linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/6] mm: kswapd: Stop high-order balancing when any suitable zone is balanced

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Message-ID: <20101213193408.GC3401@mgebm.net>
Date:	Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:34:08 -0700
From:	Eric B Munson <emunson@...bm.net>
To:	Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Simon Kirby <sim@...tway.ca>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@...el.com>,
	Dave Hansen <dave@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/6] mm: kswapd: Stop high-order balancing when any
 suitable zone is balanced

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Mel Gorman wrote:

> When the allocator enters its slow path, kswapd is woken up to balance the
> node. It continues working until all zones within the node are balanced. For
> order-0 allocations, this makes perfect sense but for higher orders it can
> have unintended side-effects. If the zone sizes are imbalanced, kswapd may
> reclaim heavily within a smaller zone discarding an excessive number of
> pages. The user-visible behaviour is that kswapd is awake and reclaiming
> even though plenty of pages are free from a suitable zone.
> 
> This patch alters the "balance" logic for high-order reclaim allowing kswapd
> to stop if any suitable zone becomes balanced to reduce the number of pages
> it reclaims from other zones. kswapd still tries to ensure that order-0
> watermarks for all zones are met before sleeping.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie>
> Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>
> Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>

Started reviewing before I saw this series.

Reviewed-by: Eric B Munson <emunson@...bm.net>

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