mm: base LRU balancing on an explicit cost model

Currently, scan pressure between the anon and file LRU lists is balanced
based on a mixture of reclaim efficiency and a somewhat vague notion of
"value" of having certain pages in memory over others.  That concept of
value is problematic, because it has caused us to count any event that
remotely makes one LRU list more or less preferrable for reclaim, even
when these events are not directly comparable and impose very different
costs on the system.  One example is referenced file pages that we still
deactivate and referenced anonymous pages that we actually rotate back to
the head of the list.

There is also conceptual overlap with the LRU algorithm itself.  By
rotating recently used pages instead of reclaiming them, the algorithm
already biases the applied scan pressure based on page value.  Thus, when
rebalancing scan pressure due to rotations, we should think of reclaim
cost, and leave assessing the page value to the LRU algorithm.

Lastly, considering both value-increasing as well as value-decreasing
events can sometimes cause the same type of event to be counted twice,
i.e.  how rotating a page increases the LRU value, while reclaiming it
succesfully decreases the value.  In itself this will balance out fine,
but it quietly skews the impact of events that are only recorded once.

The abstract metric of "value", the murky relationship with the LRU
algorithm, and accounting both negative and positive events make the
current pressure balancing model hard to reason about and modify.

This patch switches to a balancing model of accounting the concrete,
actually observed cost of reclaiming one LRU over another.  For now, that
cost includes pages that are scanned but rotated back to the list head.
Subsequent patches will add consideration for IO caused by refaulting of
recently evicted pages.

Replace struct zone_reclaim_stat with two cost counters in the lruvec, and
make everything that affects cost go through a new lru_note_cost()
function.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@surriel.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200520232525.798933-9-hannes@cmpxchg.org
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 22 insertions, 22 deletions

diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index a5a7a8d0764c..c5b2a68f4ef6 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -1916,7 +1916,6 @@ shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan, struct lruvec *lruvec,
 	bool file = is_file_lru(lru);
 	enum vm_event_item item;
 	struct pglist_data *pgdat = lruvec_pgdat(lruvec);
-	struct zone_reclaim_stat *reclaim_stat = &lruvec->reclaim_stat;
 	bool stalled = false;
 
 	while (unlikely(too_many_isolated(pgdat, file, sc))) {
@@ -1940,7 +1939,6 @@ shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan, struct lruvec *lruvec,
 				     &nr_scanned, sc, lru);
 
 	__mod_node_page_state(pgdat, NR_ISOLATED_ANON + file, nr_taken);
-	reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[file] += nr_taken;
 	item = current_is_kswapd() ? PGSCAN_KSWAPD : PGSCAN_DIRECT;
 	if (!cgroup_reclaim(sc))
 		__count_vm_events(item, nr_scanned);
@@ -1960,8 +1958,12 @@ shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan, struct lruvec *lruvec,
 	move_pages_to_lru(lruvec, &page_list);
 
 	__mod_node_page_state(pgdat, NR_ISOLATED_ANON + file, -nr_taken);
-	reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[0] += stat.nr_activate[0];
-	reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[1] += stat.nr_activate[1];
+	/*
+	 * Rotating pages costs CPU without actually
+	 * progressing toward the reclaim goal.
+	 */
+	lru_note_cost(lruvec, 0, stat.nr_activate[0]);
+	lru_note_cost(lruvec, 1, stat.nr_activate[1]);
 	item = current_is_kswapd() ? PGSTEAL_KSWAPD : PGSTEAL_DIRECT;
 	if (!cgroup_reclaim(sc))
 		__count_vm_events(item, nr_reclaimed);
@@ -2013,7 +2015,6 @@ static void shrink_active_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan,
 	LIST_HEAD(l_active);
 	LIST_HEAD(l_inactive);
 	struct page *page;
-	struct zone_reclaim_stat *reclaim_stat = &lruvec->reclaim_stat;
 	unsigned nr_deactivate, nr_activate;
 	unsigned nr_rotated = 0;
 	int file = is_file_lru(lru);
@@ -2027,7 +2028,6 @@ static void shrink_active_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan,
 				     &nr_scanned, sc, lru);
 
 	__mod_node_page_state(pgdat, NR_ISOLATED_ANON + file, nr_taken);
-	reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[file] += nr_taken;
 
 	__count_vm_events(PGREFILL, nr_scanned);
 	__count_memcg_events(lruvec_memcg(lruvec), PGREFILL, nr_scanned);
@@ -2085,7 +2085,7 @@ static void shrink_active_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan,
 	 * helps balance scan pressure between file and anonymous pages in
 	 * get_scan_count.
 	 */
-	reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[file] += nr_rotated;
+	lru_note_cost(lruvec, file, nr_rotated);
 
 	nr_activate = move_pages_to_lru(lruvec, &l_active);
 	nr_deactivate = move_pages_to_lru(lruvec, &l_inactive);
@@ -2242,13 +2242,13 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
 {
 	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = lruvec_memcg(lruvec);
 	int swappiness = mem_cgroup_swappiness(memcg);
-	struct zone_reclaim_stat *reclaim_stat = &lruvec->reclaim_stat;
 	u64 fraction[2];
 	u64 denominator = 0;	/* gcc */
 	struct pglist_data *pgdat = lruvec_pgdat(lruvec);
 	unsigned long anon_prio, file_prio;
 	enum scan_balance scan_balance;
 	unsigned long anon, file;
+	unsigned long totalcost;
 	unsigned long ap, fp;
 	enum lru_list lru;
 
@@ -2324,26 +2324,26 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
 		lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, LRU_INACTIVE_FILE, MAX_NR_ZONES);
 
 	spin_lock_irq(&pgdat->lru_lock);
-	if (unlikely(reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[0] > anon / 4)) {
-		reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[0] /= 2;
-		reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[0] /= 2;
-	}
-
-	if (unlikely(reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[1] > file / 4)) {
-		reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[1] /= 2;
-		reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[1] /= 2;
+	totalcost = lruvec->anon_cost + lruvec->file_cost;
+	if (unlikely(totalcost > (anon + file) / 4)) {
+		lruvec->anon_cost /= 2;
+		lruvec->file_cost /= 2;
+		totalcost /= 2;
 	}
 
 	/*
 	 * The amount of pressure on anon vs file pages is inversely
-	 * proportional to the fraction of recently scanned pages on
-	 * each list that were recently referenced and in active use.
+	 * proportional to the assumed cost of reclaiming each list,
+	 * as determined by the share of pages that are likely going
+	 * to refault or rotate on each list (recently referenced),
+	 * times the relative IO cost of bringing back a swapped out
+	 * anonymous page vs reloading a filesystem page (swappiness).
 	 */
-	ap = anon_prio * (reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[0] + 1);
-	ap /= reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[0] + 1;
+	ap = anon_prio * (totalcost + 1);
+	ap /= lruvec->anon_cost + 1;
 
-	fp = file_prio * (reclaim_stat->recent_scanned[1] + 1);
-	fp /= reclaim_stat->recent_rotated[1] + 1;
+	fp = file_prio * (totalcost + 1);
+	fp /= lruvec->file_cost + 1;
 	spin_unlock_irq(&pgdat->lru_lock);
 
 	fraction[0] = ap;