Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 209.132.180.67 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.132.180.67;
Subject: Re: [patch] mm, slab: avoid high-order slab pages when it does not
 reduce waste
To:     Christopher Lameter <cl@linux.com>,
        David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>,
        Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>, linux-mm@kvack.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
References: <alpine.DEB.2.21.1810121424420.116562@chino.kir.corp.google.com>
 <20181012151341.286cd91321cdda9b6bde4de9@linux-foundation.org>
 <0100016679e3c96f-c78df4e2-9ab8-48db-8796-271c4b439f16-000000@email.amazonses.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.21.1810151715220.21338@chino.kir.corp.google.com>
 <010001667d7476a2-f91dcf12-5e90-4ade-97e8-9fd651f7bf17-000000@email.amazonses.com>
From:   Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Openpgp: preference=signencrypt
Autocrypt: addr=vbabka@suse.cz; prefer-encrypt=mutual; keydata=
 xsFNBFZdmxYBEADsw/SiUSjB0dM+vSh95UkgcHjzEVBlby/Fg+g42O7LAEkCYXi/vvq31JTB
 KxRWDHX0R2tgpFDXHnzZcQywawu8eSq0LxzxFNYMvtB7sV1pxYwej2qx9B75qW2plBs+7+YB
 87tMFA+u+L4Z5xAzIimfLD5EKC56kJ1CsXlM8S/LHcmdD9Ctkn3trYDNnat0eoAcfPIP2OZ+
 9oe9IF/R28zmh0ifLXyJQQz5ofdj4bPf8ecEW0rhcqHfTD8k4yK0xxt3xW+6Exqp9n9bydiy
 tcSAw/TahjW6yrA+6JhSBv1v2tIm+itQc073zjSX8OFL51qQVzRFr7H2UQG33lw2QrvHRXqD
 Ot7ViKam7v0Ho9wEWiQOOZlHItOOXFphWb2yq3nzrKe45oWoSgkxKb97MVsQ+q2SYjJRBBH4
 8qKhphADYxkIP6yut/eaj9ImvRUZZRi0DTc8xfnvHGTjKbJzC2xpFcY0DQbZzuwsIZ8OPJCc
 LM4S7mT25NE5kUTG/TKQCk922vRdGVMoLA7dIQrgXnRXtyT61sg8PG4wcfOnuWf8577aXP1x
 6mzw3/jh3F+oSBHb/GcLC7mvWreJifUL2gEdssGfXhGWBo6zLS3qhgtwjay0Jl+kza1lo+Cv
 BB2T79D4WGdDuVa4eOrQ02TxqGN7G0Biz5ZLRSFzQSQwLn8fbwARAQABzSFWbGFzdGltaWwg
 QmFia2EgPHZiYWJrYUBzdXNlLmNvbT7CwZcEEwEKAEECGwMFCwkIBwMFFQoJCAsFFgIDAQAC
 HgECF4ACGQEWIQSpQNQ0mSwujpkQPVAiT6fnzIKmZAUCWi/zTwUJBbOLuQAKCRAiT6fnzIKm
 ZIpED/4jRN/6LKZZIT4R2xoou0nJkBGVA3nfb+mUMgi3uwn/zC+o6jjc3ShmP0LQ0cdeuSt/
 t2ytstnuARTFVqZT4/IYzZgBsLM8ODFY5vGfPw00tsZMIfFuVPQX3xs0XgLEHw7/1ZCVyJVr
 mTzYmV3JruwhMdUvIzwoZ/LXjPiEx1MRdUQYHAWwUfsl8lUZeu2QShL3KubR1eH6lUWN2M7t
 VcokLsnGg4LTajZzZfq2NqCKEQMY3JkAmOu/ooPTrfHCJYMF/5dpi8YF1CkQF/PVbnYbPUuh
 dRM0m3NzPtn5DdyfFltJ7fobGR039+zoCo6dFF9fPltwcyLlt1gaItfX5yNbOjX3aJSHY2Vc
 A5T+XAVC2sCwj0lHvgGDz/dTsMM9Ob/6rRJANlJPRWGYk3WVWnbgW8UejCWtn1FkiY/L/4qJ
 UsqkId8NkkVdVAenCcHQmOGjRQYTpe6Cf4aQ4HGNDeWEm3H8Uq9vmHhXXcPLkxBLRbGDSHyq
 vUBVaK+dAwAsXn/5PlGxw1cWtur1ep7RDgG3vVQDhIOpAXAg6HULjcbWpBEFaoH720oyGmO5
 kV+yHciYO3nPzz/CZJzP5Ki7Q1zqBb/U6gib2at5Ycvews+vTueYO+rOb9sfD8BFTK386LUK
 uce7E38owtgo/V2GV4LMWqVOy1xtCB6OAUfnGDU2EM7ATQRbGTU1AQgAn0H6UrFiWcovkh6E
 XVcl+SeqyO6JHOPm+e9Wu0Vw+VIUvXZVUVVQLa1PQDUi6j00ChlcR66g9/V0sPIcSutacPKf
 dKYOBvzd4rlhL8rfrdEsQw5ApZxrA8kYZVMhFmBRKAa6wos25moTlMKpCWzTH84+WO5+ziCT
 sTUZASAToz3RdunTD+vQcHj0GqNTPAHK63sfbAB2I0BslZkXkY1RLb/YhuA6E7JyEd2pilZO
 rIuBGl/5q2qSakgnAVFWFBR/DO27JuAksYnq+aH8vI0xGvwn75KqSk4UzAkDzWSmO4ZHuahK
 tQgZNsMYV+PGayRBX9b9zbldzopoLBdqHc4njQARAQABwsF8BBgBCgAmFiEEqUDUNJksLo6Z
 ED1QIk+n58yCpmQFAlsZNTUCGwwFCQPCZwAACgkQIk+n58yCpmQ83g/9Frg1sRMdGPn98zV+
 O2eC3h0p5f/oxxQ8MhG5znwHoW4JDG2TuxfcQuz7X7Dd5JWscjlw4VFJ2DD+IrDAGLHwPhCr
 RyfKalnrbYokvbClM9EuU1oUuh7k+Sg5ECNXEsamW9AiWGCaKWNDdHre3Lf4xl+RJWxghOVW
 RiUdpLA/a3yDvJNVr6rxkDHQ1P24ZZz/VKDyP+6g8aty2aWEU0YFNjI+rqYZb2OppDx6fdma
 YnLDcIfDFnkVlDmpznnGCyEqLLyMS3GH52AH13zMT9L9QYgT303+r6QQpKBIxAwn8Jg8dAlV
 OLhgeHXKr+pOQdFf6iu2sXlUR4MkO/5KWM1K0jFR2ug8Pb3aKOhowVMBT64G0TXhQ/kX4tZ2
 ZF0QZLUCHU3Cigvbu4AWWVMNDEOGD/4sn9OoHxm6J04jLUHFUpFKDcjab4NRNWoHLsuLGjve
 Gdbr2RKO2oJ5qZj81K7os0/5vTAA4qHDP2EETAQcunTn6aPlkUnJ8aw6I1Rwyg7/XsU7gQHF
 IM/cUMuWWm7OUUPtJeR8loxZiZciU7SMvN1/B9ycPMFs/A6EEzyG+2zKryWry8k7G/pcPrFx
 O2PkDPy3YmN1RfpIX2HEmnCEFTTCsKgYORangFu/qOcXvM83N+2viXxG4mjLAMiIml1o2lKV
 cqmP8roqufIAj+Ohhzs=
Message-ID: <8eaaa366-415a-5d72-7720-82468d853efd@suse.cz>
Date:   Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:09:11 +0200
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/60.2.1
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <010001667d7476a2-f91dcf12-5e90-4ade-97e8-9fd651f7bf17-000000@email.amazonses.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Precedence: bulk

On 10/16/18 5:17 PM, Christopher Lameter wrote:
>> I'm not necessarily approaching this from a performance point of view, but
>> rather as a means to reduce slab fragmentation when fallback to order-0
>> memory, especially when completely legitimate, is prohibited.  From a
>> performance standpoint, this will depend on separately on fragmentation
>> and contention on zone->lock which both don't exist for order-0 memory
>> until fallback is required and then the pcp are filled with up to
>> batchcount pages.
> Fragmentation is a performance issue and causes degradation of Linux MM
> performance over time.  There are pretty complex mechanism that need to be
> played against one another.
> 
> Come up with some metrics to get meaningful data that allows us to see the
> impact.

I don't think the patch as it is needs some special evaluation. SLAB's
current design is to keep gfporder at minimum that satisfies "Acceptable
internal fragmentation" of 1/8 of the allocated gfporder page (hm
arguably that should be also considered relatively to order-0 page, as
I've argued for the comparison done in this patch as well).

In such design it's simply an oversight that we increase the gfporder in
cases when it doesn't improve the internal fragmentation metric, and it
should be straightforward decision to stop doing it.

I.e. the benefits vs drawbacks of higher order allocations for SLAB are
out of scope here. It would be nice if somebody evaluated them, but the
potential resulting change would be much larger than what concerns this
patch. But it would arguably also make SLAB more like SLUB, which you
already questioned at some point...

Vlastimil