Re: [PATCH -mmotm-2009-12-10-17-19] Prevent churning of zero page inLRU list.

From: Balbir Singh
Date: Sun Dec 27 2009 - 22:57:11 EST


* Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx> [2009-12-27 22:22:20]:

> On 12/27/2009 09:53 PM, Minchan Kim wrote:
> >
> >VM doesn't add zero page to LRU list.
> >It means zero page's churning in LRU list is pointless.
> >
> >As a matter of fact, zero page can't be promoted by mark_page_accessed
> >since it doesn't have PG_lru.
> >
> >This patch prevent unecessary mark_page_accessed call of zero page
> >alghouth caller want FOLL_TOUCH.
> >
> >Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim<minchan.kim@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> The code looks correct, but I wonder how frequently we run into
> the zero page in this code, vs. how much the added cost is of
> having this extra code in follow_page.
>
> What kind of problem were you running into that motivated you
> to write this patch?
>

Frequent moving of zero page should ideally put it to the head of the
LRU list, leaving it untouched is likely to cause it to be scanned
often - no? Should this be moved to the unevictable list?

--
Balbir
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