linux/mm
Christoph Lameter f8891e5e1f [PATCH] Light weight event counters
The remaining counters in page_state after the zoned VM counter patches
have been applied are all just for show in /proc/vmstat.  They have no
essential function for the VM.

We use a simple increment of per cpu variables.  In order to avoid the most
severe races we disable preempt.  Preempt does not prevent the race between
an increment and an interrupt handler incrementing the same statistics
counter.  However, that race is exceedingly rare, we may only loose one
increment or so and there is no requirement (at least not in kernel) that
the vm event counters have to be accurate.

In the non preempt case this results in a simple increment for each
counter.  For many architectures this will be reduced by the compiler to a
single instruction.  This single instruction is atomic for i386 and x86_64.
 And therefore even the rare race condition in an interrupt is avoided for
both architectures in most cases.

The patchset also adds an off switch for embedded systems that allows a
building of linux kernels without these counters.

The implementation of these counters is through inline code that hopefully
results in only a single instruction increment instruction being emitted
(i386, x86_64) or in the increment being hidden though instruction
concurrency (EPIC architectures such as ia64 can get that done).

Benefits:
- VM event counter operations usually reduce to a single inline instruction
  on i386 and x86_64.
- No interrupt disable, only preempt disable for the preempt case.
  Preempt disable can also be avoided by moving the counter into a spinlock.
- Handling is similar to zoned VM counters.
- Simple and easily extendable.
- Can be omitted to reduce memory use for embedded use.

References:

RFC http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113512330605497&w=2
RFC http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114988082814934&w=2
local_t http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114991748606690&w=2
V2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=115014808400007&r=1&w=2
V3 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115024767022346&w=2
V4 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115047968808926&w=2

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
..
bootmem.c [PATCH] x86_64: Handle empty PXMs that only contain hotplug memory 2006-04-09 11:53:16 -07:00
fadvise.c [PATCH] sys_sync_file_range() 2006-03-31 12:18:54 -08:00
filemap_xip.c [PATCH] mark address_space_operations const 2006-06-28 14:59:04 -07:00
filemap.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
filemap.h [PATCH] generic_file_buffered_write(): handle zero-length iovec segments 2006-06-29 10:26:20 -07:00
fremap.c [PATCH] fix update_mmu_cache in fremap.c 2006-06-23 07:42:52 -07:00
highmem.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: conversion of nr_bounce to per zone counter 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
hugetlb.c [PATCH] tightening hugetlb strict accounting 2006-06-23 07:42:48 -07:00
internal.h [PATCH] remove set_page_count() outside mm/ 2006-03-22 07:54:02 -08:00
Kconfig Merge master.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/pci-2.6 2006-06-29 10:49:17 -07:00
madvise.c [PATCH] Fix MADV_REMOVE protection checking 2006-04-17 18:22:18 -07:00
Makefile [PATCH] zoned vm counters: create vmstat.c/.h from page_alloc.c/.h 2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00
memory_hotplug.c [PATCH] Register sysfs file for hotplugged new node 2006-06-27 17:32:36 -07:00
memory.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
mempolicy.c [PATCH] Use Zoned VM Counters for NUMA statistics 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
mempool.c Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bunk/trivial 2006-03-26 09:41:18 -08:00
migrate.c [PATCH] Allow migration of mlocked pages 2006-06-25 10:00:55 -07:00
mincore.c [PATCH] freepgt: sys_mincore ignore FIRST_USER_PGD_NR 2005-04-19 13:29:20 -07:00
mlock.c [PATCH] move capable() to capability.h 2006-01-11 18:42:13 -08:00
mmap.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: conversion of nr_pagecache to per zone counter 2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00
mmzone.c [PATCH] uninline zone helpers 2006-03-27 08:44:48 -08:00
mprotect.c [PATCH] add page_mkwrite() vm_operations method 2006-06-23 07:42:51 -07:00
mremap.c [PATCH] move capable() to capability.h 2006-01-11 18:42:13 -08:00
msync.c [PATCH] Kill PF_SYNCWRITE flag 2006-06-23 17:10:39 +02:00
nommu.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: conversion of nr_pagecache to per zone counter 2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00
oom_kill.c [PATCH] mm: fix typos in comments in mm/oom_kill.c 2006-06-23 07:42:47 -07:00
page_alloc.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
page_io.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
page-writeback.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: remove useless struct wbs 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
pdflush.c [PATCH] pdflush: handle resume wakeups 2006-06-25 10:01:06 -07:00
prio_tree.c Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
readahead.c spelling fixes 2006-06-26 18:35:02 +02:00
rmap.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: split NR_ANON_PAGES off from NR_FILE_MAPPED 2006-06-30 11:25:35 -07:00
shmem.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
slab.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: conversion of nr_slab to per zone counter 2006-06-30 11:25:35 -07:00
slob.c [PATCH] mm/slob.c: for_each_possible_cpu(), not NR_CPUS 2006-04-19 09:13:49 -07:00
sparse.c [PATCH] spin/rwlock init cleanups 2006-06-27 17:32:39 -07:00
swap_state.c [PATCH] zoned vm counters: conversion of nr_pagecache to per zone counter 2006-06-30 11:25:34 -07:00
swap.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
swapfile.c [PATCH] read_mapping_page for address space 2006-06-23 07:43:02 -07:00
thrash.c [PATCH] temporarily disable swap token on memory pressure 2005-11-28 14:42:25 -08:00
tiny-shmem.c [PATCH] devfs: Remove the devfs_fs_kernel.h file from the tree 2006-06-26 12:25:08 -07:00
truncate.c [PATCH] Remove semi-softlockup from invalidate_mapping_pages 2006-06-23 07:43:07 -07:00
util.c [PATCH] slab: optimize constant-size kzalloc calls 2006-03-25 08:22:49 -08:00
vmalloc.c [PATCH] mm: introduce remap_vmalloc_range() 2006-06-23 07:42:49 -07:00
vmscan.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00
vmstat.c [PATCH] Light weight event counters 2006-06-30 11:25:36 -07:00