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Date:   Fri, 4 Oct 2019 14:33:49 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
To:     Daniel Colascione <dancol@google.com>
Cc:     Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw>, Tim Murray <timmurray@google.com>,
        Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>,
        linux-mm@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        linux-mm <linux-mm@kvack.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make SPLIT_RSS_COUNTING configurable
Message-ID: <20191004123349.GB10845@dhcp22.suse.cz>
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On Wed 02-10-19 19:08:16, Daniel Colascione wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 6:56 PM Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw> wrote:
> > > On Oct 2, 2019, at 4:29 PM, Daniel Colascione <dancol@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Adding the correct linux-mm address.
> > >
> > >
> > >> +config SPLIT_RSS_COUNTING
> > >> +       bool "Per-thread mm counter caching"
> > >> +       depends on MMU
> > >> +       default y if NR_CPUS >= SPLIT_PTLOCK_CPUS
> > >> +       help
> > >> +         Cache mm counter updates in thread structures and
> > >> +         flush them to visible per-process statistics in batches.
> > >> +         Say Y here to slightly reduce cache contention in processes
> > >> +         with many threads at the expense of decreasing the accuracy
> > >> +         of memory statistics in /proc.
> > >> +
> > >> endmenu
> >
> > All those vague words are going to make developers almost impossible to decide the right selection here. It sounds like we should kill SPLIT_RSS_COUNTING at all to simplify the code as the benefit is so small vs the side-effect?
> 
> Killing SPLIT_RSS_COUNTING would be my first choice; IME, on mobile
> and a basic desktop, it doesn't make a difference. I figured making it
> a knob would help allay concerns about the performance impact in more
> extreme configurations.

I do agree with Qian. Either it is really helpful (is it? probably on
the number of cpus) and it should be auto-enabled or it should be
dropped altogether. You cannot really expect people know how to enable
this without a deep understanding of the MM internals. Not to mention
all those users using distro kernels/configs.

A config option sounds like a bad way forward.

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs