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authorChristoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>2010-09-09 16:38:17 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2010-09-09 18:57:25 -0700
commitaa45484031ddee09b06350ab8528bfe5b2c76d1c (patch)
tree6758072232db9a54453022ec3e6cede35d52001c /mm/page_alloc.c
parent72853e2991a2702ae93aaf889ac7db743a415dd3 (diff)
downloadblackbird-op-linux-aa45484031ddee09b06350ab8528bfe5b2c76d1c.tar.gz
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mm: page allocator: calculate a better estimate of NR_FREE_PAGES when memory is low and kswapd is awake
Ordinarily watermark checks are based on the vmstat NR_FREE_PAGES as it is cheaper than scanning a number of lists. To avoid synchronization overhead, counter deltas are maintained on a per-cpu basis and drained both periodically and when the delta is above a threshold. On large CPU systems, the difference between the estimated and real value of NR_FREE_PAGES can be very high. If NR_FREE_PAGES is much higher than number of real free page in buddy, the VM can allocate pages below min watermark, at worst reducing the real number of pages to zero. Even if the OOM killer kills some victim for freeing memory, it may not free memory if the exit path requires a new page resulting in livelock. This patch introduces a zone_page_state_snapshot() function (courtesy of Christoph) that takes a slightly more accurate view of an arbitrary vmstat counter. It is used to read NR_FREE_PAGES while kswapd is awake to avoid the watermark being accidentally broken. The estimate is not perfect and may result in cache line bounces but is expected to be lighter than the IPI calls necessary to continually drain the per-cpu counters while kswapd is awake. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'mm/page_alloc.c')
-rw-r--r--mm/page_alloc.c4
1 files changed, 2 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 452e2ba06c7c..b2d21e06d45d 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -1462,7 +1462,7 @@ int zone_watermark_ok(struct zone *z, int order, unsigned long mark,
{
/* free_pages my go negative - that's OK */
long min = mark;
- long free_pages = zone_page_state(z, NR_FREE_PAGES) - (1 << order) + 1;
+ long free_pages = zone_nr_free_pages(z) - (1 << order) + 1;
int o;
if (alloc_flags & ALLOC_HIGH)
@@ -2424,7 +2424,7 @@ void show_free_areas(void)
" all_unreclaimable? %s"
"\n",
zone->name,
- K(zone_page_state(zone, NR_FREE_PAGES)),
+ K(zone_nr_free_pages(zone)),
K(min_wmark_pages(zone)),
K(low_wmark_pages(zone)),
K(high_wmark_pages(zone)),
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