linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH -mm -v4 3/5] mm, swap: VMA based swap readahead

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Date:   Thu, 14 Sep 2017 20:01:30 +0800
From:   "Huang\, Ying" <ying.huang@...el.com>
To:     Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "Huang\, Ying" <ying.huang@...el.com>, <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        "Rik van Riel" <riel@...hat.com>, Shaohua Li <shli@...nel.org>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
        Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@...el.com>,
        Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@...el.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH -mm -v4 3/5] mm, swap: VMA based swap readahead

Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 02:02:29PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Sep 2017 10:40:19 +0900 Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org> wrote:
>> 
>> > Every zram users like low-end android device has used 0 page-cluster
>> > to disable swap readahead because it has no seek cost and works as
>> > synchronous IO operation so if we do readahead multiple pages,
>> > swap falut latency would be (4K * readahead window size). IOW,
>> > readahead is meaningful only if it doesn't bother faulted page's
>> > latency.
>> > 
>> > However, this patch introduces additional knob /sys/kernel/mm/swap/
>> > vma_ra_max_order as well as page-cluster. It means existing users
>> > has used disabled swap readahead doesn't work until they should be
>> > aware of new knob and modification of their script/code to disable
>> > vma_ra_max_order as well as page-cluster.
>> > 
>> > I say it's a *regression* and wanted to fix it but Huang's opinion
>> > is that it's not a functional regression so userspace should be fixed
>> > by themselves.
>> > Please look into detail of discussion in
>> > http://lkml.kernel.org/r/%3C1505183833-4739-4-git-send-email-minchan@kernel.org%3E
>> 
>> hm, tricky problem.  I do agree that linking the physical and virtual
>> readahead schemes in the proposed fashion is unfortunate.  I also agree
>> that breaking existing setups (a bit) is also unfortunate.
>> 
>> Would it help if, when page-cluster is written to zero, we do
>> 
>> printk_once("physical readahead disabled, virtual readahead still
>> enabled.  Disable virtual readhead via
>> /sys/kernel/mm/swap/vma_ra_max_order").
>> 
>> Or something like that.  It's pretty lame, but it should help alert the
>> zram-readahead-disabling people to the issue?
>
> It was my last resort. If we cannot find other ways after all, yes, it would
> be a minimum we should do. But it still breaks users don't/can't read/modify
> alert and program.
>
> How about this?
>
> Can't we make vma-based readahead config option?
> With that, users who no interest on readahead don't enable vma-based
> readahead. In this case, page-cluster works as expected "disable readahead
> completely" so it doesn't break anything.

Now.  Users can choose between VMA based readahead and original
readahead via a knob as follow at runtime,

/sys/kernel/mm/swap/vma_ra_enabled

Best Regards,
Huang, Ying


> People who want to use upcoming vma-based readahead can enable the feature
> and we can say such unfortunate things in config/document description
> somewhere so upcoming users will be aware of that unforunate two knobs.