With CONFIG_SLUB_CPU_PARTIAL enabled, SLUB keeps a percpu list of
partial slabs that can be promoted to cpu slab when the previous one is
depleted, without accessing the shared partial list. A slab can be
added to this list by 1) refill of an empty list from get_partial_node()
- once we really have to access the shared partial list, we acquire
multiple slabs to amortize the cost of locking, and 2) first free to a
previously full slab - instead of putting the slab on a shared partial
list, we can more cheaply freeze it and put it on the per-cpu list.
To control how large a percpu partial list can grow for a kmem cache,
set_cpu_partial() calculates a target number of free objects on each
cpu's percpu partial list, and this can be also set by the sysfs file
cpu_partial.
However, the tracking of actual number of objects is imprecise, in order
to limit overhead from cpu X freeing an objects to a slab on percpu
partial list of cpu Y. Basically, the percpu partial slabs form a
single linked list, and when we add a new slab to the list with current
head "oldpage", we set in the struct page of the slab we're adding:
page->pages = oldpage->pages + 1; // this is precise
page->pobjects = oldpage->pobjects + (page->objects - page->inuse);
page->next = oldpage;
Thus the real number of free objects in the slab (objects - inuse) is
only determined at the moment of adding the slab to the percpu partial
list, and further freeing doesn't update the pobjects counter nor
propagate it to the current list head. As Jann reports [1], this can
easily lead to large inaccuracies, where the target number of objects
(up to 30 by default) can translate to the same number of (empty) slab
pages on the list. In case 2) above, we put a slab with 1 free object
on the list, thus only increase page->pobjects by 1, even if there are
subsequent frees on the same slab. Jann has noticed this in practice
and so did we [2] when investigating significant increase of kmemcg
usage after switching from SLAB to SLUB.
While this is no longer a problem in kmemcg context thanks to the
accounting rewrite in 5.9, the memory waste is still not ideal and it's
questionable whether it makes sense to perform free object count based
control when object counts can easily become so much inaccurate. So
this patch converts the accounting to be based on number of pages only
(which is precise) and removes the page->pobjects field completely.
This is also ultimately simpler.
To retain the existing set_cpu_partial() heuristic, first calculate the
target number of objects as previously, but then convert it to target
number of pages by assuming the pages will be half-filled on average.
This assumption might obviously also be inaccurate in practice, but
cannot degrade to actual number of pages being equal to the target
number of objects.
We could also skip the intermediate step with target number of objects
and rewrite the heuristic in terms of pages. However we still have the
sysfs file cpu_partial which uses number of objects and could break
existing users if it suddenly becomes number of pages, so this patch
doesn't do that.
In practice, after this patch the heuristics limit the size of percpu
partial list up to 2 pages. In case of a reported regression (which
would mean some workload has benefited from the previous imprecise
object based counting), we can tune the heuristics to get a better
compromise within the new scheme, while still avoid the unexpectedly
long percpu partial lists.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/CAG48ez2Qx5K1Cab-m8BdSibp6wLTip6ro4=-umR7BLsEgjEYzA@mail.gmail.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/2f0f46e8-2535-410a-1859-e9cfa4e57c18@suse.cz/
==========
Evaluation
==========
Mel was kind enough to run v1 through mmtests machinery for netperf
(localhost) and hackbench and, for most significant results see below.
So there are some apparent regressions, especially with hackbench, which
I think ultimately boils down to having shorter percpu partial lists on
average and some benchmarks benefiting from longer ones. Monitoring
slab usage also indicated less memory usage by slab. Based on that, the
following patch will bump the defaults to allow longer percpu partial
lists than after this patch.
However the goal is certainly not such that we would limit the percpu
partial lists to 30 pages just because previously a specific alloc/free
pattern could lead to the limit of 30 objects translate to a limit to 30
pages - that would make little sense. This is a correctness patch, and
if a workload benefits from larger lists, the sysfs tuning knobs are
still there to allow that.
Netperf
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5218R CPU @ 2.10GHz (20 cores, 40 threads per socket), 384GB RAM
TCP-RR:
hmean before 127045.79 after 121092.94 (-4.69%, worse)
stddev before 2634.37 after 1254.08
UDP-RR:
hmean before 166985.45 after 160668.94 ( -3.78%, worse)
stddev before 4059.69 after 1943.63
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2698 v4 @ 2.20GHz (20 cores, 40 threads per socket), 512GB RAM
TCP-RR:
hmean before 84173.25 after 76914.72 ( -8.62%, worse)
UDP-RR:
hmean before 93571.12 after 96428.69 ( 3.05%, better)
stddev before 23118.54 after 16828.14
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v3 @ 2.30GHz (12 cores, 24 threads per socket), 64GB RAM
TCP-RR:
hmean before 49984.92 after 48922.27 ( -2.13%, worse)
stddev before 6248.15 after 4740.51
UDP-RR:
hmean before 61854.31 after 68761.81 ( 11.17%, better)
stddev before 4093.54 after 5898.91
other machines - within 2%
Hackbench
(results before and after the patch, negative % means worse)
2-socket AMD EPYC 7713 (64 cores, 128 threads per core), 256GB RAM
hackbench-process-sockets
Amean 1 0.5380 0.5583 ( -3.78%)
Amean 4 0.7510 0.8150 ( -8.52%)
Amean 7 0.7930 0.9533 ( -20.22%)
Amean 12 0.7853 1.1313 ( -44.06%)
Amean 21 1.1520 1.4993 ( -30.15%)
Amean 30 1.6223 1.9237 ( -18.57%)
Amean 48 2.6767 2.9903 ( -11.72%)
Amean 79 4.0257 5.1150 ( -27.06%)
Amean 110 5.5193 7.4720 ( -35.38%)
Amean 141 7.2207 9.9840 ( -38.27%)
Amean 172 8.4770 12.1963 ( -43.88%)
Amean 203 9.6473 14.3137 ( -48.37%)
Amean 234 11.3960 18.7917 ( -64.90%)
Amean 265 13.9627 22.4607 ( -60.86%)
Amean 296 14.9163 26.0483 ( -74.63%)
hackbench-thread-sockets
Amean 1 0.5597 0.5877 ( -5.00%)
Amean 4 0.7913 0.8960 ( -13.23%)
Amean 7 0.8190 1.0017 ( -22.30%)
Amean 12 0.9560 1.1727 ( -22.66%)
Amean 21 1.7587 1.5660 ( 10.96%)
Amean 30 2.4477 1.9807 ( 19.08%)
Amean 48 3.4573 3.0630 ( 11.41%)
Amean 79 4.7903 5.1733 ( -8.00%)
Amean 110 6.1370 7.4220 ( -20.94%)
Amean 141 7.5777 9.2617 ( -22.22%)
Amean 172 9.2280 11.0907 ( -20.18%)
Amean 203 10.2793 13.3470 ( -29.84%)
Amean 234 11.2410 17.1070 ( -52.18%)
Amean 265 12.5970 23.3323 ( -85.22%)
Amean 296 17.1540 24.2857 ( -41.57%)
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5218R CPU @ 2.10GHz (20 cores, 40 threads
per socket), 384GB RAM
hackbench-process-sockets
Amean 1 0.5760 0.4793 ( 16.78%)
Amean 4 0.9430 0.9707 ( -2.93%)
Amean 7 1.5517 1.8843 ( -21.44%)
Amean 12 2.4903 2.7267 ( -9.49%)
Amean 21 3.9560 4.2877 ( -8.38%)
Amean 30 5.4613 5.8343 ( -6.83%)
Amean 48 8.5337 9.2937 ( -8.91%)
Amean 79 14.0670 15.2630 ( -8.50%)
Amean 110 19.2253 21.2467 ( -10.51%)
Amean 141 23.7557 25.8550 ( -8.84%)
Amean 172 28.4407 29.7603 ( -4.64%)
Amean 203 33.3407 33.9927 ( -1.96%)
Amean 234 38.3633 39.1150 ( -1.96%)
Amean 265 43.4420 43.8470 ( -0.93%)
Amean 296 48.3680 48.9300 ( -1.16%)
hackbench-thread-sockets
Amean 1 0.6080 0.6493 ( -6.80%)
Amean 4 1.0000 1.0513 ( -5.13%)
Amean 7 1.6607 2.0260 ( -22.00%)
Amean 12 2.7637 2.9273 ( -5.92%)
Amean 21 5.0613 4.5153 ( 10.79%)
Amean 30 6.3340 6.1140 ( 3.47%)
Amean 48 9.0567 9.5577 ( -5.53%)
Amean 79 14.5657 15.7983 ( -8.46%)
Amean 110 19.6213 21.6333 ( -10.25%)
Amean 141 24.1563 26.2697 ( -8.75%)
Amean 172 28.9687 30.2187 ( -4.32%)
Amean 203 33.9763 34.6970 ( -2.12%)
Amean 234 38.8647 39.3207 ( -1.17%)
Amean 265 44.0813 44.1507 ( -0.16%)
Amean 296 49.2040 49.4330 ( -0.47%)
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2698 v4 @ 2.20GHz (20 cores, 40 threads
per socket), 512GB RAM
hackbench-process-sockets
Amean 1 0.5027 0.5017 ( 0.20%)
Amean 4 1.1053 1.2033 ( -8.87%)
Amean 7 1.8760 2.1820 ( -16.31%)
Amean 12 2.9053 3.1810 ( -9.49%)
Amean 21 4.6777 4.9920 ( -6.72%)
Amean 30 6.5180 6.7827 ( -4.06%)
Amean 48 10.0710 10.5227 ( -4.48%)
Amean 79 16.4250 17.5053 ( -6.58%)
Amean 110 22.6203 24.4617 ( -8.14%)
Amean 141 28.0967 31.0363 ( -10.46%)
Amean 172 34.4030 36.9233 ( -7.33%)
Amean 203 40.5933 43.0850 ( -6.14%)
Amean 234 46.6477 48.7220 ( -4.45%)
Amean 265 53.0530 53.9597 ( -1.71%)
Amean 296 59.2760 59.9213 ( -1.09%)
hackbench-thread-sockets
Amean 1 0.5363 0.5330 ( 0.62%)
Amean 4 1.1647 1.2157 ( -4.38%)
Amean 7 1.9237 2.2833 ( -18.70%)
Amean 12 2.9943 3.3110 ( -10.58%)
Amean 21 4.9987 5.1880 ( -3.79%)
Amean 30 6.7583 7.0043 ( -3.64%)
Amean 48 10.4547 10.8353 ( -3.64%)
Amean 79 16.6707 17.6790 ( -6.05%)
Amean 110 22.8207 24.4403 ( -7.10%)
Amean 141 28.7090 31.0533 ( -8.17%)
Amean 172 34.9387 36.8260 ( -5.40%)
Amean 203 41.1567 43.0450 ( -4.59%)
Amean 234 47.3790 48.5307 ( -2.43%)
Amean 265 53.9543 54.6987 ( -1.38%)
Amean 296 60.0820 60.2163 ( -0.22%)
1-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v5 @ 3.50GHz (4 cores, 8 threads),
32 GB RAM
hackbench-process-sockets
Amean 1 1.4760 1.5773 ( -6.87%)
Amean 3 3.9370 4.0910 ( -3.91%)
Amean 5 6.6797 6.9357 ( -3.83%)
Amean 7 9.3367 9.7150 ( -4.05%)
Amean 12 15.7627 16.1400 ( -2.39%)
Amean 18 23.5360 23.6890 ( -0.65%)
Amean 24 31.0663 31.3137 ( -0.80%)
Amean 30 38.7283 39.0037 ( -0.71%)
Amean 32 41.3417 41.6097 ( -0.65%)
hackbench-thread-sockets
Amean 1 1.5250 1.6043 ( -5.20%)
Amean 3 4.0897 4.2603 ( -4.17%)
Amean 5 6.7760 7.0933 ( -4.68%)
Amean 7 9.4817 9.9157 ( -4.58%)
Amean 12 15.9610 16.3937 ( -2.71%)
Amean 18 23.9543 24.3417 ( -1.62%)
Amean 24 31.4400 31.7217 ( -0.90%)
Amean 30 39.2457 39.5467 ( -0.77%)
Amean 32 41.8267 42.1230 ( -0.71%)
2-socket Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v3 @ 2.30GHz (12 cores, 24 threads
per socket), 64GB RAM
hackbench-process-sockets
Amean 1 1.0347 1.0880 ( -5.15%)
Amean 4 1.7267 1.8527 ( -7.30%)
Amean 7 2.6707 2.8110 ( -5.25%)
Amean 12 4.1617 4.3383 ( -4.25%)
Amean 21 7.0070 7.2600 ( -3.61%)
Amean 30 9.9187 10.2397 ( -3.24%)
Amean 48 15.6710 16.3923 ( -4.60%)
Amean 79 24.7743 26.1247 ( -5.45%)
Amean 110 34.3000 35.9307 ( -4.75%)
Amean 141 44.2043 44.8010 ( -1.35%)
Amean 172 54.2430 54.7260 ( -0.89%)
Amean 192 60.6557 60.9777 ( -0.53%)
hackbench-thread-sockets
Amean 1 1.0610 1.1353 ( -7.01%)
Amean 4 1.7543 1.9140 ( -9.10%)
Amean 7 2.7840 2.9573 ( -6.23%)
Amean 12 4.3813 4.4937 ( -2.56%)
Amean 21 7.3460 7.5350 ( -2.57%)
Amean 30 10.2313 10.5190 ( -2.81%)
Amean 48 15.9700 16.5940 ( -3.91%)
Amean 79 25.3973 26.6637 ( -4.99%)
Amean 110 35.1087 36.4797 ( -3.91%)
Amean 141 45.8220 46.3053 ( -1.05%)
Amean 172 55.4917 55.7320 ( -0.43%)
Amean 192 62.7490 62.5410 ( 0.33%)
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20211012134651.11258-1-vbabka@suse.cz
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Reported-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Roman Gushchin <guro@fb.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.
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