Dan Magenheimer
2010-May-28 17:35 UTC
[PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files
[PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files Cleancache core files. Credits: Cleancache_ops design derived from Jeremy Fitzhardinge design for tmem; sysfs code modelled after mm/ksm.c Note that CONFIG_CLEANCACHE defaults to on; all hooks devolve to a compare-pointer-to-NULL so performance impact should be negligible, but can be reduced to zero impact if config''ed off. Signed-off-by: Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@oracle.com> Diffstat: include/linux/cleancache.h | 90 +++++++++ mm/Kconfig | 22 ++ mm/Makefile | 1 mm/cleancache.c | 203 +++++++++++++++++++++ 4 files changed, 316 insertions(+) --- linux-2.6.34/include/linux/cleancache.h 1969-12-31 17:00:00.000000000 -0700 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/include/linux/cleancache.h 2010-05-24 18:14:33.000000000 -0600 @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +#ifndef _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H +#define _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H + +#include <linux/fs.h> +#include <linux/mm.h> + +#define CLEANCACHE_GET_PAGE_SUCCESS 1 + +struct cleancache_ops { + int (*init_fs)(size_t); + int (*init_shared_fs)(char *uuid, size_t); + int (*get_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t, struct page *); + int (*put_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t, struct page *); + int (*flush_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t); + int (*flush_inode)(int, ino_t); + void (*flush_fs)(int); +}; + +extern struct cleancache_ops *cleancache_ops; +extern int __cleancache_get_page(struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_put_page(struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *, struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *); + +#ifndef CONFIG_CLEANCACHE +#define cleancache_ops ((struct cleancache_ops *)NULL) +#endif + +static inline int cleancache_init_fs(size_t pagesize) +{ + int ret = -1; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = (*cleancache_ops->init_fs)(pagesize); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_init_shared_fs(char *uuid, size_t pagesize) +{ + int ret = -1; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = (*cleancache_ops->init_shared_fs)(uuid, pagesize); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_get_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_get_page(page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_put_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_put_page(page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *mapping, + struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_flush_page(mapping, page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *mapping) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_flush_inode(mapping); + return ret; +} + +static inline void cleancache_flush_fs(int pool_id) +{ + if (cleancache_ops && pool_id >= 0) + (*cleancache_ops->flush_fs)(pool_id); +} + +#endif /* _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H */ --- linux-2.6.34/mm/cleancache.c 1969-12-31 17:00:00.000000000 -0700 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/cleancache.c 2010-05-24 18:07:11.000000000 -0600 @@ -0,0 +1,203 @@ +/* mm/cleancache.c + + Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Oracle Corp. All rights reserved. + Author: Dan Magenheimer + + Cleancache can be thought of as a page-granularity victim cache for clean + pages that the kernel''s pageframe replacement algorithm (PFRA) would like + to keep around, but can''t since there isn''t enough memory. So when the + PFRA "evicts" a page, it first attempts to put it into a synchronous + concurrency-safe page-oriented pseudo-RAM device (such as Xen''s Transcendent + Memory, aka "tmem", or in-kernel compressed memory, aka "zmem", or other + RAM-like devices) which is not directly accessible or addressable by the + kernel and is of unknown and possibly time-varying size. And when a + cleancache-enabled filesystem wishes to access a page in a file on disk, + it first checks cleancache to see if it already contains it; if it does, + the page is copied into the kernel and a disk access is avoided. + This pseudo-RAM device links itself to cleancache by setting the + cleancache_ops pointer appropriately and the functions it provides must + conform to certain semantics as follows: + + Most important, cleancache is "ephemeral". Pages which are copied into + cleancache have an indefinite lifetime which is completely unknowable + by the kernel and so may or may not still be in cleancache at any later time. + Thus, as its name implies, cleancache is not suitable for dirty pages. The + pseudo-RAM has complete discretion over what pages to preserve and what + pages to discard and when. + + A filesystem calls "init_fs" to obtain a pool id which, if positive, must be + saved in the filesystem''s superblock; a negative return value indicates + failure. A "put_page" will copy a (presumably about-to-be-evicted) page into + pseudo-RAM and associate it with the pool id, the file inode, and a page + index into the file. (The combination of a pool id, an inode, and an index + is called a "handle".) A "get_page" will copy the page, if found, from + pseudo-RAM into kernel memory. A "flush_page" will ensure the page no longer + is present in pseudo-RAM; a "flush_inode" will flush all pages associated + with the specified inode; and a "flush_fs" will flush all pages in all + inodes specified by the given pool id. + + A "init_shared_fs", like init, obtains a pool id but tells the pseudo-RAM + to treat the pool as shared using a 128-bit UUID as a key. On systems + that may run multiple kernels (such as hard partitioned or virtualized + systems) that may share a clustered filesystem, and where the pseudo-RAM + may be shared among those kernels, calls to init_shared_fs that specify the + same UUID will receive the same pool id, thus allowing the pages to + be shared. Note that any security requirements must be imposed outside + of the kernel (e.g. by "tools" that control the pseudo-RAM). Or a + pseudo-RAM implementation can simply disable shared_init by always + returning a negative value. + + If a get_page is successful on a non-shared pool, the page is flushed (thus + making cleancache an "exclusive" cache). On a shared pool, the page + is NOT flushed on a successful get_page so that it remains accessible to + other sharers. The kernel is responsible for ensuring coherency between + cleancache (shared or not), the page cache, and the filesystem, using + cleancache flush operations as required. + + Note that the pseudo-RAM must enforce put-put-get coherency and get-get + coherency. For the former, if two puts are made to the same handle but + with different data, say AAA by the first put and BBB by the second, a + subsequent get can never return the stale data (AAA). For get-get coherency, + if a get for a given handle fails, subsequent gets for that handle will + never succeed unless preceded by a successful put with that handle. + + Last, pseudo-RAM provides no SMP serialization guarantees; if two + different Linux threads are putting an flushing a page with the same + handle, the results are indeterminate. + + */ + +#include <linux/module.h> +#include <linux/fs.h> +#include <linux/mm.h> +#include <linux/cleancache.h> + +struct cleancache_ops *cleancache_ops; +EXPORT_SYMBOL(cleancache_ops); + +/* useful stats available via /sys/kernel/mm/frontswap */ +static unsigned long succ_gets; +static unsigned long failed_gets; +static unsigned long puts; +static unsigned long flushes; + +int __cleancache_get_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = page->mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->get_page)(pool_id, + page->mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index, + page); + if (ret == CLEANCACHE_GET_PAGE_SUCCESS) + succ_gets++; + else + failed_gets++; + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_get_page); + +int __cleancache_put_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = page->mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->put_page)(pool_id, + page->mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index, + page); + puts++; + } + return ret; +} + +int __cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *mapping, struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->flush_page)(pool_id, + mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index); + flushes++; + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_flush_page); + +int __cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *mapping) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->flush_inode)(pool_id, + mapping->host->i_ino); + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_flush_inode); + +#ifdef CONFIG_SYSFS + +#define CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(_name) \ + static struct kobj_attribute _name##_attr = __ATTR_RO(_name) + +static ssize_t succ_gets_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", succ_gets); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(succ_gets); + +static ssize_t failed_gets_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", failed_gets); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(failed_gets); + +static ssize_t puts_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", puts); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(puts); + +static ssize_t flushes_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", flushes); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(flushes); + +static struct attribute *cleancache_attrs[] = { + &succ_gets_attr.attr, + &failed_gets_attr.attr, + &puts_attr.attr, + &flushes_attr.attr, + NULL, +}; + +static struct attribute_group cleancache_attr_group = { + .attrs = cleancache_attrs, + .name = "cleancache", +}; + +#endif /* CONFIG_SYSFS */ + +static int __init init_cleancache(void) +{ +#ifdef CONFIG_SYSFS + int err; + + err = sysfs_create_group(mm_kobj, &cleancache_attr_group); +#endif /* CONFIG_SYSFS */ + return 0; +} +module_init(init_cleancache) --- linux-2.6.34/mm/Kconfig 2010-05-16 15:17:36.000000000 -0600 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/Kconfig 2010-05-24 12:14:44.000000000 -0600 @@ -287,3 +287,25 @@ config NOMMU_INITIAL_TRIM_EXCESS of 1 says that all excess pages should be trimmed. See Documentation/nommu-mmap.txt for more information. + +config CLEANCACHE + bool "Enable cleancache pseudo-RAM driver to cache clean pages" + default y + help + Cleancache can be thought of as a page-granularity victim cache + for clean pages that the kernel''s pageframe replacement algorithm + (PFRA) would like to keep around, but can''t since there isn''t enough + memory. So when the PFRA "evicts" a page, it first attempts to put + it into a synchronous concurrency-safe page-oriented pseudo-RAM + device (such as Xen''s Transcendent Memory, aka "tmem") which is not + directly accessible or addressable by the kernel and is of unknown + (and possibly time-varying) size. And when a cleancache-enabled + filesystem wishes to access a page in a file on disk, it first + checks cleancache to see if it already contains it; if it does, + the page is copied into the kernel and a disk access is avoided. + When a pseudo-RAM device is available, a significant I/O reduction + may be achieved. When none is available, all cleancache calls + are reduced to a single pointer-compare-against-NULL resulting + in a negligible performance hit. + + If unsure, say Y to enable cleancache --- linux-2.6.34/mm/Makefile 2010-05-16 15:17:36.000000000 -0600 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/Makefile 2010-05-24 12:14:44.000000000 -0600 @@ -44,3 +44,4 @@ obj-$(CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE) += memory-f obj-$(CONFIG_HWPOISON_INJECT) += hwpoison-inject.o obj-$(CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK) += kmemleak.o obj-$(CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_TEST) += kmemleak-test.o +obj-$(CONFIG_CLEANCACHE) += cleancache.o -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-btrfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Dan Magenheimer
2010-May-28 17:36 UTC
[Ocfs2-devel] [PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files
[PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files Cleancache core files. Credits: Cleancache_ops design derived from Jeremy Fitzhardinge design for tmem; sysfs code modelled after mm/ksm.c Note that CONFIG_CLEANCACHE defaults to on; all hooks devolve to a compare-pointer-to-NULL so performance impact should be negligible, but can be reduced to zero impact if config'ed off. Signed-off-by: Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer at oracle.com> Diffstat: include/linux/cleancache.h | 90 +++++++++ mm/Kconfig | 22 ++ mm/Makefile | 1 mm/cleancache.c | 203 +++++++++++++++++++++ 4 files changed, 316 insertions(+) --- linux-2.6.34/include/linux/cleancache.h 1969-12-31 17:00:00.000000000 -0700 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/include/linux/cleancache.h 2010-05-24 18:14:33.000000000 -0600 @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +#ifndef _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H +#define _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H + +#include <linux/fs.h> +#include <linux/mm.h> + +#define CLEANCACHE_GET_PAGE_SUCCESS 1 + +struct cleancache_ops { + int (*init_fs)(size_t); + int (*init_shared_fs)(char *uuid, size_t); + int (*get_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t, struct page *); + int (*put_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t, struct page *); + int (*flush_page)(int, ino_t, pgoff_t); + int (*flush_inode)(int, ino_t); + void (*flush_fs)(int); +}; + +extern struct cleancache_ops *cleancache_ops; +extern int __cleancache_get_page(struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_put_page(struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *, struct page *); +extern int __cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *); + +#ifndef CONFIG_CLEANCACHE +#define cleancache_ops ((struct cleancache_ops *)NULL) +#endif + +static inline int cleancache_init_fs(size_t pagesize) +{ + int ret = -1; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = (*cleancache_ops->init_fs)(pagesize); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_init_shared_fs(char *uuid, size_t pagesize) +{ + int ret = -1; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = (*cleancache_ops->init_shared_fs)(uuid, pagesize); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_get_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_get_page(page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_put_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_put_page(page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *mapping, + struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_flush_page(mapping, page); + return ret; +} + +static inline int cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *mapping) +{ + int ret = 0; + + if (cleancache_ops) + ret = __cleancache_flush_inode(mapping); + return ret; +} + +static inline void cleancache_flush_fs(int pool_id) +{ + if (cleancache_ops && pool_id >= 0) + (*cleancache_ops->flush_fs)(pool_id); +} + +#endif /* _LINUX_CLEANCACHE_H */ --- linux-2.6.34/mm/cleancache.c 1969-12-31 17:00:00.000000000 -0700 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/cleancache.c 2010-05-24 18:07:11.000000000 -0600 @@ -0,0 +1,203 @@ +/* mm/cleancache.c + + Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Oracle Corp. All rights reserved. + Author: Dan Magenheimer + + Cleancache can be thought of as a page-granularity victim cache for clean + pages that the kernel's pageframe replacement algorithm (PFRA) would like + to keep around, but can't since there isn't enough memory. So when the + PFRA "evicts" a page, it first attempts to put it into a synchronous + concurrency-safe page-oriented pseudo-RAM device (such as Xen's Transcendent + Memory, aka "tmem", or in-kernel compressed memory, aka "zmem", or other + RAM-like devices) which is not directly accessible or addressable by the + kernel and is of unknown and possibly time-varying size. And when a + cleancache-enabled filesystem wishes to access a page in a file on disk, + it first checks cleancache to see if it already contains it; if it does, + the page is copied into the kernel and a disk access is avoided. + This pseudo-RAM device links itself to cleancache by setting the + cleancache_ops pointer appropriately and the functions it provides must + conform to certain semantics as follows: + + Most important, cleancache is "ephemeral". Pages which are copied into + cleancache have an indefinite lifetime which is completely unknowable + by the kernel and so may or may not still be in cleancache at any later time. + Thus, as its name implies, cleancache is not suitable for dirty pages. The + pseudo-RAM has complete discretion over what pages to preserve and what + pages to discard and when. + + A filesystem calls "init_fs" to obtain a pool id which, if positive, must be + saved in the filesystem's superblock; a negative return value indicates + failure. A "put_page" will copy a (presumably about-to-be-evicted) page into + pseudo-RAM and associate it with the pool id, the file inode, and a page + index into the file. (The combination of a pool id, an inode, and an index + is called a "handle".) A "get_page" will copy the page, if found, from + pseudo-RAM into kernel memory. A "flush_page" will ensure the page no longer + is present in pseudo-RAM; a "flush_inode" will flush all pages associated + with the specified inode; and a "flush_fs" will flush all pages in all + inodes specified by the given pool id. + + A "init_shared_fs", like init, obtains a pool id but tells the pseudo-RAM + to treat the pool as shared using a 128-bit UUID as a key. On systems + that may run multiple kernels (such as hard partitioned or virtualized + systems) that may share a clustered filesystem, and where the pseudo-RAM + may be shared among those kernels, calls to init_shared_fs that specify the + same UUID will receive the same pool id, thus allowing the pages to + be shared. Note that any security requirements must be imposed outside + of the kernel (e.g. by "tools" that control the pseudo-RAM). Or a + pseudo-RAM implementation can simply disable shared_init by always + returning a negative value. + + If a get_page is successful on a non-shared pool, the page is flushed (thus + making cleancache an "exclusive" cache). On a shared pool, the page + is NOT flushed on a successful get_page so that it remains accessible to + other sharers. The kernel is responsible for ensuring coherency between + cleancache (shared or not), the page cache, and the filesystem, using + cleancache flush operations as required. + + Note that the pseudo-RAM must enforce put-put-get coherency and get-get + coherency. For the former, if two puts are made to the same handle but + with different data, say AAA by the first put and BBB by the second, a + subsequent get can never return the stale data (AAA). For get-get coherency, + if a get for a given handle fails, subsequent gets for that handle will + never succeed unless preceded by a successful put with that handle. + + Last, pseudo-RAM provides no SMP serialization guarantees; if two + different Linux threads are putting an flushing a page with the same + handle, the results are indeterminate. + + */ + +#include <linux/module.h> +#include <linux/fs.h> +#include <linux/mm.h> +#include <linux/cleancache.h> + +struct cleancache_ops *cleancache_ops; +EXPORT_SYMBOL(cleancache_ops); + +/* useful stats available via /sys/kernel/mm/frontswap */ +static unsigned long succ_gets; +static unsigned long failed_gets; +static unsigned long puts; +static unsigned long flushes; + +int __cleancache_get_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = page->mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->get_page)(pool_id, + page->mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index, + page); + if (ret == CLEANCACHE_GET_PAGE_SUCCESS) + succ_gets++; + else + failed_gets++; + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_get_page); + +int __cleancache_put_page(struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = page->mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->put_page)(pool_id, + page->mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index, + page); + puts++; + } + return ret; +} + +int __cleancache_flush_page(struct address_space *mapping, struct page *page) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->flush_page)(pool_id, + mapping->host->i_ino, + page->index); + flushes++; + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_flush_page); + +int __cleancache_flush_inode(struct address_space *mapping) +{ + int ret = 0; + int pool_id = mapping->host->i_sb->cleancache_poolid; + + if (pool_id >= 0) { + ret = (*cleancache_ops->flush_inode)(pool_id, + mapping->host->i_ino); + } + return ret; +} +EXPORT_SYMBOL(__cleancache_flush_inode); + +#ifdef CONFIG_SYSFS + +#define CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(_name) \ + static struct kobj_attribute _name##_attr = __ATTR_RO(_name) + +static ssize_t succ_gets_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", succ_gets); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(succ_gets); + +static ssize_t failed_gets_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", failed_gets); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(failed_gets); + +static ssize_t puts_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", puts); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(puts); + +static ssize_t flushes_show(struct kobject *kobj, + struct kobj_attribute *attr, char *buf) +{ + return sprintf(buf, "%lu\n", flushes); +} +CLEANCACHE_ATTR_RO(flushes); + +static struct attribute *cleancache_attrs[] = { + &succ_gets_attr.attr, + &failed_gets_attr.attr, + &puts_attr.attr, + &flushes_attr.attr, + NULL, +}; + +static struct attribute_group cleancache_attr_group = { + .attrs = cleancache_attrs, + .name = "cleancache", +}; + +#endif /* CONFIG_SYSFS */ + +static int __init init_cleancache(void) +{ +#ifdef CONFIG_SYSFS + int err; + + err = sysfs_create_group(mm_kobj, &cleancache_attr_group); +#endif /* CONFIG_SYSFS */ + return 0; +} +module_init(init_cleancache) --- linux-2.6.34/mm/Kconfig 2010-05-16 15:17:36.000000000 -0600 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/Kconfig 2010-05-24 12:14:44.000000000 -0600 @@ -287,3 +287,25 @@ config NOMMU_INITIAL_TRIM_EXCESS of 1 says that all excess pages should be trimmed. See Documentation/nommu-mmap.txt for more information. + +config CLEANCACHE + bool "Enable cleancache pseudo-RAM driver to cache clean pages" + default y + help + Cleancache can be thought of as a page-granularity victim cache + for clean pages that the kernel's pageframe replacement algorithm + (PFRA) would like to keep around, but can't since there isn't enough + memory. So when the PFRA "evicts" a page, it first attempts to put + it into a synchronous concurrency-safe page-oriented pseudo-RAM + device (such as Xen's Transcendent Memory, aka "tmem") which is not + directly accessible or addressable by the kernel and is of unknown + (and possibly time-varying) size. And when a cleancache-enabled + filesystem wishes to access a page in a file on disk, it first + checks cleancache to see if it already contains it; if it does, + the page is copied into the kernel and a disk access is avoided. + When a pseudo-RAM device is available, a significant I/O reduction + may be achieved. When none is available, all cleancache calls + are reduced to a single pointer-compare-against-NULL resulting + in a negligible performance hit. + + If unsure, say Y to enable cleancache --- linux-2.6.34/mm/Makefile 2010-05-16 15:17:36.000000000 -0600 +++ linux-2.6.34-cleancache/mm/Makefile 2010-05-24 12:14:44.000000000 -0600 @@ -44,3 +44,4 @@ obj-$(CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE) += memory-f obj-$(CONFIG_HWPOISON_INJECT) += hwpoison-inject.o obj-$(CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK) += kmemleak.o obj-$(CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_TEST) += kmemleak-test.o +obj-$(CONFIG_CLEANCACHE) += cleancache.o
Dan Magenheimer
2010-Jun-03 00:08 UTC
[Ocfs2-devel] [PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files
> From: Andrew Morton [mailto:akpm at linux-foundation.org]Thanks very much for taking the time for feedback! I hope I can answer all of your questions... bear with me if some of the answers are a bit long.> > +extern struct cleancache_ops *cleancache_ops; > > Why does this exist? If there's only ever one cleancache_ops > system-wide then we'd be better off doing > > (*cleancache_ops.init_fs)() > > and save a zillion pointer hops. > > If instead there are different flavours of cleancache_ops then making > this pointer a system-wide singleton seems an odd decision.It is intended that there be different flavours but only one can be used in any running kernel. A driver file/module claims the cleancache_ops pointer (and should check to ensure it is not already claimed). And if nobody claims cleancache_ops, the hooks should be as non-intrusive as possible. Also note that the operations occur on the order of the number of I/O's, so definitely a lot, but "zillion" may be a bit high. :-) If you think this is a showstoppper, it could be changed to be bound only at compile-time, but then (I think) the claimer could never be a dynamically-loadable module.> All these undocumeted functions would appear to be racy and buggy if > the passed-in page isn't locked. But because they're undocumented, I > don't know if "the page must be locked" was an API requirement and I > ain't going to go and review all callers.True. The passed-in pages are assumed to be locked and, I believe, they are at all call sites. I'm not sure if this is possible/easy, but maybe I can put a BUG_ON(if !locked) in the routines to enforce and document this (and document it also with prose elsewhere).> Please completely document the sysfs API, preferably in the changelogs. > It's the first thing reviewers should look at, because it's one thing > we can never change. And Documentation/ABI/ is a place for permanent > documentation.OK, will do.> I'm a bit surprised that cleancache and frontswap have their sticky > fingers so deep inside swap and filesystems and the VFS. > > I'd have thought that the places where pages are added to the caches > would be highly concentrated in the page-reclaim page eviction code, > and that for reads the place where pages are retrieved would be at the > pagecache/swapcache <-> I/O boundary. Those transition points are > reasonably narrow and seem to be the obvious site at which to interpose > a cache, but it wasn't done that way.Hmmm... I think those transition points are exactly where the get/put/flush hooks are placed and I don't see how they can be reduced. The filesystem init hooks are almost entirely to allow different fs's to "opt in" to cleancache, with one exception in btrfs since btrfs goes around VFS in one case. And frontswap has one init call per swap type (all in one place). The core hooks for frontswap are also very few and brief. The lengthy part of the patch is because the pages in frontswap are persistent and must be managed with a (one-bit-per-page) data structure. Plus, there's a lot of patch-bulk due to the sysfs calls and a lot of comments.> In core MM there's been effort to treat swap-backed and file-backed > pages > in the same manner (indeed in a common manner) and that effort has been > partially successful. These changes are going in the other direction.But IMHO they are going the other direction for a very good reason. Much of the value of cleancache comes from cleanly separating clean pagecache pages from dirty pages. Frontswap is always dealing with dirty pages. But in any case, all the hooks are still very brief and if swap_writepage/swap_readpage ever got merged into file-backed MM code, there would need to be some test to differentiate swap-backed pages from file-backed pages and the slightly different frontswap-vs-cleancache calls would be in different parts of the if/else, but I don't think otherwise would interfere with attempts to "treat [them] in the same manner".> There have been any number of compressed-swap and compressed-file > projects (if not compressed-pagecache). Where do cleancache/frontswap > overlap those and which is superior?The primary target of cleancache/frontswap isn't compression (see below), though that is a nice feature that is provided by the Xen Transcendent Memory implementation. For kernel-only use, Nitin Gupta's position is that the cleancache interface will work nicely for in-kernel compressed-pagecache. He feels differently for frontswap though.> And the big vague general issue: where's the value? What does all this > code buy us? Why would we want to include it in Linux? When Aunt > Tillie unwraps her shiny new kernel, what would she notice was > different?A fair question so let me provide an honest answer. Like many recent KVM changes, there is a very compelling reason to do this for virtualized Linux and a less-compelling-but-still-possibly- useful reason for non-virtualized Linux. First non-virtualized (since I know you are less interested in the virtualized case and I hope to keep your attention for a bit longer): Cleancache/frontswap provide interfaces for a new pseudo-RAM memory type that conceptually lies between fast kernel-directly-addressable RAM and slower DMA/asynchronous devices. Disallowing direct kernel or userland reads/writes to this pseudo-RAM is ideal when data is transformed to a different form and size (such as with compression) or secretly moved (as might be useful for write-balancing for some RAM-like devices). Evicted page-cache pages and swap pages are a great use for this kind of slower-than-RAM-but-much-faster-than-disk pseudo-RAM and the cleancache/frontswap "page-object-oriented" specification provides a nice way to read and write and indirectly identify the pages. There may be other uses too. In the virtual case, the whole point of virtualization is to statistically multiplex physical resources across the varying demands of multiple virtual machines. This is really hard to do with RAM and efforts to do it well with no kernel changes have essentially failed (except in some well-publicized special-case workloads). Cleancache and frontswap, with a fairly small impact on the kernel, provide a huge amount of flexibility for more dynamic, flexible RAM multiplexing. (Think IBM's Collaborative Memory Management but much simpler.) If you are interested in understanding this better, I can go on with a lot more information, but that's it in a nutshell. Thanks again! Dan
Dan Magenheimer
2010-Jun-03 02:48 UTC
[Ocfs2-devel] [PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files
> > It is intended that there be different flavours but only > > one can be used in any running kernel. A driver file/module > > claims the cleancache_ops pointer (and should check to ensure > > it is not already claimed). And if nobody claims cleancache_ops, > > the hooks should be as non-intrusive as possible. > > > > Also note that the operations occur on the order of the number > > of I/O's, so definitely a lot, but "zillion" may be a bit high. :-) > > > > If you think this is a showstoppper, it could be changed > > to be bound only at compile-time, but then (I think) the claimer > > could never be a dynamically-loadable module. > > Andrew is suggesting that rather than making cleancache_ops a pointer > to > a structure, just make it a structure, so that calling a function is a > matter of cleancache_ops.func rather than cleancache_ops->func, thereby > avoiding a pointer dereference.OK, I see. So the claimer of the cleancache_ops structure just fills in all of the func fields individually? That would work too. IIUC it wouldn't save any instructions when cleancache_ops is unclaimed because it is still necessary to check a func pointer against NULL, but would save an extra pointer indirection and possible cache miss for every use of any func when it is claimed. I'll change that for next rev. Thanks and sorry I misunderstood! Dan
Dan Magenheimer
2010-Jun-10 03:29 UTC
[Ocfs2-devel] [PATCH V2 2/7] Cleancache (was Transcendent Memory): core files
> I just finished a rough (but working) implementation of in-kernel > page cache compression backend (called zcache). During this work, > I found some issues with cleancache, mostly related to (lack of) > comments/documentation:Great to hear! And excellent feedback on the missing documentation... I am working on this right now so your feedback is very timely. (documentation and funcition return values comments deleted as I will fix all of them)> > + > > +static inline int cleancache_init_fs(size_t pagesize) > > + > > - It seems that returning pool_id of 0 is considered as error > condition (as it appears from deactivate_locked_super() changes). > This seems weird; I think only negative pool_id should considered > as error. Anyway, please add function comments for these.Hmmm... this is a bug. 0 is a valid pool_id. I'll fix it for the next rev.> Page cache compression was a long-pending project. I'm glad its > coming into shape with the help of cleancache :)Thanks! Dan