linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/5] writeback: dirty position control

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Date:	Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:35:11 +0800
From:	Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
To:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	"linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
	Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
	Greg Thelen <gthelen@...gle.com>,
	Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>,
	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...hat.com>,
	Andrea Righi <arighi@...eler.com>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/5] writeback: dirty position control

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 07:14:23PM +0800, Jan Kara wrote:
> On Thu 11-08-11 10:29:52, Wu Fengguang wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 06:34:27AM +0800, Jan Kara wrote:
> > > On Tue 09-08-11 19:20:27, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2011-08-09 at 12:32 +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > > > >                     origin - dirty
> > > > > >         pos_ratio = --------------
> > > > > >                     origin - goal 
> > > > > 
> > > > > > which comes from the below [*] control line, so that when (dirty == goal),
> > > > > > pos_ratio == 1.0:
> > > > > 
> > > > > OK, so basically you want a linear function for which:
> > > > > 
> > > > > f(goal) = 1 and has a root somewhere > goal.
> > > > > 
> > > > > (that one line is much more informative than all your graphs put
> > > > > together, one can start from there and derive your function)
> > > > > 
> > > > > That does indeed get you the above function, now what does it mean? 
> > > > 
> > > > So going by:
> > > > 
> > > >                                          write_bw
> > > >   ref_bw = dirty_ratelimit * pos_ratio * --------
> > > >                                          dirty_bw
> > > 
> > >   Actually, thinking about these formulas, why do we even bother with
> > > computing all these factors like write_bw, dirty_bw, pos_ratio, ...
> > > Couldn't we just have a feedback loop (probably similar to the one
> > > computing pos_ratio) which will maintain single value - ratelimit? When we
> > > are getting close to dirty limit, we will scale ratelimit down, when we
> > > will be getting significantly below dirty limit, we will scale the
> > > ratelimit up.  Because looking at the formulas it seems to me that the net
> > > effect is the same - pos_ratio basically overrules everything... 
> > 
> > Good question. That is actually one of the early approaches I tried.
> > It somehow worked, however the resulted ratelimit is not only slow
> > responding, but also oscillating all the time.
>   Yes, I think I vaguely remember that.
> 
> > This is due to the imperfections
> > 
> > 1) pos_ratio at best only provides a "direction" for adjusting the
> >    ratelimit. There is only vague clues that if pos_ratio is small,
> >    the errors in ratelimit should be small.
> > 
> > 2) Due to time-lag, the assumptions in (1) about "direction" and
> >    "error size" can be wrong. The ratelimit may already be
> >    over-adjusted when the dirty pages take time to approach the
> >    setpoint. The larger memory, the more time lag, the easier to
> >    overshoot and oscillate.
> > 
> > 3) dirty pages are constantly fluctuating around the setpoint,
> >    so is pos_ratio.
> > 
> > With (1) and (2), it's a control system very susceptible to disturbs.
> > With (3) we get constant disturbs. Well I had very hard time and
> > played dirty tricks (which you may never want to know ;-) trying to
> > tradeoff between response time and stableness..
>   Yes, I can see especially 2) is a problem. But I don't understand why
> your current formula would be that much different. As Peter decoded from
> your code, your current formula is:
>                                         write_bw
>  ref_bw = dirty_ratelimit * pos_ratio * --------
>                                         dirty_bw
> 
> while previously it was essentially:
>  ref_bw = dirty_ratelimit * pos_ratio

Sorry what's the code you are referring to? Does the changelog in the
newly posted patchset make the ref_bw calculation and dirty_ratelimit
updating more clear?

> So what is so magical about computing write_bw and dirty_bw separately? Is
> it because previously you did not use derivation of distance from the goal
> for updating pos_ratio? Because in your current formula write_bw/dirty_bw
> is a derivation of position...

dirty_bw is the main feedback. If we are throttling too much, the
resulting dirty_bw will be lowered than write_bw. Thus 

                                      write_bw
   ref_bw = ratelimit_in_past_200ms * --------
                                      dirty_bw

will give us a higher ref_bw than ratelimit_in_past_200ms. For pure
dd workload, the computed ref_bw by the above formula is exactly the
balanced rate (if not considering trivial errors).

Thanks,
Fengguang
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