[PATCH] writeback: fix writeback cache thrashing

[Namjae Jeon]

From: Namjae Jeon <namjae.jeon@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Consider Process A: huge I/O on sda
        doing heavy write operation - dirty memory becomes more
        than dirty_background_ratio
        on HDD - flusher thread flush-8:0

Consider Process B: small I/O on sdb
        doing while [1]; read 1024K + rewrite 1024K + sleep 2sec
        on Flash device - flusher thread flush-8:16

As Process A is a heavy dirtier, dirty memory becomes more
than dirty_background_thresh. Due to this, below check becomes
true(checking global_page_state in over_bground_thresh)
for all bdi devices(even for very small dirtied bdi - sdb):

In this case, even small cached data on 'sdb' is forced to flush
and writeback cache thrashing happens.

When we added debug prints inside above 'if' condition and ran
above Process A(heavy dirtier on bdi with flush-8:0) and
Process B(1024K frequent read/rewrite on bdi with flush-8:16)
we got below prints:

[Test setup: ARM dual core CPU, 512 MB RAM]

[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  56064 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  56704 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 84720 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 94720 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   384 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   960 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =    64 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 92160 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   256 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   768 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =    64 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   256 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   320 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =     0 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 92032 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 91968 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   192 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  1024 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =    64 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   192 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   576 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =     0 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 84352 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   192 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =   512 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:16 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =     0 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 92608 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE = 92544 KB

As mentioned in above log, when global dirty memory > global background_thresh
small cached data is also forced to flush by flush-8:16.

If removing global background_thresh checking code, we can reduce cache
thrashing of frequently used small data.
And It will be great if we can reserve a portion of writeback cache using
min_ratio.

After applying patch:
$ echo 5 > /sys/block/sdb/bdi/min_ratio
$ cat /sys/block/sdb/bdi/min_ratio
5

[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  56064 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  56704 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  84160 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  96960 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  94080 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  93120 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  93120 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  91520 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  89600 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  93696 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  93696 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  72960 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  90624 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  90624 KB
[over_bground_thresh]: wakeup flush-8:0 : BDI_RECLAIMABLE =  90688 KB

As mentioned in the above logs, once cache is reserved for Process B,
and patch is applied there is less writeback cache thrashing on sdb
by frequent forced writeback by flush-8:16 in over_bground_thresh.

After all, small cached data will be flushed by periodic writeback
once every dirty_writeback_interval.

Suggested-by: Wanpeng Li <liwanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Namjae Jeon <namjae.jeon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Vivek Trivedi <t.vivek@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Dave Chinner <dchinner@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
 fs/fs-writeback.c |    4 ----
 1 file changed, 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/fs-writeback.c b/fs/fs-writeback.c
index 310972b..070b773 100644
--- a/fs/fs-writeback.c
+++ b/fs/fs-writeback.c
@@ -756,10 +756,6 @@ static bool over_bground_thresh(struct backing_dev_info *bdi)
 
 	global_dirty_limits(&background_thresh, &dirty_thresh);
 
-	if (global_page_state(NR_FILE_DIRTY) +
-	    global_page_state(NR_UNSTABLE_NFS) > background_thresh)
-		return true;
-
 	if (bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE) >
 				bdi_dirty_limit(bdi, background_thresh))
 		return true;
-- 
1.7.9.5

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