change zonelist order: zonelist order selection logic

Make zonelist creation policy selectable from sysctl/boot option v6.

This patch makes NUMA's zonelist (of pgdat) order selectable.
Available order are Default(automatic)/ Node-based / Zone-based.

[Default Order]
The kernel selects Node-based or Zone-based order automatically.

[Node-based Order]
This policy treats the locality of memory as the most important parameter.
Zonelist order is created by each zone's locality. This means lower zones
(ex. ZONE_DMA) can be used before higher zone (ex. ZONE_NORMAL) exhausion.
IOW. ZONE_DMA will be in the middle of zonelist.
current 2.6.21 kernel uses this.

Pros.
 * A user can expect local memory as much as possible.
Cons.
 * lower zone will be exhansted before higher zone. This may cause OOM_KILL.

Maybe suitable if ZONE_DMA is relatively big and you never see OOM_KILL
because of ZONE_DMA exhaution and you need the best locality.

(example)
assume 2 node NUMA. node(0) has ZONE_DMA/ZONE_NORMAL, node(1) has ZONE_NORMAL.

*node(0)'s memory allocation order:

 node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA -> node(1)'s NORMAL.

*node(1)'s memory allocation order:

 node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

[Zone-based order]
This policy treats the zone type as the most important parameter.
Zonelist order is created by zone-type order. This means lower zone
never be used bofere higher zone exhaustion.
IOW. ZONE_DMA will be always at the tail of zonelist.

Pros.
 * OOM_KILL(bacause of lower zone) occurs only if the whole zones are exhausted.
Cons.
 * memory locality may not be best.

(example)
assume 2 node NUMA. node(0) has ZONE_DMA/ZONE_NORMAL, node(1) has ZONE_NORMAL.

*node(0)'s memory allocation order:

 node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

*node(1)'s memory allocation order:

 node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

bootoption "numa_zonelist_order=" and proc/sysctl is supporetd.

command:
%echo N > /proc/sys/vm/numa_zonelist_order

Will rebuild zonelist in Node-based order.

command:
%echo Z > /proc/sys/vm/numa_zonelist_order

Will rebuild zonelist in Zone-based order.

Thanks to Lee Schermerhorn, he gives me much help and codes.

[Lee.Schermerhorn@hp.com: add check_highest_zone to build_zonelists_in_zone_order]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fix]
Signed-off-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
Cc: "jesse.barnes@intel.com" <jesse.barnes@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This commit is contained in:
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
2007-07-15 23:38:01 -07:00
committed by Linus Torvalds
parent 18a8bd949d
commit f0c0b2b808
5 changed files with 317 additions and 22 deletions

View File

@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
- min_slab_ratio
- panic_on_oom
- mmap_min_address
- numa_zonelist_order
==============================================================
@@ -231,3 +232,47 @@ security module. Setting this value to something like 64k will allow the
vast majority of applications to work correctly and provide defense in depth
against future potential kernel bugs.
==============================================================
numa_zonelist_order
This sysctl is only for NUMA.
'where the memory is allocated from' is controlled by zonelists.
(This documentation ignores ZONE_HIGHMEM/ZONE_DMA32 for simple explanation.
you may be able to read ZONE_DMA as ZONE_DMA32...)
In non-NUMA case, a zonelist for GFP_KERNEL is ordered as following.
ZONE_NORMAL -> ZONE_DMA
This means that a memory allocation request for GFP_KERNEL will
get memory from ZONE_DMA only when ZONE_NORMAL is not available.
In NUMA case, you can think of following 2 types of order.
Assume 2 node NUMA and below is zonelist of Node(0)'s GFP_KERNEL
(A) Node(0) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(0) ZONE_DMA -> Node(1) ZONE_NORMAL
(B) Node(0) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(1) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(0) ZONE_DMA.
Type(A) offers the best locality for processes on Node(0), but ZONE_DMA
will be used before ZONE_NORMAL exhaustion. This increases possibility of
out-of-memory(OOM) of ZONE_DMA because ZONE_DMA is tend to be small.
Type(B) cannot offer the best locality but is more robust against OOM of
the DMA zone.
Type(A) is called as "Node" order. Type (B) is "Zone" order.
"Node order" orders the zonelists by node, then by zone within each node.
Specify "[Nn]ode" for zone order
"Zone Order" orders the zonelists by zone type, then by node within each
zone. Specify "[Zz]one"for zode order.
Specify "[Dd]efault" to request automatic configuration. Autoconfiguration
will select "node" order in following case.
(1) if the DMA zone does not exist or
(2) if the DMA zone comprises greater than 50% of the available memory or
(3) if any node's DMA zone comprises greater than 60% of its local memory and
the amount of local memory is big enough.
Otherwise, "zone" order will be selected. Default order is recommended unless
this is causing problems for your system/application.