linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v13 2/3] mm: Fix OOM killer inaccuracy on large many-core systems

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Message-ID: <aWSz5OHBwtfYrruu@tiehlicka>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:42:12 +0100
From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
To: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>,
	Dennis Zhou <dennis@...nel.org>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Christoph Lameter <cl@...ux.com>, Martin Liu <liumartin@...gle.com>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>, christian.koenig@....com,
	Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@...ux.dev>,
	SeongJae Park <sj@...nel.org>, Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	Sweet Tea Dorminy <sweettea-kernel@...miny.me>,
	Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>,
	"Liam R . Howlett" <liam.howlett@...cle.com>,
	Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>,
	Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
	Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>,
	Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@...il.com>,
	David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>,
	Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@...wei.com>,
	Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-trace-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Yu Zhao <yuzhao@...gle.com>,
	Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@...ux.dev>,
	Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@...il.com>,
	Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
	Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com>,
	Aboorva Devarajan <aboorvad@...ux.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v13 2/3] mm: Fix OOM killer inaccuracy on large many-core
 systems

Hi,
sorry to jump in this late but the timing of previous versions didn't
really work well for me.

On Sun 11-01-26 14:49:57, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
[...]
> Here is a (possibly incomplete) list of the prior approaches that were
> used or proposed, along with their downside:
> 
> 1) Per-thread rss tracking: large error on many-thread processes.
> 
> 2) Per-CPU counters: up to 12% slower for short-lived processes and 9%
>    increased system time in make test workloads [1]. Moreover, the
>    inaccuracy increases with O(n^2) with the number of CPUs.
> 
> 3) Per-NUMA-node counters: requires atomics on fast-path (overhead),
>    error is high with systems that have lots of NUMA nodes (32 times
>    the number of NUMA nodes).
> 
> The approach proposed here is to replace this by the hierarchical
> per-cpu counters, which bounds the inaccuracy based on the system
> topology with O(N*logN).

The concept of hierarchical pcp counter is interesting and I am
definitely not opposed if there are more users that would benefit.

>From the OOM POV, IIUC the primary problem is that get_mm_counter
(percpu_counter_read_positive) is too imprecise on systems when the task
is moving around a large number of cpus. In the list of alternative
solutions I do not see percpu_counter_sum_positive to be mentioned.
oom_badness() is a really slow path and taking the slow path to
calculate a much more precise value seems acceptable. Have you
considered that option?

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs