Re: [PATCH v4 3/5] dax: use common 4k zero page for dax mmap reads

[Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>]

On Fri 21-07-17 16:39:53, Ross Zwisler wrote:
> When servicing mmap() reads from file holes the current DAX code allocates
> a page cache page of all zeroes and places the struct page pointer in the
> mapping->page_tree radix tree.  This has three major drawbacks:
> 
> 1) It consumes memory unnecessarily.  For every 4k page that is read via a
> DAX mmap() over a hole, we allocate a new page cache page.  This means that
> if you read 1GiB worth of pages, you end up using 1GiB of zeroed memory.
> This is easily visible by looking at the overall memory consumption of the
> system or by looking at /proc/[pid]/smaps:
> 
> 	7f62e72b3000-7f63272b3000 rw-s 00000000 103:00 12   /root/dax/data
> 	Size:            1048576 kB
> 	Rss:             1048576 kB
> 	Pss:             1048576 kB
> 	Shared_Clean:          0 kB
> 	Shared_Dirty:          0 kB
> 	Private_Clean:   1048576 kB
> 	Private_Dirty:         0 kB
> 	Referenced:      1048576 kB
> 	Anonymous:             0 kB
> 	LazyFree:              0 kB
> 	AnonHugePages:         0 kB
> 	ShmemPmdMapped:        0 kB
> 	Shared_Hugetlb:        0 kB
> 	Private_Hugetlb:       0 kB
> 	Swap:                  0 kB
> 	SwapPss:               0 kB
> 	KernelPageSize:        4 kB
> 	MMUPageSize:           4 kB
> 	Locked:                0 kB
> 
> 2) It is slower than using a common zero page because each page fault has
> more work to do.  Instead of just inserting a common zero page we have to
> allocate a page cache page, zero it, and then insert it.  Here are the
> average latencies of dax_load_hole() as measured by ftrace on a random test
> box:
> 
> Old method, using zeroed page cache pages:	3.4 us
> New method, using the common 4k zero page:	0.8 us
> 
> This was the average latency over 1 GiB of sequential reads done by this
> simple fio script:
> 
>   [global]
>   size=1G
>   filename=/root/dax/data
>   fallocate=none
>   [io]
>   rw=read
>   ioengine=mmap
> 
> 3) The fact that we had to check for both DAX exceptional entries and for
> page cache pages in the radix tree made the DAX code more complex.
> 
> Solve these issues by following the lead of the DAX PMD code and using a
> common 4k zero page instead.  As with the PMD code we will now insert a DAX
> exceptional entry into the radix tree instead of a struct page pointer
> which allows us to remove all the special casing in the DAX code.
> 
> Note that we do still pretty aggressively check for regular pages in the
> DAX radix tree, especially where we take action based on the bits set in
> the page.  If we ever find a regular page in our radix tree now that most
> likely means that someone besides DAX is inserting pages (which has
> happened lots of times in the past), and we want to find that out early and
> fail loudly.
> 
> This solution also removes the extra memory consumption.  Here is that same
> /proc/[pid]/smaps after 1GiB of reading from a hole with the new code:
> 
> 	7f2054a74000-7f2094a74000 rw-s 00000000 103:00 12   /root/dax/data
> 	Size:            1048576 kB
> 	Rss:                   0 kB
> 	Pss:                   0 kB
> 	Shared_Clean:          0 kB
> 	Shared_Dirty:          0 kB
> 	Private_Clean:         0 kB
> 	Private_Dirty:         0 kB
> 	Referenced:            0 kB
> 	Anonymous:             0 kB
> 	LazyFree:              0 kB
> 	AnonHugePages:         0 kB
> 	ShmemPmdMapped:        0 kB
> 	Shared_Hugetlb:        0 kB
> 	Private_Hugetlb:       0 kB
> 	Swap:                  0 kB
> 	SwapPss:               0 kB
> 	KernelPageSize:        4 kB
> 	MMUPageSize:           4 kB
> 	Locked:                0 kB
> 
> Overall system memory consumption is similarly improved.
> 
> Another major change is that we remove dax_pfn_mkwrite() from our fault
> flow, and instead rely on the page fault itself to make the PTE dirty and
> writeable.  The following description from the patch adding the
> vm_insert_mixed_mkwrite() call explains this a little more:
> 
> ***
>   To be able to use the common 4k zero page in DAX we need to have our PTE
>   fault path look more like our PMD fault path where a PTE entry can be
>   marked as dirty and writeable as it is first inserted, rather than
>   waiting for a follow-up dax_pfn_mkwrite() => finish_mkwrite_fault() call.
> 
>   Right now we can rely on having a dax_pfn_mkwrite() call because we can
>   distinguish between these two cases in do_wp_page():
> 
>           case 1: 4k zero page => writable DAX storage
>           case 2: read-only DAX storage => writeable DAX storage
> 
>   This distinction is made by via vm_normal_page().  vm_normal_page()
>   returns false for the common 4k zero page, though, just as it does for
>   DAX ptes.  Instead of special casing the DAX + 4k zero page case, we will
>   simplify our DAX PTE page fault sequence so that it matches our DAX PMD
>   sequence, and get rid of the dax_pfn_mkwrite() helper.  We will instead
>   use dax_iomap_fault() to handle write-protection faults.
> 
>   This means that insert_pfn() needs to follow the lead of insert_pfn_pmd()
>   and allow us to pass in a 'mkwrite' flag.  If 'mkwrite' is set
>   insert_pfn() will do the work that was previously done by wp_page_reuse()
>   as part of the dax_pfn_mkwrite() call path.
> ***
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ross Zwisler <ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com>

The patch looks good to me. You can add:

Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>

And I really like that we've got rid of these pagecache hole pages!

								Honza
-- 
Jan Kara <jack@suse.com>
SUSE Labs, CR

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