mm: vmscan: reduce size of inactive file list

The inactive file list should still be large enough to contain readahead
windows and freshly written file data, but it no longer is the only
source for detecting multiple accesses to file pages.  The workingset
refault measurement code causes recently evicted file pages that get
accessed again after a shorter interval to be promoted directly to the
active list.

With that mechanism in place, we can afford to (on a larger system)
dedicate more memory to the active file list, so we can actually cache
more of the frequently used file pages in memory, and not have them
pushed out by streaming writes, once-used streaming file reads, etc.

This can help things like database workloads, where only half the page
cache can currently be used to cache the database working set.  This
patch automatically increases that fraction on larger systems, using the
same ratio that has already been used for anonymous memory.

[hannes@cmpxchg.org: cgroup-awareness]
Signed-off-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 42 insertions, 62 deletions

diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index dcfdfc1a0942..38d6d06c955f 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -1862,83 +1862,63 @@ static void shrink_active_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan,
 	free_hot_cold_page_list(&l_hold, true);
 }
 
-#ifdef CONFIG_SWAP
-static bool inactive_anon_is_low_global(struct zone *zone)
-{
-	unsigned long active, inactive;
-
-	active = zone_page_state(zone, NR_ACTIVE_ANON);
-	inactive = zone_page_state(zone, NR_INACTIVE_ANON);
-
-	return inactive * zone->inactive_ratio < active;
-}
-
-/**
- * inactive_anon_is_low - check if anonymous pages need to be deactivated
- * @lruvec: LRU vector to check
+/*
+ * The inactive anon list should be small enough that the VM never has
+ * to do too much work.
  *
- * Returns true if the zone does not have enough inactive anon pages,
- * meaning some active anon pages need to be deactivated.
- */
-static bool inactive_anon_is_low(struct lruvec *lruvec)
-{
-	/*
-	 * If we don't have swap space, anonymous page deactivation
-	 * is pointless.
-	 */
-	if (!total_swap_pages)
-		return false;
-
-	if (!mem_cgroup_disabled())
-		return mem_cgroup_inactive_anon_is_low(lruvec);
-
-	return inactive_anon_is_low_global(lruvec_zone(lruvec));
-}
-#else
-static inline bool inactive_anon_is_low(struct lruvec *lruvec)
-{
-	return false;
-}
-#endif
-
-/**
- * inactive_file_is_low - check if file pages need to be deactivated
- * @lruvec: LRU vector to check
+ * The inactive file list should be small enough to leave most memory
+ * to the established workingset on the scan-resistant active list,
+ * but large enough to avoid thrashing the aggregate readahead window.
  *
- * When the system is doing streaming IO, memory pressure here
- * ensures that active file pages get deactivated, until more
- * than half of the file pages are on the inactive list.
+ * Both inactive lists should also be large enough that each inactive
+ * page has a chance to be referenced again before it is reclaimed.
  *
- * Once we get to that situation, protect the system's working
- * set from being evicted by disabling active file page aging.
+ * The inactive_ratio is the target ratio of ACTIVE to INACTIVE pages
+ * on this LRU, maintained by the pageout code. A zone->inactive_ratio
+ * of 3 means 3:1 or 25% of the pages are kept on the inactive list.
  *
- * This uses a different ratio than the anonymous pages, because
- * the page cache uses a use-once replacement algorithm.
+ * total     target    max
+ * memory    ratio     inactive
+ * -------------------------------------
+ *   10MB       1         5MB
+ *  100MB       1        50MB
+ *    1GB       3       250MB
+ *   10GB      10       0.9GB
+ *  100GB      31         3GB
+ *    1TB     101        10GB
+ *   10TB     320        32GB
  */
-static bool inactive_file_is_low(struct lruvec *lruvec)
+static bool inactive_list_is_low(struct lruvec *lruvec, bool file)
 {
+	unsigned long inactive_ratio;
 	unsigned long inactive;
 	unsigned long active;
+	unsigned long gb;
 
-	inactive = lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, LRU_INACTIVE_FILE);
-	active = lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, LRU_ACTIVE_FILE);
+	/*
+	 * If we don't have swap space, anonymous page deactivation
+	 * is pointless.
+	 */
+	if (!file && !total_swap_pages)
+		return false;
 
-	return active > inactive;
-}
+	inactive = lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, file * LRU_FILE);
+	active = lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, file * LRU_FILE + LRU_ACTIVE);
 
-static bool inactive_list_is_low(struct lruvec *lruvec, enum lru_list lru)
-{
-	if (is_file_lru(lru))
-		return inactive_file_is_low(lruvec);
+	gb = (inactive + active) >> (30 - PAGE_SHIFT);
+	if (gb)
+		inactive_ratio = int_sqrt(10 * gb);
 	else
-		return inactive_anon_is_low(lruvec);
+		inactive_ratio = 1;
+
+	return inactive * inactive_ratio < active;
 }
 
 static unsigned long shrink_list(enum lru_list lru, unsigned long nr_to_scan,
 				 struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc)
 {
 	if (is_active_lru(lru)) {
-		if (inactive_list_is_low(lruvec, lru))
+		if (inactive_list_is_low(lruvec, is_file_lru(lru)))
 			shrink_active_list(nr_to_scan, lruvec, sc, lru);
 		return 0;
 	}
@@ -2059,7 +2039,7 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
 	 * lruvec even if it has plenty of old anonymous pages unless the
 	 * system is under heavy pressure.
 	 */
-	if (!inactive_file_is_low(lruvec) &&
+	if (!inactive_list_is_low(lruvec, true) &&
 	    lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, LRU_INACTIVE_FILE) >> sc->priority) {
 		scan_balance = SCAN_FILE;
 		goto out;
@@ -2301,7 +2281,7 @@ static void shrink_zone_memcg(struct zone *zone, struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
 	 * Even if we did not try to evict anon pages at all, we want to
 	 * rebalance the anon lru active/inactive ratio.
 	 */
-	if (inactive_anon_is_low(lruvec))
+	if (inactive_list_is_low(lruvec, false))
 		shrink_active_list(SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX, lruvec,
 				   sc, LRU_ACTIVE_ANON);
 
@@ -2962,7 +2942,7 @@ static void age_active_anon(struct zone *zone, struct scan_control *sc)
 	do {
 		struct lruvec *lruvec = mem_cgroup_zone_lruvec(zone, memcg);
 
-		if (inactive_anon_is_low(lruvec))
+		if (inactive_list_is_low(lruvec, false))
 			shrink_active_list(SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX, lruvec,
 					   sc, LRU_ACTIVE_ANON);