Re: [BUGFIX][PATCH 5/5] memcg: fix percpu cached charge drainingfrequency

From: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
Date: Tue Jun 14 2011 - 20:19:52 EST


On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:36:51 +0200
Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Mon 13-06-11 12:16:48, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki wrote:
> > From 18b12e53f1cdf6d7feed1f9226c189c34866338c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 11:25:43 +0900
> > Subject: [PATCH 5/5] memcg: fix percpu cached charge draining frequency
> >
> > For performance, memory cgroup caches some "charge" from res_counter
> > into per cpu cache. This works well but because it's cache,
> > it needs to be flushed in some cases. Typical cases are
> > 1. when someone hit limit.
> > 2. when rmdir() is called and need to charges to be 0.
> >
> > But "1" has problem.
> >
> > Recently, with large SMP machines, we see many kworker runs because
> > of flushing memcg's cache. Bad things in implementation are
> > that even if a cpu contains a cache for memcg not related to
> > a memcg which hits limit, drain code is called.
> >
> > This patch does
> > D) don't call at softlimit reclaim.
>
> I think this needs some justification. The decision is not that
> obvious IMO. I would say that this is a good decision because cached
> charges will not help to free any memory (at least not directly) during
> background reclaim. What about something like:
> "
> We are not draining per cpu cached charges during soft limit reclaim
> because background reclaim doesn't care about charges. It tries to free
> some memory and charges will not give any.
> Cached charges might influence only selection of the biggest soft limit
> offender but as the call is done only after the selection has been
> already done it makes no change.
> "
>
> Anyway, wouldn't it be better to have this change separate from the
> async draining logic change?

Hmm. I think calling "draining" at softlimit is just a bug.

Thanks,
-Kame


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