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[37.188.253.35]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id w8sm12933799wmm.0.2020.03.12.06.26.48 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Thu, 12 Mar 2020 06:26:49 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:26:42 +0100 From: Michal Hocko To: Ivan Teterevkov Cc: "corbet@lwn.net" , "akpm@linux-foundation.org" , "mchehab+samsung@kernel.org" , "tglx@linutronix.de" , "jpoimboe@redhat.com" , "pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com" , "jgross@suse.com" , "oneukum@suse.com" , "linux-doc@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-mm@kvack.org" Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm/vmscan: add vm_swappiness configuration knobs Message-ID: <20200312132642.GW23944@dhcp22.suse.cz> References: <20200312092531.GU23944@dhcp22.suse.cz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu 12-03-20 12:54:19, Ivan Teterevkov wrote: > On Thurs, 12 Mar 2020, Michal Hocko wrote: > > > On Wed 11-03-20 17:45:58, Ivan Teterevkov wrote: > > > This patch adds a couple of knobs: > > > > > > - The configuration option (CONFIG_VM_SWAPPINESS). > > > - The command line parameter (vm_swappiness). > > > > > > The default value is preserved, but now defined by CONFIG_VM_SWAPPINESS. > > > > > > Historically, the default swappiness is set to the well-known value > > > 60, and this works well for the majority of cases. The vm_swappiness > > > is also exposed as the kernel parameter that can be changed at runtime too, > > e.g. > > > with sysctl. > > > > > > This approach might not suit well some configurations, e.g. > > > systemd-based distros, where systemd is put in charge of the cgroup > > > controllers, including the memory one. In such cases, the default > > > swappiness 60 is copied across the cgroup subtrees early at startup, > > > when systemd is arranging the slices for its services, before the > > > sysctl.conf or tmpfiles.d/*.conf changes are applied. > > > > > > One could run a script to traverse the cgroup trees later and set the > > > desired memory.swappiness individually in each occurrence when the > > > runtime is set up, but this would require some amount of work to > > > implement properly. Instead, why not set the default swappiness as early as > > possible? > > > > I have to say I am not a great fan of more tunning for swappiness as this is quite > > a poor tunning for many years already. It essentially does nothing in many cases > > because the reclaim process ignores to value in many cases (have a look a > > get_scan_count. I have seen quite some reports that setting a specific value for > > vmswappiness didn't make any change. The knob itself has a terrible semantic to > > begin with because there is no way to express I really prefer to swap rather than > > page cache reclaim. > > > > This all makes me think that swappiness is a historical mistake that we should > > rather make obsolete than promote even further. > > Absolutely agree, the semantics of the vm_swappiness is perplexing. > Moreover, the same get_scan_count treats vm_swappiness and cgroups > memory.swappiness differently, in particular, 0 disables the memcg swap. > > Certainly, the patch adds some additional exposure to a parameter that > is not trivial to tackle but it's already getting created with a magic > number which is also confusing. Is there any harm to be done by the patch > considering the already existing sysctl interface to that knob? Like any other config option/kernel parameter. It is adding the the overall config space size problem and unless this is really needed I would rather not make it worse. -- Michal Hocko SUSE Labs