Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753150AbaDDPBM (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Apr 2014 11:01:12 -0400 Received: from zene.cmpxchg.org ([85.214.230.12]:58270 "EHLO zene.cmpxchg.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752440AbaDDPBK (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Apr 2014 11:01:10 -0400 Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 11:01:04 -0400 From: Johannes Weiner To: Shaohua Li Cc: Ingo Molnar , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, riel@redhat.com, hughd@google.com, mgorman@suse.de, torvalds@linux-foundation.org, Peter Zijlstra , Thomas Gleixner Subject: Re: [patch] x86: clearing access bit don't flush tlb Message-ID: <20140404150104.GN4407@cmpxchg.org> References: <20140403004250.GA14597@kernel.org> <20140403113537.GA543@gmail.com> <20140403134542.GA3371@kernel.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20140403134542.GA3371@kernel.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 09:45:42PM +0800, Shaohua Li wrote: > On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 01:35:37PM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > > * Shaohua Li wrote: > > > > > Add a few acks and resend this patch. > > > > > > We use access bit to age a page at page reclaim. When clearing pte access bit, > > > we could skip tlb flush in X86. The side effect is if the pte is in tlb and pte > > > access bit is unset in page table, when cpu access the page again, cpu will not > > > set page table pte's access bit. Next time page reclaim will think this hot > > > page is yong and reclaim it wrongly, but this doesn't corrupt data. > > > > > > And according to intel manual, tlb has less than 1k entries, which covers < 4M > > > memory. In today's system, several giga byte memory is normal. After page > > > reclaim clears pte access bit and before cpu access the page again, it's quite > > > unlikely this page's pte is still in TLB. And context swich will flush tlb too. > > > The chance skiping tlb flush to impact page reclaim should be very rare. > > > > > > Originally (in 2.5 kernel maybe), we didn't do tlb flush after clear access bit. > > > Hugh added it to fix some ARM and sparc issues. Since I only change this for > > > x86, there should be no risk. > > > > > > And in some workloads, TLB flush overhead is very heavy. In my simple > > > multithread app with a lot of swap to several pcie SSD, removing the tlb flush > > > gives about 20% ~ 30% swapout speedup. > > > > > > Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li > > > Acked-by: Rik van Riel > > > Acked-by: Mel Gorman > > > Acked-by: Hugh Dickins > > > --- > > > arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c | 13 ++++++------- > > > 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) > > > > > > Index: linux/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c > > > =================================================================== > > > --- linux.orig/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c 2014-03-27 05:22:08.572100549 +0800 > > > +++ linux/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c 2014-03-27 05:46:12.456131121 +0800 > > > @@ -399,13 +399,12 @@ int pmdp_test_and_clear_young(struct vm_ > > > int ptep_clear_flush_young(struct vm_area_struct *vma, > > > unsigned long address, pte_t *ptep) > > > { > > > - int young; > > > - > > > - young = ptep_test_and_clear_young(vma, address, ptep); > > > - if (young) > > > - flush_tlb_page(vma, address); > > > - > > > - return young; > > > + /* > > > + * In X86, clearing access bit without TLB flush doesn't cause data > > > + * corruption. Doing this could cause wrong page aging and so hot pages > > > + * are reclaimed, but the chance should be very rare. > > > > So, beyond the spelling mistakes, I guess this explanation should also > > be a bit more explanatory - how about something like: > > > > /* > > * On x86 CPUs, clearing the accessed bit without a TLB flush > > * doesn't cause data corruption. [ It could cause incorrect > > * page aging and the (mistaken) reclaim of hot pages, but the > > * chance of that should be relatively low. ] > > * > > * So as a performance optimization don't flush the TLB when > > * clearing the accessed bit, it will eventually be flushed by > > * a context switch or a VM operation anyway. [ In the rare > > * event of it not getting flushed for a long time the delay > > * shouldn't really matter because there's no real memory > > * pressure for swapout to react to. ] > > */ > > > > Agreed? > > Sure, that's better, thanks! With Ingo's updated comment: Acked-by: Johannes Weiner -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/