[RFC v15.1 8/8] Docs/admin-guide/mm/damon: Document DAMON-based Operation Schemes

From: SeongJae Park
Date: Wed Dec 16 2020 - 03:48:12 EST


From: SeongJae Park <sjpark@xxxxxxxxx>

This commit add description of DAMON-based operation schemes in the
DAMON documents.

Signed-off-by: SeongJae Park <sjpark@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/guide.rst | 41 ++++++-
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.rst | 11 ++
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/usage.rst | 109 ++++++++++++++++++-
Documentation/vm/damon/index.rst | 1 -
4 files changed, 156 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/guide.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/guide.rst
index c51fb843efaa..1f9aa2ebbdb6 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/guide.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/guide.rst
@@ -53,6 +53,11 @@ heats``. If it shows a simple pattern consists of a small number of memory
regions having high contrast of access temperature, you could consider manual
`Program Modification`_.

+If the access pattern is very frequently changing so that you cannot figure out
+what is the performance important region using your human eye, `Automated
+DAMON-based Memory Operations`_ might help the case owing to its machine-level
+microscope view.
+
If you still want to absorb more benefits, you should develop `Personalized
DAMON Application`_ for your special case.

@@ -120,6 +125,36 @@ shows the visualized access patterns of streamcluster workload in PARSEC3
benchmark suite. We can easily identify the 100 MiB sized hot object.


+Automated DAMON-based Memory Operations
+---------------------------------------
+
+Though `Manual Program Optimization` works well in many cases and DAMON can
+help it, modifying the source code is not a good option in many cases. First
+of all, the source code could be too old or unavailable. And, many workloads
+will have complex data access patterns that even hard to distinguish hot memory
+objects and cold memory objects with the human eye. Finding the mapping from
+the visualized access pattern to the source code and injecting the hinting
+system calls inside the code will also be quite challenging.
+
+By using DAMON-based operation schemes (DAMOS) via ``damo schemes``, you will
+be able to easily optimize your workload in such a case. Our example schemes
+called 'efficient THP' and 'proactive reclamation' achieved significant speedup
+and memory space saves against 25 realistic workloads [2]_.
+
+That said, note that you need careful tune of the schemes (e.g., target region
+size and age) and monitoring attributes for the successful use of this
+approach. Because the optimal values of the parameters will be dependent on
+each system and workload, misconfiguring the parameters could result in worse
+memory management.
+
+For the tuning, you could measure the performance metrics such as IPC, TLB
+misses, and swap in/out events and adjusts the parameters based on their
+changes. The total number and the total size of the regions that each scheme
+is applied, which are provided via the debugfs interface and the programming
+interface can also be useful. Writing a program automating this optimal
+parameter could be an option.
+
+
Personalized DAMON Application
------------------------------

@@ -146,9 +181,9 @@ Referencing previously done successful practices could help you getting the
sense for this kind of optimizations. There is an academic paper [1]_
reporting the visualized access pattern and manual `Program
Modification`_ results for a number of realistic workloads. You can also get
-the visualized access patterns [3]_ [4]_ [5]_ and automated DAMON-based memory
-operations results for other realistic workloads that collected with latest
-version of DAMON [2]_ .
+the visualized access patterns [3]_ [4]_ [5]_ and
+`Automated DAMON-based Memory Operations`_ results for other realistic
+workloads that collected with latest version of DAMON [2]_ .

.. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3366626.3368125
.. [2] https://damonitor.github.io/test/result/perf/latest/html/
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.rst
index deed2ea2321e..35cf4e4ca6aa 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.rst
@@ -90,6 +90,17 @@ image files. ::
You can show the images in a web page [1]_ . Those made with other realistic
workloads are also available [2]_ [3]_ [4]_.

+
+Data Access Pattern Aware Memory Management
+===========================================
+
+Below three commands make every memory region of size >=4K that doesn't
+accessed for >=60 seconds in your workload to be swapped out. ::
+
+ $ echo "#min-size max-size min-acc max-acc min-age max-age action" > scheme
+ $ echo "4K max 0 0 60s max pageout" >> scheme
+ $ damo schemes -c my_thp_scheme <pid of your workload>
+
.. [1] https://damonitor.github.io/doc/html/v17/admin-guide/mm/damon/start.html#visualizing-recorded-patterns
.. [2] https://damonitor.github.io/test/result/visual/latest/rec.heatmap.1.png.html
.. [3] https://damonitor.github.io/test/result/visual/latest/rec.wss_sz.png.html
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/usage.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/usage.rst
index a6606d27a559..96278227f925 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/usage.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/damon/usage.rst
@@ -219,11 +219,70 @@ Similar to that of ``heats --heatmap``, it also supports 'gnuplot' based simple
visualization of the distribution via ``--plot`` option.


+DAMON-based Operation Schemes
+-----------------------------
+
+The ``schemes`` subcommand allows users to do DAMON-based memory management
+optimizations in a few seconds. Similar to ``record``, it receives monitoring
+attributes and target. However, in addition to those, ``schemes`` receives
+data access pattern-based memory operation schemes, which describes what memory
+operation action should be applied to memory regions showing specific data
+access pattern. Then, it starts the data access monitoring and automatically
+applies the schemes to the targets.
+
+The operation schemes should be saved in a text file in below format and passed
+to ``schemes`` subcommand via ``--schemes`` option. ::
+
+ min-size max-size min-acc max-acc min-age max-age action
+
+The format also supports comments, several units for size and age of regions,
+and human readable action names. Currently supported operation actions are
+``willneed``, ``cold``, ``pageout``, ``hugepage`` and ``nohugepage``. Each of
+the actions works same to the madvise() system call hints having the name.
+Please also note that the range is inclusive (closed interval), and ``0`` for
+max values means infinite. Below example schemes are possible. ::
+
+ # format is:
+ # <min/max size> <min/max frequency (0-100)> <min/max age> <action>
+ #
+ # B/K/M/G/T for Bytes/KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB
+ # us/ms/s/m/h/d for micro-seconds/milli-seconds/seconds/minutes/hours/days
+ # 'min/max' for possible min/max value.
+
+ # if a region keeps a high access frequency for >=100ms, put the region on
+ # the head of the LRU list (call madvise() with MADV_WILLNEED).
+ min max 80 max 100ms max willneed
+
+ # if a region keeps a low access frequency for >=200ms and <=one hour, put
+ # the region on the tail of the LRU list (call madvise() with MADV_COLD).
+ min max 10 20 200ms 1h cold
+
+ # if a region keeps a very low access frequency for >=60 seconds, swap out
+ # the region immediately (call madvise() with MADV_PAGEOUT).
+ min max 0 10 60s max pageout
+
+ # if a region of a size >=2MiB keeps a very high access frequency for
+ # >=100ms, let the region to use huge pages (call madvise() with
+ # MADV_HUGEPAGE).
+ 2M max 90 100 100ms max hugepage
+
+ # If a regions of a size >=2MiB keeps small access frequency for >=100ms,
+ # avoid the region using huge pages (call madvise() with MADV_NOHUGEPAGE).
+ 2M max 0 25 100ms max nohugepage
+
+For example, you can make a running process named 'foo' to use huge pages for
+memory regions keeping 2MB or larger size and having very high access frequency
+for at least 100 milliseconds using below commands::
+
+ $ echo "2M max 90 max 100ms max hugepage" > my_thp_scheme
+ $ ./damo schemes --schemes my_thp_scheme `pidof foo`
+
+
debugfs Interface
=================

-DAMON exports four files, ``attrs``, ``target_ids``, ``record``, and
-``monitor_on`` under its debugfs directory, ``<debugfs>/damon/``.
+DAMON exports five files, ``attrs``, ``target_ids``, ``record``, ``schemes``
+and ``monitor_on`` under its debugfs directory, ``<debugfs>/damon/``.


Attributes
@@ -280,6 +339,52 @@ saved in ``/damon.data``. ::
The recording can be disabled by setting the buffer size zero.


+Schemes
+-------
+
+For usual DAMON-based data access aware memory management optimizations, users
+would simply want the system to apply a memory management action to a memory
+region of a specific size having a specific access frequency for a specific
+time. DAMON receives such formalized operation schemes from the user and
+applies those to the target processes. It also counts the total number and
+size of regions that each scheme is applied. This statistics can be used for
+online analysis or tuning of the schemes.
+
+Users can get and set the schemes by reading from and writing to ``schemes``
+debugfs file. Reading the file also shows the statistics of each scheme. To
+the file, each of the schemes should be represented in each line in below form:
+
+ min-size max-size min-acc max-acc min-age max-age action
+
+Note that the ranges are closed interval. Bytes for the size of regions
+(``min-size`` and ``max-size``), number of monitored accesses per aggregate
+interval for access frequency (``min-acc`` and ``max-acc``), number of
+aggregate intervals for the age of regions (``min-age`` and ``max-age``), and a
+predefined integer for memory management actions should be used. The supported
+numbers and their meanings are as below.
+
+ - 0: Call ``madvise()`` for the region with ``MADV_WILLNEED``
+ - 1: Call ``madvise()`` for the region with ``MADV_COLD``
+ - 2: Call ``madvise()`` for the region with ``MADV_PAGEOUT``
+ - 3: Call ``madvise()`` for the region with ``MADV_HUGEPAGE``
+ - 4: Call ``madvise()`` for the region with ``MADV_NOHUGEPAGE``
+ - 5: Do nothing but count the statistics
+
+You can disable schemes by simply writing an empty string to the file. For
+example, below commands applies a scheme saying "If a memory region of size in
+[4KiB, 8KiB] is showing accesses per aggregate interval in [0, 5] for aggregate
+interval in [10, 20], page out the region", check the entered scheme again, and
+finally remove the scheme. ::
+
+ # cd <debugfs>/damon
+ # echo "4096 8192 0 5 10 20 2" > schemes
+ # cat schemes
+ 4096 8192 0 5 10 20 2 0 0
+ # echo > schemes
+
+The last two integers in the 4th line of above example is the total number and
+the total size of the regions that the scheme is applied.
+
Turning On/Off
--------------

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/damon/index.rst b/Documentation/vm/damon/index.rst
index 17dca3c12aad..69aec1287aaf 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/damon/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/vm/damon/index.rst
@@ -28,4 +28,3 @@ workloads and systems.
design
eval
api
- plans
--
2.17.1