Commit Graph

128 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Paul Jackson
8488bc359d [PATCH] cpuset: remove unnecessary NULL check
Remove a no longer needed test for NULL cpuset pointer, with a little
comment explaining why the test isn't needed.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-03-24 07:33:23 -08:00
Paul Jackson
825a46af5a [PATCH] cpuset memory spread basic implementation
This patch provides the implementation and cpuset interface for an alternative
memory allocation policy that can be applied to certain kinds of memory
allocations, such as the page cache (file system buffers) and some slab caches
(such as inode caches).

The policy is called "memory spreading." If enabled, it spreads out these
kinds of memory allocations over all the nodes allowed to a task, instead of
preferring to place them on the node where the task is executing.

All other kinds of allocations, including anonymous pages for a tasks stack
and data regions, are not affected by this policy choice, and continue to be
allocated preferring the node local to execution, as modified by the NUMA
mempolicy.

There are two boolean flag files per cpuset that control where the kernel
allocates pages for the file system buffers and related in kernel data
structures.  They are called 'memory_spread_page' and 'memory_spread_slab'.

If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_page' is set, then the
kernel will spread the file system buffers (page cache) evenly over all the
nodes that the faulting task is allowed to use, instead of preferring to put
those pages on the node where the task is running.

If the per-cpuset boolean flag file 'memory_spread_slab' is set, then the
kernel will spread some file system related slab caches, such as for inodes
and dentries evenly over all the nodes that the faulting task is allowed to
use, instead of preferring to put those pages on the node where the task is
running.

The implementation is simple.  Setting the cpuset flags 'memory_spread_page'
or 'memory_spread_cache' turns on the per-process flags PF_SPREAD_PAGE or
PF_SPREAD_SLAB, respectively, for each task that is in the cpuset or
subsequently joins that cpuset.  In subsequent patches, the page allocation
calls for the affected page cache and slab caches are modified to perform an
inline check for these flags, and if set, a call to a new routine
cpuset_mem_spread_node() returns the node to prefer for the allocation.

The cpuset_mem_spread_node() routine is also simple.  It uses the value of a
per-task rotor cpuset_mem_spread_rotor to select the next node in the current
tasks mems_allowed to prefer for the allocation.

This policy can provide substantial improvements for jobs that need to place
thread local data on the corresponding node, but that need to access large
file system data sets that need to be spread across the several nodes in the
jobs cpuset in order to fit.  Without this patch, especially for jobs that
might have one thread reading in the data set, the memory allocation across
the nodes in the jobs cpuset can become very uneven.

A couple of Copyright year ranges are updated as well.  And a couple of email
addresses that can be found in the MAINTAINERS file are removed.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-03-24 07:33:22 -08:00
Paul Jackson
8a39cc60bf [PATCH] cpuset use combined atomic_inc_return calls
Replace pairs of calls to <atomic_inc, atomic_read>, with a single call
atomic_inc_return, saving a few bytes of source and kernel text.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-03-24 07:33:22 -08:00
Paul Jackson
7b5b9ef0e1 [PATCH] cpuset cleanup not not operators
Since the test_bit() bit operator is boolean (return 0 or 1), the double not
"!!" operations needed to convert a scalar (zero or not zero) to a boolean are
not needed.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-03-24 07:33:22 -08:00
Ingo Molnar
3d3f26a7ba [PATCH] kernel/cpuset.c, mutex conversion
convert cpuset.c's callback_sem and manage_sem to mutexes.
Build and boot tested by Ingo.
Build, boot, unit and stress tested by pj.

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-03-23 07:38:10 -08:00
Paul Jackson
06fed33849 [PATCH] cpuset: oops in exit on null cpuset fix
Fix a latent bug in cpuset_exit() handling.  If a task tried to allocate
memory after calling cpuset_exit(), it oops'd in
cpuset_update_task_memory_state() on a NULL cpuset pointer.

So set the exiting tasks cpuset to the root cpuset instead of to NULL.

A distro kernel hit this with an added kernel package that had just such a
hook (allocating memory) in the exit code path.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-02-15 15:32:21 -08:00
Randy Dunlap
fe85a998ca [PATCH] cpuset: fix sparse warning
kernel/cpuset.c:644:38: warning: non-ANSI function declaration of function 'cpuset_update_task_memory_state'

Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Acked-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-02-03 08:32:06 -08:00
Paul Jackson
505970b96e [PATCH] cpuset oom lock fix
The problem, reported in:

  http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5859

and by various other email messages and lkml posts is that the cpuset hook
in the oom (out of memory) code can try to take a cpuset semaphore while
holding the tasklist_lock (a spinlock).

One must not sleep while holding a spinlock.

The fix seems easy enough - move the cpuset semaphore region outside the
tasklist_lock region.

This required a few lines of mechanism to implement.  The oom code where
the locking needs to be changed does not have access to the cpuset locks,
which are internal to kernel/cpuset.c only.  So I provided a couple more
cpuset interface routines, available to the rest of the kernel, which
simple take and drop the lock needed here (cpusets callback_sem).

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-14 18:27:10 -08:00
Arjan van de Ven
858119e159 [PATCH] Unlinline a bunch of other functions
Remove the "inline" keyword from a bunch of big functions in the kernel with
the goal of shrinking it by 30kb to 40kb

Signed-off-by: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Acked-by: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-14 18:27:06 -08:00
Jes Sorensen
1b1dcc1b57 [PATCH] mutex subsystem, semaphore to mutex: VFS, ->i_sem
This patch converts the inode semaphore to a mutex. I have tested it on
XFS and compiled as much as one can consider on an ia64. Anyway your
luck with it might be different.

Modified-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

(finished the conversion)

Signed-off-by: Jes Sorensen <jes@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2006-01-09 15:59:24 -08:00
Eric Dumazet
5160ee6fc8 [PATCH] shrink dentry struct
Some long time ago, dentry struct was carefully tuned so that on 32 bits
UP, sizeof(struct dentry) was exactly 128, ie a power of 2, and a multiple
of memory cache lines.

Then RCU was added and dentry struct enlarged by two pointers, with nice
results for SMP, but not so good on UP, because breaking the above tuning
(128 + 8 = 136 bytes)

This patch reverts this unwanted side effect, by using an union (d_u),
where d_rcu and d_child are placed so that these two fields can share their
memory needs.

At the time d_free() is called (and d_rcu is really used), d_child is known
to be empty and not touched by the dentry freeing.

Lockless lookups only access d_name, d_parent, d_lock, d_op, d_flags (so
the previous content of d_child is not needed if said dentry was unhashed
but still accessed by a CPU because of RCU constraints)

As dentry cache easily contains millions of entries, a size reduction is
worth the extra complexity of the ugly C union.

Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <dada1@cosmosbay.com>
Cc: Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@in.ibm.com>
Cc: Maneesh Soni <maneesh@in.ibm.com>
Cc: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>
Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net>
Cc: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no>
Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@cse.unsw.edu.au>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@epoch.ncsc.mil>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:58 -08:00
Paul Jackson
03a285f580 [PATCH] cpuset: skip rcu check if task is in root cpuset
For systems that aren't using cpusets, but have them CONFIG_CPUSET enabled in
their kernel (eventually this may be most distribution kernels), this patch
removes even the minimal rcu_read_lock() from the memory page allocation path.

Actually, it removes that rcu call for any task that is in the root cpuset
(top_cpuset), which on systems not actively using cpusets, is all tasks.

We don't need the rcu check for tasks in the top_cpuset, because the
top_cpuset is statically allocated, so at no risk of being freed out from
underneath us.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:45 -08:00
Paul Jackson
7edc59628b [PATCH] cpuset: mark number_of_cpusets read_mostly
Mark cpuset global 'number_of_cpusets' as __read_mostly.

This global is accessed everytime a zone is considered in the zonelist loops
beneath __alloc_pages, looking for a free memory page.  If number_of_cpusets
is just one, then we can short circuit the mems_allowed check.

Since this global is read alot on a hot path, and written rarely, it is an
excellent candidate for __read_mostly.

Thanks to Christoph Lameter for the suggestion.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:45 -08:00
Paul Jackson
6b9c2603ce [PATCH] cpuset: use rcu directly optimization
Optimize the cpuset impact on page allocation, the most performance critical
cpuset hook in the kernel.

On each page allocation, the cpuset hook needs to check for a possible change
in the current tasks cpuset.  It can now handle the common case, of no change,
without taking any spinlock or semaphore, thanks to RCU.

Convert a spinlock on the current task to an rcu_read_lock(), saving
approximately a memory barrier and an atomic op, depending on architecture.

This is done by adding rcu_assign_pointer() and synchronize_rcu() calls to the
write side of the task->cpuset pointer, in cpuset.c:attach_task(), to delay
freeing up a detached cpuset until after any critical sections referencing
that pointer.

Thanks to Andi Kleen, Nick Piggin and Eric Dumazet for ideas.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:45 -08:00
Paul Jackson
c417f0242e [PATCH] cpuset: remove test for null cpuset from alloc code path
Remove a couple of more lines of code from the cpuset hooks in the page
allocation code path.

There was a check for a NULL cpuset pointer in the routine
cpuset_update_task_memory_state() that was only needed during system boot,
after the memory subsystem was initialized, before the cpuset subsystem was
initialized, to catch a NULL task->cpuset pointer.

Add a cpuset_init_early() routine, just before the mem_init() call in
init/main.c, that sets up just enough of the init tasks cpuset structure to
render cpuset_update_task_memory_state() calls harmless.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
04c19fa6f1 [PATCH] cpuset: migrate all tasks in cpuset at once
Given the mechanism in the previous patch to handle rebinding the per-vma
mempolicies of all tasks in a cpuset that changes its memory placement, it is
now easier to handle the page migration requirements of such tasks at the same
time.

The previous code didn't actually attempt to migrate the pages of the tasks in
a cpuset whose memory placement changed until the next time each such task
tried to allocate memory.  This was undesirable, as users invoking memory page
migration exected to happen when the placement changed, not some unspecified
time later when the task needed more memory.

It is now trivial to handle the page migration at the same time as the per-vma
rebinding is done.

The routine cpuset.c:update_nodemask(), which handles changing a cpusets
memory placement ('mems') now checks for the special case of being asked to
write a placement that is the same as before.  It was harmless enough before
to just recompute everything again, even though nothing had changed.  But page
migration is a heavy weight operation - moving pages about.  So now it is
worth avoiding that if asked to move a cpuset to its current location.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
4225399a66 [PATCH] cpuset: rebind vma mempolicies fix
Fix more of longstanding bug in cpuset/mempolicy interaction.

NUMA mempolicies (mm/mempolicy.c) are constrained by the current tasks cpuset
to just the Memory Nodes allowed by that cpuset.  The kernel maintains
internal state for each mempolicy, tracking what nodes are used for the
MPOL_INTERLEAVE, MPOL_BIND or MPOL_PREFERRED policies.

When a tasks cpuset memory placement changes, whether because the cpuset
changed, or because the task was attached to a different cpuset, then the
tasks mempolicies have to be rebound to the new cpuset placement, so as to
preserve the cpuset-relative numbering of the nodes in that policy.

An earlier fix handled such mempolicy rebinding for mempolicies attached to a
task.

This fix rebinds mempolicies attached to vma's (address ranges in a tasks
address space.) Due to the need to hold the task->mm->mmap_sem semaphore while
updating vma's, the rebinding of vma mempolicies has to be done when the
cpuset memory placement is changed, at which time mmap_sem can be safely
acquired.  The tasks mempolicy is rebound later, when the task next attempts
to allocate memory and notices that its task->cpuset_mems_generation is
out-of-date with its cpusets mems_generation.

Because walking the tasklist to find all tasks attached to a changing cpuset
requires holding tasklist_lock, a spinlock, one cannot update the vma's of the
affected tasks while doing the tasklist scan.  In general, one cannot acquire
a semaphore (which can sleep) while already holding a spinlock (such as
tasklist_lock).  So a list of mm references has to be built up during the
tasklist scan, then the tasklist lock dropped, then for each mm, its mmap_sem
acquired, and the vma's in that mm rebound.

Once the tasklist lock is dropped, affected tasks may fork new tasks, before
their mm's are rebound.  A kernel global 'cpuset_being_rebound' is set to
point to the cpuset being rebound (there can only be one; cpuset modifications
are done under a global 'manage_sem' semaphore), and the mpol_copy code that
is used to copy a tasks mempolicies during fork catches such forking tasks,
and ensures their children are also rebound.

When a task is moved to a different cpuset, it is easier, as there is only one
task involved.  It's mm->vma's are scanned, using the same
mpol_rebind_policy() as used above.

It may happen that both the mpol_copy hook and the update done via the
tasklist scan update the same mm twice.  This is ok, as the mempolicies of
each vma in an mm keep track of what mems_allowed they are relative to, and
safely no-op a second request to rebind to the same nodes.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
202f72d5d1 [PATCH] cpuset: number_of_cpusets optimization
Easy little optimization hack to avoid actually having to call
cpuset_zone_allowed() and check mems_allowed, in the main page allocation
routine, __alloc_pages().  This saves several CPU cycles per page allocation
on systems not using cpusets.

A counter is updated each time a cpuset is created or removed, and whenever
there is only one cpuset in the system, it must be the root cpuset, which
contains all CPUs and all Memory Nodes.  In that case, when the counter is
one, all allocations are allowed.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
74cb21553f [PATCH] cpuset: numa_policy_rebind cleanup
Cleanup, reorganize and make more robust the mempolicy.c code to rebind
mempolicies relative to the containing cpuset after a tasks memory placement
changes.

The real motivator for this cleanup patch is to lay more groundwork for the
upcoming patch to correctly rebind NUMA mempolicies that are attached to vma's
after the containing cpuset memory placement changes.

NUMA mempolicies are constrained by the cpuset their task is a member of.
When either (1) a task is moved to a different cpuset, or (2) the 'mems'
mems_allowed of a cpuset is changed, then the NUMA mempolicies have embedded
node numbers (for MPOL_BIND, MPOL_INTERLEAVE and MPOL_PREFERRED) that need to
be recalculated, relative to their new cpuset placement.

The old code used an unreliable method of determining what was the old
mems_allowed constraining the mempolicy.  It just looked at the tasks
mems_allowed value.  This sort of worked with the present code, that just
rebinds the -task- mempolicy, and leaves any -vma- mempolicies broken,
referring to the old nodes.  But in an upcoming patch, the vma mempolicies
will be rebound as well.  Then the order in which the various task and vma
mempolicies are updated will no longer be deterministic, and one can no longer
count on the task->mems_allowed holding the old value for as long as needed.
It's not even clear if the current code was guaranteed to work reliably for
task mempolicies.

So I added a mems_allowed field to each mempolicy, stating exactly what
mems_allowed the policy is relative to, and updated synchronously and reliably
anytime that the mempolicy is rebound.

Also removed a useless wrapper routine, numa_policy_rebind(), and had its
caller, cpuset_update_task_memory_state(), call directly to the rewritten
policy_rebind() routine, and made that rebind routine extern instead of
static, and added a "mpol_" prefix to its name, making it
mpol_rebind_policy().

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
909d75a3b7 [PATCH] cpuset: implement cpuset_mems_allowed
Provide a cpuset_mems_allowed() method, which the sys_migrate_pages() code
needed, to obtain the mems_allowed vector of a cpuset, and replaced the
workaround in sys_migrate_pages() to call this new method.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:44 -08:00
Paul Jackson
cf2a473c40 [PATCH] cpuset: combine refresh_mems and update_mems
The important code paths through alloc_pages_current() and alloc_page_vma(),
by which most kernel page allocations go, both called
cpuset_update_current_mems_allowed(), which in turn called refresh_mems().
-Both- of these latter two routines did a tasklock, got the tasks cpuset
pointer, and checked for out of date cpuset->mems_generation.

That was a silly duplication of code and waste of CPU cycles on an important
code path.

Consolidated those two routines into a single routine, called
cpuset_update_task_memory_state(), since it updates more than just
mems_allowed.

Changed all callers of either routine to call the new consolidated routine.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:43 -08:00
Paul Jackson
b4b2641843 [PATCH] cpuset: fork hook fix
Fix obscure, never seen in real life, cpuset fork race.  The cpuset_fork()
call in fork.c was setting up the correct task->cpuset pointer after the
tasklist_lock was dropped, which briefly exposed the newly forked process with
an unsafe (copied from parent without locks or usage counter increment) cpuset
pointer.

In theory, that exposed cpuset pointer could have been pointing at a cpuset
that was already freed and removed, and in theory another task that had been
sitting on the tasklist_lock waiting to scan the task list could have raced
down the entire tasklist, found our new child at the far end, and dereferenced
that bogus cpuset pointer.

To fix, setup up the correct cpuset pointer in the new child by calling
cpuset_fork() before the new task is linked into the tasklist, and with that,
add a fork failure case, to dereference that cpuset, if the fork fails along
the way, after cpuset_fork() was called.

Had to remove a BUG_ON() from cpuset_exit(), because it was no longer valid -
the call to cpuset_exit() from a failed fork would not have PF_EXITING set.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:43 -08:00
Paul Jackson
59dac16fb9 [PATCH] cpuset: update_nodemask code reformat
Restructure code layout of the kernel/cpuset.c update_nodemask() routine,
removing embedded returns and nested if's in favor of goto completion labels.
This is being done in anticipation of adding more logic to this routine, which
will favor the goto style structure.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:43 -08:00
Paul Jackson
c5b2aff896 [PATCH] cpuset: minor spacing initializer fixes
Four trivial cpuset fixes: remove extra spaces, remove useless initializers,
mark one __read_mostly.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:43 -08:00
Paul Jackson
3e0d98b9f1 [PATCH] cpuset: memory pressure meter
Provide a simple per-cpuset metric of memory pressure, tracking the -rate-
that the tasks in a cpuset call try_to_free_pages(), the synchronous
(direct) memory reclaim code.

This enables batch managers monitoring jobs running in dedicated cpusets to
efficiently detect what level of memory pressure that job is causing.

This is useful both on tightly managed systems running a wide mix of
submitted jobs, which may choose to terminate or reprioritize jobs that are
trying to use more memory than allowed on the nodes assigned them, and with
tightly coupled, long running, massively parallel scientific computing jobs
that will dramatically fail to meet required performance goals if they
start to use more memory than allowed to them.

This patch just provides a very economical way for the batch manager to
monitor a cpuset for signs of memory pressure.  It's up to the batch
manager or other user code to decide what to do about it and take action.

==> Unless this feature is enabled by writing "1" to the special file
    /dev/cpuset/memory_pressure_enabled, the hook in the rebalance
    code of __alloc_pages() for this metric reduces to simply noticing
    that the cpuset_memory_pressure_enabled flag is zero.  So only
    systems that enable this feature will compute the metric.

Why a per-cpuset, running average:

    Because this meter is per-cpuset, rather than per-task or mm, the
    system load imposed by a batch scheduler monitoring this metric is
    sharply reduced on large systems, because a scan of the tasklist can be
    avoided on each set of queries.

    Because this meter is a running average, instead of an accumulating
    counter, a batch scheduler can detect memory pressure with a single
    read, instead of having to read and accumulate results for a period of
    time.

    Because this meter is per-cpuset rather than per-task or mm, the
    batch scheduler can obtain the key information, memory pressure in a
    cpuset, with a single read, rather than having to query and accumulate
    results over all the (dynamically changing) set of tasks in the cpuset.

A per-cpuset simple digital filter (requires a spinlock and 3 words of data
per-cpuset) is kept, and updated by any task attached to that cpuset, if it
enters the synchronous (direct) page reclaim code.

A per-cpuset file provides an integer number representing the recent
(half-life of 10 seconds) rate of direct page reclaims caused by the tasks
in the cpuset, in units of reclaims attempted per second, times 1000.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:42 -08:00