhar@intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > zswap_store() will now store mTHP and PMD-size THP folios by compressing
> > them page by page.
> >
> > This patch provides a sequential implementation of storing an mTHP in
> > zswap_store() by iterating through each page in the folio to compress
> > and store it in the zswap zpool.
> >
> > Towards this goal, zswap_compress() is modified to take a page instead
> > of a folio as input.
> >
> > Each page's swap offset is stored as a separate zswap entry.
> >
> > If an error is encountered during the store of any page in the mTHP,
> > all previous pages/entries stored will be invalidated. Thus, an mTHP
> > is either entirely stored in ZSWAP, or entirely not stored in ZSWAP.
> >
> > This forms the basis for building batching of pages during zswap store
> > of large folios by compressing batches of up to say, 8 pages in an
> > mTHP in parallel in hardware, with the Intel In-Memory Analytics
> > Accelerator (Intel IAA).
> >
> > A new config variable CONFIG_ZSWAP_STORE_THP_DEFAULT_ON (off by
> default)
> > will enable/disable zswap storing of (m)THP. The corresponding tunable
> > zswap module parameter is "mthp_enabled".
> >
> > This change reuses and adapts the functionality in Ryan Roberts' RFC
> > patch [1]:
> >
> >   "[RFC,v1] mm: zswap: Store large folios without splitting"
> >
> >   [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20231019110543.3284654-1-
> ryan.roberts@arm.com/T/#u
> >
> > Also, addressed some of the RFC comments from the discussion in [1].
> >
> > Co-developed-by: Ryan Roberts
> > Signed-off-by:
> > Signed-off-by: Kanchana P Sridhar <kanchana.p.sridhar@intel.com>
> > ---
> >  mm/Kconfig |   8 ++++
> >  mm/zswap.c | 122 +++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------------
> >  2 files changed, 66 insertions(+), 64 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/mm/Kconfig b/mm/Kconfig
> > index 09aebca1cae3..c659fb732ec4 100644
> > --- a/mm/Kconfig
> > +++ b/mm/Kconfig
> > @@ -59,6 +59,14 @@ config ZSWAP_SHRINKER_DEFAULT_ON
> >           reducing the chance that cold pages will reside in the zswap pool
> >           and consume memory indefinitely.
> >
> > +config ZSWAP_STORE_THP_DEFAULT_ON
> > +       bool "Store mTHP and THP folios in zswap"
> > +       depends on ZSWAP
> > +       default n
> > +       help
> > +         If selected, zswap will process mTHP and THP folios by
> > +         compressing and storing each 4K page in the large folio.
> > +
> >  choice
> >         prompt "Default compressor"
> >         depends on ZSWAP
> > diff --git a/mm/zswap.c b/mm/zswap.c
> > index 8f2e0ab34c84..16ab770546d6 100644
> > --- a/mm/zswap.c
> > +++ b/mm/zswap.c
> > @@ -127,6 +127,14 @@ static bool zswap_shrinker_enabled =
> IS_ENABLED(
> >                 CONFIG_ZSWAP_SHRINKER_DEFAULT_ON);
> >  module_param_named(shrinker_enabled, zswap_shrinker_enabled, bool,
> 0644);
> >
> > +/*
> > + * Enable/disable zswap processing of mTHP folios.
> > + * For now, only zswap_store will process mTHP folios.
> > + */
> > +static bool zswap_mthp_enabled = IS_ENABLED(
> > +               CONFIG_ZSWAP_STORE_THP_DEFAULT_ON);
> > +module_param_named(mthp_enabled, zswap_mthp_enabled, bool,
> 0644);
> > +
> 
> Hmm, so this is a runtime knob. Also, should this be zswap_thp_enabled? :)

Agreed, zswap_thp_enabled is a better name. I will make the change in v8.
More comments below as to the runtime knob.

> 
> >  bool zswap_is_enabled(void)
> >  {
> >         return zswap_enabled;
> > @@ -1471,9 +1479,9 @@ static void zswap_delete_stored_offsets(struct
> xarray *tree,
> >   * @objcg: The folio's objcg.
> >   * @pool:  The zswap_pool to store the compressed data for the page.
> >   */
> > -static bool __maybe_unused zswap_store_page(struct folio *folio, long
> index,
> > -                                           struct obj_cgroup *objcg,
> > -                                           struct zswap_pool *pool)
> > +static bool zswap_store_page(struct folio *folio, long index,
> > +                            struct obj_cgroup *objcg,
> > +                            struct zswap_pool *pool)
> >  {
> >         swp_entry_t swp = folio->swap;
> >         int type = swp_type(swp);
> > @@ -1551,51 +1559,63 @@ static bool __maybe_unused
> zswap_store_page(struct folio *folio, long index,
> >         return false;
> >  }
> >
> > +/*
> > + * Modified to store mTHP folios. Each page in the mTHP will be
> compressed
> > + * and stored sequentially.
> > + */
> >  bool zswap_store(struct folio *folio)
> >  {
> >         long nr_pages = folio_nr_pages(folio);
> >         swp_entry_t swp = folio->swap;
> >         pgoff_t offset = swp_offset(swp);
> >         struct xarray *tree = swap_zswap_tree(swp);
> > -       struct zswap_entry *entry;
> >         struct obj_cgroup *objcg = NULL;
> >         struct mem_cgroup *memcg = NULL;
> > +       struct zswap_pool *pool;
> > +       bool ret = false;
> > +       long index;
> >
> >         VM_WARN_ON_ONCE(!folio_test_locked(folio));
> >         VM_WARN_ON_ONCE(!folio_test_swapcache(folio));
> >
> > -       /* Large folios aren't supported */
> > -       if (folio_test_large(folio))
> > +       /* Storing large folios isn't enabled */
> > +       if (!zswap_mthp_enabled && folio_test_large(folio))
> >                 return false;
> 
> Hmm can this go wrong somehow? Can we have a case where we enable
> zswap_mthp_enabled, have a large folio written to zswap, disable
> zswap_mthp_enabled, and attempt to store that folio to zswap again.
> 
> Now, we have a stale copy in zswap that is not invalidated...?
> 
> Or am I missing something here :)

This is an excellent point. Thanks Nhat for catching this! I can see two
options to solving this:

Option 1: If zswap_mthp_enabled is "false", delete all stored offsets
for the mTHP in zswap before exiting. This could race with writeback
(either one or more subpages could be written back before zswap_store
acquires the tree lock), however, I don't think it will cause data inconsistencies.
Any offsets for subpages not written back will be deleted from zswap,
zswap_store() will return false, and the backing swap device's subsequent
swapout will over-write the zswap write-back data. Could anything go wrong
with this?

Option 2: Only provide a build config option,
CONFIG_ZSWAP_STORE_THP_DEFAULT_ON, that cannot be dynamically changed.

Would appreciate suggestions on these, and other potential solutions.

Thanks,
Kanchana