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authorMinchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>2018-12-28 09:36:47 +0100
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2018-12-28 21:11:49 +0100
commita939888ec38bf1f33e4a903056677e92a4844244 (patch)
treec1895d12365563d62ad0f9906a8ab5f6ed2f0cf7 /Documentation/ABI
parentzram: introduce ZRAM_IDLE flag (diff)
downloadlinux-a939888ec38bf1f33e4a903056677e92a4844244.tar.xz
linux-a939888ec38bf1f33e4a903056677e92a4844244.zip
zram: support idle/huge page writeback
Add a new feature "zram idle/huge page writeback". In the zram-swap use case, zram usually has many idle/huge swap pages. It's pointless to keep them in memory (ie, zram). To solve this problem, this feature introduces idle/huge page writeback to the backing device so the goal is to save more memory space on embedded systems. Normal sequence to use idle/huge page writeback feature is as follows, while (1) { # mark allocated zram slot to idle echo all > /sys/block/zram0/idle # leave system working for several hours # Unless there is no access for some blocks on zram, # they are still IDLE marked pages. echo "idle" > /sys/block/zram0/writeback or/and echo "huge" > /sys/block/zram0/writeback # write the IDLE or/and huge marked slot into backing device # and free the memory. } Per the discussion at https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20181122065926.GG3441@jagdpanzerIV/T/#u, This patch removes direct incommpressibe page writeback feature (d2afd25114f4 ("zram: write incompressible pages to backing device")). Below concerns from Sergey: == &< == "IDLE writeback" is superior to "incompressible writeback". "incompressible writeback" is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable; it depens on data patterns and compression algorithms. While "IDLE writeback" is predictable. I even suspect, that, *ideally*, we can remove "incompressible writeback". "IDLE pages" is a super set which also includes "incompressible" pages. So, technically, we still can do "incompressible writeback" from "IDLE writeback" path; but a much more reasonable one, based on a page idling period. I understand that you want to keep "direct incompressible writeback" around. ZRAM is especially popular on devices which do suffer from flash wearout, so I can see "incompressible writeback" path becoming a dead code, long term. == &< == Below concerns from Minchan: == &< == My concern is if we enable CONFIG_ZRAM_WRITEBACK in this implementation, both hugepage/idlepage writeck will turn on. However someuser want to enable only idlepage writeback so we need to introduce turn on/off knob for hugepage or new CONFIG_ZRAM_IDLEPAGE_WRITEBACK for those usecase. I don't want to make it complicated *if possible*. Long term, I imagine we need to make VM aware of new swap hierarchy a little bit different with as-is. For example, first high priority swap can return -EIO or -ENOCOMP, swap try to fallback to next lower priority swap device. With that, hugepage writeback will work tranparently. So we could regard it as regression because incompressible pages doesn't go to backing storage automatically. Instead, user should do it via "echo huge" > /sys/block/zram/writeback" manually. == &< == Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181127055429.251614-6-minchan@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Joey Pabalinas <joeypabalinas@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/ABI')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram7
1 files changed, 7 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram
index 04c9a5980bc7..d1f80b077885 100644
--- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block-zram
@@ -106,3 +106,10 @@ Description:
idle file is write-only and mark zram slot as idle.
If system has mounted debugfs, user can see which slots
are idle via /sys/kernel/debug/zram/zram<id>/block_state
+
+What: /sys/block/zram<id>/writeback
+Date: November 2018
+Contact: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
+Description:
+ The writeback file is write-only and trigger idle and/or
+ huge page writeback to backing device.