2021-01-21 05:11:51

by Dongli Zhang

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH 1/1] vhost scsi: allocate vhost_scsi with GFP_NOWAIT to avoid delay

The size of 'struct vhost_scsi' is order-10 (~2.3MB). It may take long time
delay by kzalloc() to compact memory pages when there is a lack of
high-order pages. As a result, there is latency to create a VM (with
vhost-scsi) or to hotadd vhost-scsi-based storage.

The prior commit 595cb754983d ("vhost/scsi: use vmalloc for order-10
allocation") prefers to fallback only when really needed, while this patch
changes allocation to GFP_NOWAIT in order to avoid the delay caused by
memory page compact.

Cc: Aruna Ramakrishna <[email protected]>
Cc: Joe Jin <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Dongli Zhang <[email protected]>
---
Another option is to rework by reducing the size of 'struct vhost_scsi',
e.g., by replacing inline vhost_scsi.vqs with just memory pointers while
each vhost_scsi.vqs[i] should be allocated separately. Please let me
know if that option is better.

drivers/vhost/scsi.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
index 4ce9f00ae10e..85eaa4e883f4 100644
--- a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
+++ b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
@@ -1814,7 +1814,7 @@ static int vhost_scsi_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *f)
struct vhost_virtqueue **vqs;
int r = -ENOMEM, i;

- vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
+ vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_NOWAIT | __GFP_NOWARN);
if (!vs) {
vs = vzalloc(sizeof(*vs));
if (!vs)
--
2.17.1


2021-01-21 09:41:03

by Jason Wang

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] vhost scsi: allocate vhost_scsi with GFP_NOWAIT to avoid delay


On 2021/1/21 13:03, Dongli Zhang wrote:
> The size of 'struct vhost_scsi' is order-10 (~2.3MB). It may take long time
> delay by kzalloc() to compact memory pages when there is a lack of
> high-order pages. As a result, there is latency to create a VM (with
> vhost-scsi) or to hotadd vhost-scsi-based storage.
>
> The prior commit 595cb754983d ("vhost/scsi: use vmalloc for order-10
> allocation") prefers to fallback only when really needed, while this patch
> changes allocation to GFP_NOWAIT in order to avoid the delay caused by
> memory page compact.
>
> Cc: Aruna Ramakrishna <[email protected]>
> Cc: Joe Jin <[email protected]>
> Signed-off-by: Dongli Zhang <[email protected]>
> ---
> Another option is to rework by reducing the size of 'struct vhost_scsi',
> e.g., by replacing inline vhost_scsi.vqs with just memory pointers while
> each vhost_scsi.vqs[i] should be allocated separately. Please let me
> know if that option is better.
>
> drivers/vhost/scsi.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
> index 4ce9f00ae10e..85eaa4e883f4 100644
> --- a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
> +++ b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
> @@ -1814,7 +1814,7 @@ static int vhost_scsi_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *f)
> struct vhost_virtqueue **vqs;
> int r = -ENOMEM, i;
>
> - vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
> + vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_NOWAIT | __GFP_NOWARN);
> if (!vs) {
> vs = vzalloc(sizeof(*vs));
> if (!vs)


Can we use kvzalloc?

Thanks


2021-01-23 08:10:29

by Dongli Zhang

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] vhost scsi: allocate vhost_scsi with GFP_NOWAIT to avoid delay



On 1/21/21 1:00 AM, Jason Wang wrote:
>
> On 2021/1/21 13:03, Dongli Zhang wrote:
>> The size of 'struct vhost_scsi' is order-10 (~2.3MB). It may take long time
>> delay by kzalloc() to compact memory pages when there is a lack of
>> high-order pages. As a result, there is latency to create a VM (with
>> vhost-scsi) or to hotadd vhost-scsi-based storage.
>>
>> The prior commit 595cb754983d ("vhost/scsi: use vmalloc for order-10
>> allocation") prefers to fallback only when really needed, while this patch
>> changes allocation to GFP_NOWAIT in order to avoid the delay caused by
>> memory page compact.
>>
>> Cc: Aruna Ramakrishna <[email protected]>
>> Cc: Joe Jin <[email protected]>
>> Signed-off-by: Dongli Zhang <[email protected]>
>> ---
>> Another option is to rework by reducing the size of 'struct vhost_scsi',
>> e.g., by replacing inline vhost_scsi.vqs with just memory pointers while
>> each vhost_scsi.vqs[i] should be allocated separately. Please let me
>> know if that option is better.
>>
>>   drivers/vhost/scsi.c | 2 +-
>>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
>> index 4ce9f00ae10e..85eaa4e883f4 100644
>> --- a/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
>> +++ b/drivers/vhost/scsi.c
>> @@ -1814,7 +1814,7 @@ static int vhost_scsi_open(struct inode *inode, struct
>> file *f)
>>       struct vhost_virtqueue **vqs;
>>       int r = -ENOMEM, i;
>>   -    vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN |
>> __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL);
>> +    vs = kzalloc(sizeof(*vs), GFP_NOWAIT | __GFP_NOWARN);
>>       if (!vs) {
>>           vs = vzalloc(sizeof(*vs));
>>           if (!vs)
>
>
> Can we use kvzalloc?
>
Thank you very much for the suggestion.

To use 'GFP_NOWAIT' will avoid any direct compact in __alloc_pages_slowpath(),
while to use kvzalloc() will just avoid retrying direct compact for multiple times.

Although the latter will still do direct compact (without retry), I think it is
better than the former using GFP_NOWAIT.

I will send v2 with kvzalloc().

Thank you very much!

Dongli Zhang