Message-ID: <aUGIstlaG_0B7-Ep@tiehlicka>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:28:34 +0100
From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
To: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>,
	Brendan Jackman <jackmanb@...gle.com>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>, Zi Yan <ziy@...dia.com>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	David Hildenbrand <david@...nel.org>,
	Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>,
	"Liam R. Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>,
	Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>,
	Joshua Hahn <joshua.hahnjy@...il.com>,
	Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@...e.de>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 2/2] mm, page_alloc: fail costly __GFP_NORETRY
 allocations faster

On Tue 16-12-25 16:54:22, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
> For allocations that are of costly order and __GFP_NORETRY (and can
> perform compaction) we attempt direct compaction first. If that fails,
> we continue with a single round of direct reclaim+compaction (as for
> other __GFP_NORETRY allocations, except the compaction is of lower
> priority), with two exceptions that fail immediately:
> 
> - __GFP_THISNODE is specified, to prevent zone_reclaim_mode-like
>   behavior for e.g. THP page faults
> 
> - compaction failed because it was deferred (i.e. has been failing
>   recently so further attempts are not done for a while) or skipped,
>   which means there are insufficient free base pages to defragment to
>   begin with
> 
> Upon closer inspection, the second condition has a somewhat flawed
> reasoning. If there are not enough base pages and reclaim could create
> them, we instead fail. When there are enough base pages and compaction
> has already ran and failed, we proceed and hope that reclaim and the
> subsequent compaction attempt will succeed. But it's unclear why they
> should and whether it will be as inexpensive as intended.
> 
> It might make therefore more sense to just fail unconditionally after
> the initial compaction attempt, so do that instead. Costly allocations
> that do want the reclaim/compaction to happen at least once can omit
> __GFP_NORETRY, or even specify __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL for more than one
> attempt.
> 
> There is a slight potential unfairness in that costly __GFP_NORETRY
> allocations that can't perform direct compaction (i.e. lack __GFP_IO)
> will still be allowed to direct reclaim, while those that can direct
> compact will now never attempt direct reclaim. However, in cases of
> memory pressure causing compaction to be skipped due to insufficient
> base pages, direct reclaim was already not done before, so there should
> be no functional regressions from this change.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>

I like this because, quite honestly, us trying to over-optimize for THP
(which seems to be the only costly allocation with GFP_NORETRY) has
turned out quite tricky and hard to reason about. So simplifying this
wrt. to the compaction feedback makes a lot of sense. Let's see where we
get from here.

Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>

Thanks!

> ---
>  include/linux/gfp_types.h |  2 ++
>  mm/page_alloc.c           | 47 +++--------------------------------------------
>  2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 44 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/include/linux/gfp_types.h b/include/linux/gfp_types.h
> index 3de43b12209e..051311fdbdb1 100644
> --- a/include/linux/gfp_types.h
> +++ b/include/linux/gfp_types.h
> @@ -218,6 +218,8 @@ enum {
>   * caller must handle the failure which is quite likely to happen under
>   * heavy memory pressure. The flag is suitable when failure can easily be
>   * handled at small cost, such as reduced throughput.
> + * For costly orders, only memory compaction can be attempted with no reclaim
> + * under some conditions.
>   *
>   * %__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL: The VM implementation will retry memory reclaim
>   * procedures that have previously failed if there is some indication
> diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> index e6fd1213328b..2671cbbd6375 100644
> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> @@ -4763,52 +4763,11 @@ __alloc_pages_slowpath(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
>  			goto got_pg;
>  
>  		/*
> -		 * Checks for costly allocations with __GFP_NORETRY, which
> -		 * includes some THP page fault allocations
> +		 * Compaction didn't succeed and we were told not to try hard,
> +		 * so fail now.
>  		 */
>  		if (costly_order && (gfp_mask & __GFP_NORETRY)) {
> -			/*
> -			 * If allocating entire pageblock(s) and compaction
> -			 * failed because all zones are below low watermarks
> -			 * or is prohibited because it recently failed at this
> -			 * order, fail immediately unless the allocator has
> -			 * requested compaction and reclaim retry.
> -			 *
> -			 * Reclaim is
> -			 *  - potentially very expensive because zones are far
> -			 *    below their low watermarks or this is part of very
> -			 *    bursty high order allocations,
> -			 *  - not guaranteed to help because isolate_freepages()
> -			 *    may not iterate over freed pages as part of its
> -			 *    linear scan, and
> -			 *  - unlikely to make entire pageblocks free on its
> -			 *    own.
> -			 */
> -			if (compact_result == COMPACT_SKIPPED ||
> -			    compact_result == COMPACT_DEFERRED)
> -				goto nopage;
> -
> -			/*
> -			 * THP page faults may attempt local node only first,
> -			 * but are then allowed to only compact, not reclaim,
> -			 * see alloc_pages_mpol()
> -			 *
> -			 * compaction can fail for other reasons than those
> -			 * checked above and we don't want such THP allocations
> -			 * to put reclaim pressure on a single node in a
> -			 * situation where other nodes might have plenty of
> -			 * available memory
> -			 */
> -			if (gfp_mask & __GFP_THISNODE)
> -				goto nopage;
> -
> -			/*
> -			 * Looks like reclaim/compaction is worth trying, but
> -			 * sync compaction could be very expensive, so keep
> -			 * using async compaction.
> -			 */
> -			compact_priority = INIT_COMPACT_PRIORITY;
> -		}
> +			goto nopage;
>  	}
>  
>  retry:
> 
> -- 
> 2.52.0

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs

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