Date:   Fri, 30 Apr 2021 13:31:57 -0600
From:   Yu Zhao <yuzhao@...gle.com>
To:     Konstantin Kharlamov <hi-angel@...dex.ru>
Cc:     Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>, Alex Shi <alexs@...nel.org>,
        Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Benjamin Manes <ben.manes@...il.com>,
        Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Hillf Danton <hdanton@...a.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@....com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
        Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@...wei.com>,
        Michael Larabel <michael@...haellarabel.com>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>,
        Michel Lespinasse <michel@...pinasse.org>,
        Rik van Riel <riel@...riel.com>,
        Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>,
        Rong Chen <rong.a.chen@...el.com>,
        SeongJae Park <sjpark@...zon.de>,
        Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Yang Shi <shy828301@...il.com>,
        Ying Huang <ying.huang@...el.com>, Zi Yan <ziy@...dia.com>,
        linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, lkp@...ts.01.org,
        Kernel Page Reclaim v2 <page-reclaim@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 00/16] Multigenerational LRU Framework

On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 12:38 AM Konstantin Kharlamov
<hi-angel@...dex.ru> wrote:
>
> Btw, I noticed a fun thing, an improvement. I don't know yet if it can be
> attributed to 5.12 (which I didn't try alone yet) or to the LRU patchset, but
> I'd assume the latter, because 5.12 seems didn't to have had anything
> interesting regarding memory performance¹.

I appreciate the testing and the report. They mean a lot to us.

This improvement is to be expected, and it works both ways. There are
cases that swapping is not a good idea, for example, when building
large repos. Without this patchset, some of my browser memory usually
gets swapped out while tons of memory is used to cache files I don't
really care about.

I completely agree with you on the memory cgroup part: theoretically
it could work around the problem but nobody knows how much memory to
reserve for Skype or Firefox :)

I will keep you posted on the following developments.

Thanks!

> I usually have Skype running in background for work purposes, which is only used
> 2-3 times in a week. So one would expect it to be one the first victims to
> memory reclaim. Unfortunately, I never seen this to actually happen (till now,
> that is): all skypeforlinux processes routinely have 0 bytes in SWAP, and the
> only circumstances under which its processes can get into SWAP is after
> experiencing many SWAP-storms. It was so hard for the kernel to move these
> unused processes to SWAP that at some point I even tried to research if there
> are any odd flags a userspace may have set on a process to keep it in RAM, just
> in case that's what happens to Skype (A: no, that wasn't the case, running Skype
> in a memory limited cgroup makes it swap. It's just that kernel decision were
> lacking for some reason).
>
> So, anyway, I am delighted to see now that while testing this patchset, and
> without encountering even a single SWAP-storm yet, skypeforlinux are one of the
> processes residing in SWAP!!
>
>      λ smem -kc "name user pid pss swap" | grep skype
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1151    60.0K     7.5M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1215   195.0K     8.1M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1149   706.0K     7.5M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1148   743.0K     7.3M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1307     1.4M     8.0M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1213     2.1M    46.1M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1206    14.0M    10.8M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine   818    38.5M    34.3M
>     skypeforlinux            constantine  1242   103.2M    46.8M
>
> !!!
>
> 1: https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_5.12#Memory_management
>
> On Fri, 2021-04-30 at 02:46 +0300, Konstantin Kharlamov wrote:
> > In case you need it yet, this series is:
> >
> > Tested-by: Konstantin Kharlamov <Hi-Angel@...dex.ru>
> >
> > My success story: I have Archlinux with 8G RAM + zswap + swap. While developing,
> > I have lots of apps opened such as multiple LSP-servers for different langs,
> > chats, two browsers, etc… Usually, my system gets quickly to a point of SWAP-
> > storms, where I have to kill LSP-servers, restart browsers to free memory, etc,
> > otherwise the system lags heavily and is barely usable.
> >
> > 1.5 day ago I migrated from 5.11.15 kernel to 5.12 + the LRU patchset, and I
> > started up by opening lots of apps to create memory pressure, and worked for a
> > day like this. Till now I had *not a single SWAP-storm*, and mind you I got 3.4G
> > in SWAP. I was never getting to the point of 3G in SWAP before without a single
> > SWAP-storm.
> >
> > Right now my gf on Fedora 33 also suffers from SWAP-storms on her old Macbook
> > 2013 with 4G RAM + zswap + swap, I think the next week I'll build for her 5.12 +
> > LRU patchset as well. Will see how it goes, I expect it will improve her
> > experience by a lot too.
> >
> > P.S.: upon replying please keep me CCed, I'm not subscribed to the list
>

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