linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6] zswap: memcontrol: implement zswap writeback disabling

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Message-ID: <CAKEwX=Oj0Rur8i9Oo7y2Py7svx-g11sEj3GKQfMVL62x=4hvdA@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Thu, 7 Dec 2023 17:03:31 -0800
From:   Nhat Pham <nphamcs@...il.com>
To:     Chris Li <chrisl@...nel.org>
Cc:     akpm@...ux-foundation.org, tj@...nel.org, lizefan.x@...edance.com,
        hannes@...xchg.org, cerasuolodomenico@...il.com,
        yosryahmed@...gle.com, sjenning@...hat.com, ddstreet@...e.org,
        vitaly.wool@...sulko.com, mhocko@...nel.org,
        roman.gushchin@...ux.dev, shakeelb@...gle.com,
        muchun.song@...ux.dev, hughd@...gle.com, corbet@....net,
        konrad.wilk@...cle.com, senozhatsky@...omium.org, rppt@...nel.org,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, kernel-team@...a.com,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
        david@...t.cz
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6] zswap: memcontrol: implement zswap writeback disabling

On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 4:19 PM Chris Li <chrisl@...nel.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Nhat,
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 11:24 AM Nhat Pham <nphamcs@...il.com> wrote:
> >
> > During our experiment with zswap, we sometimes observe swap IOs due to
> > occasional zswap store failures and writebacks-to-swap. These swapping
> > IOs prevent many users who cannot tolerate swapping from adopting zswap
> > to save memory and improve performance where possible.
> >
> > This patch adds the option to disable this behavior entirely: do not
> > writeback to backing swapping device when a zswap store attempt fail,
> > and do not write pages in the zswap pool back to the backing swap
> > device (both when the pool is full, and when the new zswap shrinker is
> > called).
> >
> > This new behavior can be opted-in/out on a per-cgroup basis via a new
> > cgroup file. By default, writebacks to swap device is enabled, which is
> > the previous behavior. Initially, writeback is enabled for the root
> > cgroup, and a newly created cgroup will inherit the current setting of
> > its parent.
> >
> > Note that this is subtly different from setting memory.swap.max to 0, as
> > it still allows for pages to be stored in the zswap pool (which itself
> > consumes swap space in its current form).
> >
> > This patch should be applied on top of the zswap shrinker series:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20231130194023.4102148-1-nphamcs@gmail.com/
> >
> > as it also disables the zswap shrinker, a major source of zswap
> > writebacks.
>
> I am wondering about the status of "memory.swap.tiers" proof of concept patch?
> Are we still on board to have this two patch merge together somehow so
> we can have
> "memory.swap.tiers" == "all" and "memory.swap.tiers" == "zswap" cover the
> memory.zswap.writeback == 1 and memory.zswap.writeback == 0 case?
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris
>

Hi Chris,

I briefly summarized my recent discussion with Johannes here:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAKEwX=NwGGRAtXoNPfq63YnNLBCF0ZDOdLVRsvzUmYhK4jxzHA@mail.gmail.com/

TL;DR is we acknowledge the potential usefulness of swap.tiers
interface, but the use case is not quite there yet, so it does not
make too much sense to build up that heavy machinery now.
zswap.writeback is a more urgent need, and does not prevent swap.tiers
if we do decide to implement it.