linux-kernel - Re: Problem in Page Cache Replacement

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Date:	Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:48:07 +0800
From:	Jaegeuk Hanse <jaegeuk.hanse@...il.com>
To:	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
CC:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>, metin d <metdos@...oo.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: Problem in Page Cache Replacement

On 11/22/2012 05:34 AM, Johannes Weiner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 07:25:00PM +0100, Jan Kara wrote:
>> On Tue 20-11-12 09:42:42, metin d wrote:
>>> I have two PostgreSQL databases named data-1 and data-2 that sit on the
>>> same machine. Both databases keep 40 GB of data, and the total memory
>>> available on the machine is 68GB.
>>>
>>> I started data-1 and data-2, and ran several queries to go over all their
>>> data. Then, I shut down data-1 and kept issuing queries against data-2.
>>> For some reason, the OS still holds on to large parts of data-1's pages
>>> in its page cache, and reserves about 35 GB of RAM to data-2's files. As
>>> a result, my queries on data-2 keep hitting disk.
>>>
>>> I'm checking page cache usage with fincore. When I run a table scan query
>>> against data-2, I see that data-2's pages get evicted and put back into
>>> the cache in a round-robin manner. Nothing happens to data-1's pages,
>>> although they haven't been touched for days.
>>>
>>> Does anybody know why data-1's pages aren't evicted from the page cache?
>>> I'm open to all kind of suggestions you think it might relate to problem.
> This might be because we do not deactive pages as long as there is
> cache on the inactive list.  I'm guessing that the inter-reference
> distance of data-2 is bigger than half of memory, so it's never
> getting activated and data-1 is never challenged.

Hi Johannes,

What's the meaning of "inter-reference distance" and why compare it with 
half of memoy, what's the trick?

Regards,
Jaegeuk

>
> I have a series of patches that detects a thrashing inactive list and
> handles working set changes up to the size of memory.  Would you be
> willing to test them?  They are currently based on 3.4, let me know
> what version works best for you.
>
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