Added in stricter no merge semantics for block I/O
Updated 'nomerges' tunable to accept a value of '2' - indicating that _no_
merges at all are to be attempted (not even the simple one-hit cache).
The following table illustrates the additional benefit - 5 minute runs of
a random I/O load were applied to a dozen devices on a 16-way x86_64 system.
nomerges Throughput %System Improvement (tput / %sys)
-------- ------------ ----------- -------------------------
0 12.45 MB/sec 0.669365609
1 12.50 MB/sec 0.641519199 0.40% / 2.71%
2 12.52 MB/sec 0.639849750 0.56% / 2.96%
Signed-off-by: Alan D. Brunelle <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
---
Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block | 14 ++++++++++++++
Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt | 10 +++++-----
block/blk-sysfs.c | 11 +++++++----
block/elevator.c | 11 ++++++++++-
include/linux/blkdev.h | 3 +++
5 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
index d2f9033..954624f 100644
--- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
@@ -128,3 +128,17 @@ Description:
preferred request size for workloads where sustained
throughput is desired. If no optimal I/O size is
reported this file contains 0.
+
+What: /sys/block/<disk>/queue/nomerges
+Date: January 2010
+Contact:
+Description:
+ Standard I/O elevator operations include attempts to
+ merge contiguous I/Os. For known random I/O loads these
+ attempts will always fail and result in extra cycles
+ being spent in the kernel. This allows one to turn off
+ this behavior on one of two ways: When set to 1, complex
+ merge checks are disabled, but the simple one-shot merges
+ with the previous I/O request are enabled. When set to 2,
+ all merge tries are disabled. The default value is 0 -
+ which enables all types of merge tries.
diff --git a/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt b/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
index e164403..f652740 100644
--- a/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt
@@ -25,11 +25,11 @@ size allowed by the hardware.
nomerges (RW)
-------------
-This enables the user to disable the lookup logic involved with IO merging
-requests in the block layer. Merging may still occur through a direct
-1-hit cache, since that comes for (almost) free. The IO scheduler will not
-waste cycles doing tree/hash lookups for merges if nomerges is 1. Defaults
-to 0, enabling all merges.
+This enables the user to disable the lookup logic involved with IO
+merging requests in the block layer. By default (0) all merges are
+enabled. When set to 1 only simple one-hit merges will be tried. When
+set to 2 no merge algorithms will be tried (including one-hit or more
+complex tree/hash lookups).
nr_requests (RW)
----------------
diff --git a/block/blk-sysfs.c b/block/blk-sysfs.c
index 8606c95..e854424 100644
--- a/block/blk-sysfs.c
+++ b/block/blk-sysfs.c
@@ -189,7 +189,8 @@ static ssize_t queue_nonrot_store(struct request_queue *q, const char *page,
static ssize_t queue_nomerges_show(struct request_queue *q, char *page)
{
- return queue_var_show(blk_queue_nomerges(q), page);
+ return queue_var_show((blk_queue_nomerges(q) << 1) |
+ blk_queue_noxmerges(q), page);
}
static ssize_t queue_nomerges_store(struct request_queue *q, const char *page,
@@ -199,10 +200,12 @@ static ssize_t queue_nomerges_store(struct request_queue *q, const char *page,
ssize_t ret = queue_var_store(&nm, page, count);
spin_lock_irq(q->queue_lock);
- if (nm)
+ queue_flag_clear(QUEUE_FLAG_NOMERGES, q);
+ queue_flag_clear(QUEUE_FLAG_NOXMERGES, q);
+ if (nm == 2)
queue_flag_set(QUEUE_FLAG_NOMERGES, q);
- else
- queue_flag_clear(QUEUE_FLAG_NOMERGES, q);
+ else if (nm)
+ queue_flag_set(QUEUE_FLAG_NOXMERGES, q);
spin_unlock_irq(q->queue_lock);
return ret;
diff --git a/block/elevator.c b/block/elevator.c
index 9ad5ccc..ee3a883 100644
--- a/block/elevator.c
+++ b/block/elevator.c
@@ -474,6 +474,15 @@ int elv_merge(struct request_queue *q, struct request **req, struct bio *bio)
int ret;
/*
+ * Levels of merges:
+ * nomerges: No merges at all attempted
+ * noxmerges: Only simple one-hit cache try
+ * merges: All merge tries attempted
+ */
+ if (blk_queue_nomerges(q))
+ return ELEVATOR_NO_MERGE;
+
+ /*
* First try one-hit cache.
*/
if (q->last_merge) {
@@ -484,7 +493,7 @@ int elv_merge(struct request_queue *q, struct request **req, struct bio *bio)
}
}
- if (blk_queue_nomerges(q))
+ if (blk_queue_noxmerges(q))
return ELEVATOR_NO_MERGE;
/*
diff --git a/include/linux/blkdev.h b/include/linux/blkdev.h
index ffb13ad..f71f5c5 100644
--- a/include/linux/blkdev.h
+++ b/include/linux/blkdev.h
@@ -463,6 +463,7 @@ struct request_queue
#define QUEUE_FLAG_IO_STAT 15 /* do IO stats */
#define QUEUE_FLAG_CQ 16 /* hardware does queuing */
#define QUEUE_FLAG_DISCARD 17 /* supports DISCARD */
+#define QUEUE_FLAG_NOXMERGES 18 /* No extended merges */
#define QUEUE_FLAG_DEFAULT ((1 << QUEUE_FLAG_IO_STAT) | \
(1 << QUEUE_FLAG_CLUSTER) | \
@@ -589,6 +590,8 @@ enum {
#define blk_queue_queuing(q) test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_CQ, &(q)->queue_flags)
#define blk_queue_stopped(q) test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_STOPPED, &(q)->queue_flags)
#define blk_queue_nomerges(q) test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_NOMERGES, &(q)->queue_flags)
+#define blk_queue_noxmerges(q) \
+ test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_NOXMERGES, &(q)->queue_flags)
#define blk_queue_nonrot(q) test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_NONROT, &(q)->queue_flags)
#define blk_queue_io_stat(q) test_bit(QUEUE_FLAG_IO_STAT, &(q)->queue_flags)
#define blk_queue_flushing(q) ((q)->ordseq)
--
1.6.5
On Tue, Jan 26 2010, Alan D. Brunelle wrote:
> Added in stricter no merge semantics for block I/O
>
> Updated 'nomerges' tunable to accept a value of '2' - indicating that _no_
> merges at all are to be attempted (not even the simple one-hit cache).
>
> The following table illustrates the additional benefit - 5 minute runs of
> a random I/O load were applied to a dozen devices on a 16-way x86_64 system.
>
> nomerges Throughput %System Improvement (tput / %sys)
> -------- ------------ ----------- -------------------------
> 0 12.45 MB/sec 0.669365609
> 1 12.50 MB/sec 0.641519199 0.40% / 2.71%
> 2 12.52 MB/sec 0.639849750 0.56% / 2.96%
>
> Signed-off-by: Alan D. Brunelle <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected]
> ---
> Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block | 14 ++++++++++++++
> Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt | 10 +++++-----
> block/blk-sysfs.c | 11 +++++++----
> block/elevator.c | 11 ++++++++++-
> include/linux/blkdev.h | 3 +++
> 5 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
Thanks Alan, I think this is a good addition, I have often before hacked
up the "no merges at all" logic for testing purposes as well. I have
queued it up for 2.6.34.
--
Jens Axboe