2010-11-18 00:50:20

by Andrew Morton

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 05/11] writeback: create dirty_info structure

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:09:08 -0700
Greg Thelen <[email protected]> wrote:

> Bundle dirty limits and dirty memory usage metrics into a dirty_info
> structure to simplify interfaces of routines that need all.

Problems...

These patches interact pretty badly with Fengguang's "IO-less dirty
throttling v2" patches. I fixed up
writeback-create-dirty_info-structure.patch pretty mechanically but
when it got to memcg-check-memcg-dirty-limits-in-page-writeback.patch
things got sticky and I gave up.

As your stuff was merged first, I'd normally send the bad news to
Fengguang, but the memcg code is logically built upon the core
writeback code so I do think these patches should be staged after the
changes to core writeback.

Also, while I was there it seemed that the chosen members of the
dirty_info structure were a bit random. Perhaps we should be putting
nr_dirty in there as well, perhaps other things. Please have a think
about that.

Also, in ratelimit_pages() we call global_dirty_info() to return four
items, but that caller only actually uses two of them. Wasted effort?


So I'm afraid I'm going to have to request that you redo and retest
these patches:

writeback-create-dirty_info-structure.patch
memcg-add-dirty-page-accounting-infrastructure.patch
memcg-add-kernel-calls-for-memcg-dirty-page-stats.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-use-native-word-to-represent-dirtyable-pages.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-catch-negative-per-cpu-sums-in-dirty-info.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-avoid-overflow-in-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-correct-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages-return-type.patch
memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-avoid-free-overflow-in-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages.patch
memcg-cpu-hotplug-lockdep-warning-fix.patch
memcg-add-cgroupfs-interface-to-memcg-dirty-limits.patch
memcg-break-out-event-counters-from-other-stats.patch
memcg-check-memcg-dirty-limits-in-page-writeback.patch
memcg-use-native-word-page-statistics-counters.patch
memcg-use-native-word-page-statistics-counters-fix.patch
#
memcg-add-mem_cgroup-parameter-to-mem_cgroup_page_stat.patch
memcg-pass-mem_cgroup-to-mem_cgroup_dirty_info.patch
#memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware.patch: "troublesome": Kamezawa
memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware.patch
memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware-fix.patch
memcg-simplify-mem_cgroup_page_stat.patch
memcg-simplify-mem_cgroup_dirty_info.patch
memcg-make-mem_cgroup_page_stat-return-value-unsigned.patch

against the http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/ which I just
uploaded, sorry. I've uploaded my copy of all the above to
http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/stuff/gthelen.tar.gz. I think only the
two patches need fixing and retesting.

Also, while wrangling the above patches, I stumbled across rejects such
as:


***************
*** 99,106 ****
"state: %8lx\n",
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
- K(bdi_thresh), K(dirty_thresh),
- K(background_thresh), nr_dirty, nr_io, nr_more_io,
!list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);
#undef K

--- 98,106 ----
"state: %8lx\n",
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
+ K(bdi_thresh), K(dirty_info.dirty_thresh),
+ K(dirty_info.background_thresh),
+ nr_dirty, nr_io, nr_more_io,
!list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);

Please, if you discover crud like this, just fix it up. One item per
line:

"state: %8lx\n",
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
(unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
K(bdi_thresh),
K(dirty_info.dirty_thresh),
K(dirty_info.background_thresh),
nr_dirty,
nr_io,
nr_more_io,
!list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);

all very simple. And while you're there, fix up the
tab-tab-space-space-space indenting - just use tabs.


The other area where code maintenance is harder than it needs to be is
in definitions of locals:

long nr_reclaimable;
long nr_dirty, bdi_dirty; /* = file_dirty + writeback + unstable_nfs */
long bdi_prev_dirty = 0;

again, that's just dopey. Change it to

long nr_reclaimable;
long nr_dirty;
long bdi_dirty; /* = file_dirty + writeback + unstable_nfs */
long bdi_prev_dirty = 0;

All very simple.

Thanks.


2010-11-18 00:51:18

by Andrew Morton

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 05/11] writeback: create dirty_info structure

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:49:24 -0800
Andrew Morton <[email protected]> wrote:

> against the http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/ which I just
> uploaded

err, will upload Real Soon Now.

2010-11-18 02:03:24

by Greg Thelen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 05/11] writeback: create dirty_info structure

Andrew Morton <[email protected]> writes:

> On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:09:08 -0700
> Greg Thelen <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Bundle dirty limits and dirty memory usage metrics into a dirty_info
>> structure to simplify interfaces of routines that need all.
>
> Problems...
>
> These patches interact pretty badly with Fengguang's "IO-less dirty
> throttling v2" patches. I fixed up
> writeback-create-dirty_info-structure.patch pretty mechanically but
> when it got to memcg-check-memcg-dirty-limits-in-page-writeback.patch
> things got sticky and I gave up.
>
> As your stuff was merged first, I'd normally send the bad news to
> Fengguang, but the memcg code is logically built upon the core
> writeback code so I do think these patches should be staged after the
> changes to core writeback.
>
> Also, while I was there it seemed that the chosen members of the
> dirty_info structure were a bit random. Perhaps we should be putting
> nr_dirty in there as well, perhaps other things. Please have a think
> about that.
>
> Also, in ratelimit_pages() we call global_dirty_info() to return four
> items, but that caller only actually uses two of them. Wasted effort?
>
>
> So I'm afraid I'm going to have to request that you redo and retest
> these patches:
>
> writeback-create-dirty_info-structure.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-page-accounting-infrastructure.patch
> memcg-add-kernel-calls-for-memcg-dirty-page-stats.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-use-native-word-to-represent-dirtyable-pages.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-catch-negative-per-cpu-sums-in-dirty-info.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-avoid-overflow-in-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-correct-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages-return-type.patch
> memcg-add-dirty-limits-to-mem_cgroup-avoid-free-overflow-in-memcg_hierarchical_free_pages.patch
> memcg-cpu-hotplug-lockdep-warning-fix.patch
> memcg-add-cgroupfs-interface-to-memcg-dirty-limits.patch
> memcg-break-out-event-counters-from-other-stats.patch
> memcg-check-memcg-dirty-limits-in-page-writeback.patch
> memcg-use-native-word-page-statistics-counters.patch
> memcg-use-native-word-page-statistics-counters-fix.patch
> #
> memcg-add-mem_cgroup-parameter-to-mem_cgroup_page_stat.patch
> memcg-pass-mem_cgroup-to-mem_cgroup_dirty_info.patch
> #memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware.patch: "troublesome": Kamezawa
> memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware.patch
> memcg-make-throttle_vm_writeout-memcg-aware-fix.patch
> memcg-simplify-mem_cgroup_page_stat.patch
> memcg-simplify-mem_cgroup_dirty_info.patch
> memcg-make-mem_cgroup_page_stat-return-value-unsigned.patch
>
> against the http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/ which I just
> uploaded, sorry. I've uploaded my copy of all the above to
> http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/stuff/gthelen.tar.gz. I think only the
> two patches need fixing and retesting.
>
> Also, while wrangling the above patches, I stumbled across rejects such
> as:
>
>
> ***************
> *** 99,106 ****
> "state: %8lx\n",
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
> - K(bdi_thresh), K(dirty_thresh),
> - K(background_thresh), nr_dirty, nr_io, nr_more_io,
> !list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);
> #undef K
>
> --- 98,106 ----
> "state: %8lx\n",
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
> + K(bdi_thresh), K(dirty_info.dirty_thresh),
> + K(dirty_info.background_thresh),
> + nr_dirty, nr_io, nr_more_io,
> !list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);
>
> Please, if you discover crud like this, just fix it up. One item per
> line:
>
> "state: %8lx\n",
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK)),
> (unsigned long) K(bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE)),
> K(bdi_thresh),
> K(dirty_info.dirty_thresh),
> K(dirty_info.background_thresh),
> nr_dirty,
> nr_io,
> nr_more_io,
> !list_empty(&bdi->bdi_list), bdi->state);
>
> all very simple. And while you're there, fix up the
> tab-tab-space-space-space indenting - just use tabs.
>
>
> The other area where code maintenance is harder than it needs to be is
> in definitions of locals:
>
> long nr_reclaimable;
> long nr_dirty, bdi_dirty; /* = file_dirty + writeback + unstable_nfs */
> long bdi_prev_dirty = 0;
>
> again, that's just dopey. Change it to
>
> long nr_reclaimable;
> long nr_dirty;
> long bdi_dirty; /* = file_dirty + writeback + unstable_nfs */
> long bdi_prev_dirty = 0;
>
> All very simple.
>
> Thanks.

I am leaving on vacation until Mon. Once I return, this will be one of
the first things I get to. I will resubmit patches based on whatever
the latest mmotm on Mon.