Re: [RFC PATCH 2/2] mm, vmstat: reduce zone->lock holding time by /proc/pagetypeinfo

From: Waiman Long
Date: Wed Oct 23 2019 - 11:21:11 EST


On 10/23/19 10:56 AM, Waiman Long wrote:
> On 10/23/19 6:27 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
>> From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
>>
>> pagetypeinfo_showfree_print is called by zone->lock held in irq mode.
>> This is not really nice because it blocks both any interrupts on that
>> cpu and the page allocator. On large machines this might even trigger
>> the hard lockup detector.
>>
>> Considering the pagetypeinfo is a debugging tool we do not really need
>> exact numbers here. The primary reason to look at the outuput is to see
>> how pageblocks are spread among different migratetypes therefore putting
>> a bound on the number of pages on the free_list sounds like a reasonable
>> tradeoff.
>>
>> The new output will simply tell
>> [...]
>> Node 6, zone Normal, type Movable >100000 >100000 >100000 >100000 41019 31560 23996 10054 3229 983 648
>>
>> instead of
>> Node 6, zone Normal, type Movable 399568 294127 221558 102119 41019 31560 23996 10054 3229 983 648
>>
>> The limit has been chosen arbitrary and it is a subject of a future
>> change should there be a need for that.
>>
>> Suggested-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
>> ---
>> mm/vmstat.c | 19 ++++++++++++++++++-
>> 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/mm/vmstat.c b/mm/vmstat.c
>> index 4e885ecd44d1..762034fc3b83 100644
>> --- a/mm/vmstat.c
>> +++ b/mm/vmstat.c
>> @@ -1386,8 +1386,25 @@ static void pagetypeinfo_showfree_print(struct seq_file *m,
>>
>> area = &(zone->free_area[order]);
>>
>> - list_for_each(curr, &area->free_list[mtype])
>> + list_for_each(curr, &area->free_list[mtype]) {
>> freecount++;
>> + /*
>> + * Cap the free_list iteration because it might
>> + * be really large and we are under a spinlock
>> + * so a long time spent here could trigger a
>> + * hard lockup detector. Anyway this is a
>> + * debugging tool so knowing there is a handful
>> + * of pages in this order should be more than
>> + * sufficient
>> + */
>> + if (freecount > 100000) {
>> + seq_printf(m, ">%6lu ", freecount);

It will print ">100001" which seems a bit awk and will be incorrect if
it is exactly 100001. Could you just hardcode ">100000" into seq_printf()?

Cheers,
Longman