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252c5f94d9
We noticed very erratic behavior [throughput] with the AIM7 shared workload running on recent distro [SLES11] and mainline kernels on an 8-socket, 32-core, 256GB x86_64 platform. On the SLES11 kernel [2.6.27.19+] with Barcelona processors, as we increased the load [10s of thousands of tasks], the throughput would vary between two "plateaus"--one at ~65K jobs per minute and one at ~130K jpm. The simple patch below causes the results to smooth out at the ~130k plateau. But wait, there's more: We do not see this behavior on smaller platforms--e.g., 4 socket/8 core. This could be the result of the larger number of cpus on the larger platform--a scalability issue--or it could be the result of the larger number of interconnect "hops" between some nodes in this platform and how the tasks for a given load end up distributed over the nodes' cpus and memories--a stochastic NUMA effect. The variability in the results are less pronounced [on the same platform] with Shanghai processors and with mainline kernels. With 31-rc6 on Shanghai processors and 288 file systems on 288 fibre attached storage volumes, the curves [jpm vs load] are both quite flat with the patched kernel consistently producing ~3.9% better throughput [~80K jpm vs ~77K jpm] than the unpatched kernel. Profiling indicated that the "slow" runs were incurring high[er] contention on an anon_vma lock in vma_adjust(), apparently called from the sbrk() system call. The patch: A comment in mm/mmap.c:vma_adjust() suggests that we don't really need the anon_vma lock when we're only adjusting the end of a vma, as is the case for brk(). The comment questions whether it's worth while to optimize for this case. Apparently, on the newer, larger x86_64 platforms, with interesting NUMA topologies, it is worth while--especially considering that the patch [if correct!] is quite simple. We can detect this condition--no overlap with next vma--by noting a NULL "importer". The anon_vma pointer will also be NULL in this case, so simply avoid loading vma->anon_vma to avoid the lock. However, we DO need to take the anon_vma lock when we're inserting a vma ['insert' non-NULL] even when we have no overlap [NULL "importer"], so we need to check for 'insert', as well. And Hugh points out that we should also take it when adjusting vm_start (so that rmap.c can rely upon vma_address() while it holds the anon_vma lock). akpm: Zhang Yanmin reprts a 150% throughput improvement with aim7, so it might be -stable material even though thiss isn't a regression: "this issue is not clear on dual socket Nehalem machine (2*4*2 cpu), but is severe on large machine (4*8*2 cpu)" [hugh.dickins@tiscali.co.uk: test vma start too] Signed-off-by: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com> Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh.dickins@tiscali.co.uk> Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> Cc: Eric Whitney <eric.whitney@hp.com> Tested-by: "Zhang, Yanmin" <yanmin_zhang@linux.intel.com> Cc: <stable@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> |
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| .. | ||
| allocpercpu.c | ||
| backing-dev.c | ||
| bootmem.c | ||
| bounce.c | ||
| debug-pagealloc.c | ||
| dmapool.c | ||
| fadvise.c | ||
| failslab.c | ||
| filemap_xip.c | ||
| filemap.c | ||
| fremap.c | ||
| highmem.c | ||
| hugetlb.c | ||
| init-mm.c | ||
| internal.h | ||
| Kconfig | ||
| Kconfig.debug | ||
| kmemcheck.c | ||
| kmemleak-test.c | ||
| kmemleak.c | ||
| ksm.c | ||
| maccess.c | ||
| madvise.c | ||
| Makefile | ||
| memcontrol.c | ||
| memory_hotplug.c | ||
| memory.c | ||
| mempolicy.c | ||
| mempool.c | ||
| migrate.c | ||
| mincore.c | ||
| mlock.c | ||
| mm_init.c | ||
| mmap.c | ||
| mmu_notifier.c | ||
| mmzone.c | ||
| mprotect.c | ||
| mremap.c | ||
| msync.c | ||
| nommu.c | ||
| oom_kill.c | ||
| page_alloc.c | ||
| page_cgroup.c | ||
| page_io.c | ||
| page_isolation.c | ||
| page-writeback.c | ||
| pagewalk.c | ||
| percpu.c | ||
| prio_tree.c | ||
| quicklist.c | ||
| readahead.c | ||
| rmap.c | ||
| shmem_acl.c | ||
| shmem.c | ||
| slab.c | ||
| slob.c | ||
| slub.c | ||
| sparse-vmemmap.c | ||
| sparse.c | ||
| swap_state.c | ||
| swap.c | ||
| swapfile.c | ||
| thrash.c | ||
| truncate.c | ||
| util.c | ||
| vmalloc.c | ||
| vmscan.c | ||
| vmstat.c | ||