[mm-unstable,v4,5/5] mm: memcg: restore subtree stats flushing

Message ID 20231129032154.3710765-6-yosryahmed@google.com
State New
Headers
Series mm: memcg: subtree stats flushing and thresholds |

Commit Message

Yosry Ahmed Nov. 29, 2023, 3:21 a.m. UTC
  Stats flushing for memcg currently follows the following rules:
- Always flush the entire memcg hierarchy (i.e. flush the root).
- Only one flusher is allowed at a time. If someone else tries to flush
  concurrently, they skip and return immediately.
- A periodic flusher flushes all the stats every 2 seconds.

The reason this approach is followed is because all flushes are
serialized by a global rstat spinlock. On the memcg side, flushing is
invoked from userspace reads as well as in-kernel flushers (e.g.
reclaim, refault, etc). This approach aims to avoid serializing all
flushers on the global lock, which can cause a significant performance
hit under high concurrency.

This approach has the following problems:
- Occasionally a userspace read of the stats of a non-root cgroup will
  be too expensive as it has to flush the entire hierarchy [1].
- Sometimes the stats accuracy are compromised if there is an ongoing
  flush, and we skip and return before the subtree of interest is
  actually flushed, yielding stale stats (by up to 2s due to periodic
  flushing). This is more visible when reading stats from userspace,
  but can also affect in-kernel flushers.

The latter problem is particulary a concern when userspace reads stats
after an event occurs, but gets stats from before the event. Examples:
- When memory usage / pressure spikes, a userspace OOM handler may look
  at the stats of different memcgs to select a victim based on various
  heuristics (e.g. how much private memory will be freed by killing
  this). Reading stale stats from before the usage spike in this case
  may cause a wrongful OOM kill.
- A proactive reclaimer may read the stats after writing to
  memory.reclaim to measure the success of the reclaim operation. Stale
  stats from before reclaim may give a false negative.
- Reading the stats of a parent and a child memcg may be inconsistent
  (child larger than parent), if the flush doesn't happen when the
  parent is read, but happens when the child is read.

As for in-kernel flushers, they will occasionally get stale stats. No
regressions are currently known from this, but if there are regressions,
they would be very difficult to debug and link to the source of the
problem.

This patch aims to fix these problems by restoring subtree flushing,
and removing the unified/coalesced flushing logic that skips flushing if
there is an ongoing flush. This change would introduce a significant
regression with global stats flushing thresholds. With per-memcg stats
flushing thresholds, this seems to perform really well. The thresholds
protect the underlying lock from unnecessary contention.

Add a mutex to protect the underlying rstat lock from excessive memcg
flushing. The thresholds are re-checked after the mutex is grabbed to
make sure that a concurrent flush did not already get the subtree we are
trying to flush. A call to cgroup_rstat_flush() is not cheap, even if
there are no pending updates.

This patch was tested in two ways to ensure the latency of flushing is
up to bar, on a machine with 384 cpus:
- A synthetic test with 5000 concurrent workers in 500 cgroups doing
  allocations and reclaim, as well as 1000 readers for memory.stat
  (variation of [2]). No regressions were noticed in the total runtime.
  Note that significant regressions in this test are observed with
  global stats thresholds, but not with per-memcg thresholds.

- A synthetic stress test for concurrently reading memcg stats while
  memory allocation/freeing workers are running in the background,
  provided by Wei Xu [3]. With 250k threads reading the stats every
  100ms in 50k cgroups, 99.9% of reads take <= 50us. Less than 0.01%
  of reads take more than 1ms, and no reads take more than 100ms.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CABWYdi0c6__rh-K7dcM_pkf9BJdTRtAU08M43KO9ME4-dsgfoQ@mail.gmail.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAJD7tka13M-zVZTyQJYL1iUAYvuQ1fcHbCjcOBZcz6POYTV-4g@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAAPL-u9D2b=iF5Lf_cRnKxUfkiEe0AMDTu6yhrUAzX0b6a6rDg@mail.gmail.com/

Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
Tested-by: Domenico Cerasuolo <cerasuolodomenico@gmail.com>
---
 include/linux/memcontrol.h |  8 ++--
 mm/memcontrol.c            | 75 +++++++++++++++++++++++---------------
 mm/vmscan.c                |  2 +-
 mm/workingset.c            | 10 +++--
 4 files changed, 58 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)
  

Comments

Bagas Sanjaya Dec. 2, 2023, 1:57 a.m. UTC | #1
On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> Stats flushing for memcg currently follows the following rules:
> - Always flush the entire memcg hierarchy (i.e. flush the root).
> - Only one flusher is allowed at a time. If someone else tries to flush
>   concurrently, they skip and return immediately.
> - A periodic flusher flushes all the stats every 2 seconds.
> 
> The reason this approach is followed is because all flushes are
> serialized by a global rstat spinlock. On the memcg side, flushing is
> invoked from userspace reads as well as in-kernel flushers (e.g.
> reclaim, refault, etc). This approach aims to avoid serializing all
> flushers on the global lock, which can cause a significant performance
> hit under high concurrency.
> 
> This approach has the following problems:
> - Occasionally a userspace read of the stats of a non-root cgroup will
>   be too expensive as it has to flush the entire hierarchy [1].
> - Sometimes the stats accuracy are compromised if there is an ongoing
>   flush, and we skip and return before the subtree of interest is
>   actually flushed, yielding stale stats (by up to 2s due to periodic
>   flushing). This is more visible when reading stats from userspace,
>   but can also affect in-kernel flushers.
> 
> The latter problem is particulary a concern when userspace reads stats
> after an event occurs, but gets stats from before the event. Examples:
> - When memory usage / pressure spikes, a userspace OOM handler may look
>   at the stats of different memcgs to select a victim based on various
>   heuristics (e.g. how much private memory will be freed by killing
>   this). Reading stale stats from before the usage spike in this case
>   may cause a wrongful OOM kill.
> - A proactive reclaimer may read the stats after writing to
>   memory.reclaim to measure the success of the reclaim operation. Stale
>   stats from before reclaim may give a false negative.
> - Reading the stats of a parent and a child memcg may be inconsistent
>   (child larger than parent), if the flush doesn't happen when the
>   parent is read, but happens when the child is read.
> 
> As for in-kernel flushers, they will occasionally get stale stats. No
> regressions are currently known from this, but if there are regressions,
> they would be very difficult to debug and link to the source of the
> problem.
> 
> This patch aims to fix these problems by restoring subtree flushing,
> and removing the unified/coalesced flushing logic that skips flushing if
> there is an ongoing flush. This change would introduce a significant
> regression with global stats flushing thresholds. With per-memcg stats
> flushing thresholds, this seems to perform really well. The thresholds
> protect the underlying lock from unnecessary contention.
> 
> Add a mutex to protect the underlying rstat lock from excessive memcg
> flushing. The thresholds are re-checked after the mutex is grabbed to
> make sure that a concurrent flush did not already get the subtree we are
> trying to flush. A call to cgroup_rstat_flush() is not cheap, even if
> there are no pending updates.
> 
> This patch was tested in two ways to ensure the latency of flushing is
> up to bar, on a machine with 384 cpus:
> - A synthetic test with 5000 concurrent workers in 500 cgroups doing
>   allocations and reclaim, as well as 1000 readers for memory.stat
>   (variation of [2]). No regressions were noticed in the total runtime.
>   Note that significant regressions in this test are observed with
>   global stats thresholds, but not with per-memcg thresholds.
> 
> - A synthetic stress test for concurrently reading memcg stats while
>   memory allocation/freeing workers are running in the background,
>   provided by Wei Xu [3]. With 250k threads reading the stats every
>   100ms in 50k cgroups, 99.9% of reads take <= 50us. Less than 0.01%
>   of reads take more than 1ms, and no reads take more than 100ms.
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CABWYdi0c6__rh-K7dcM_pkf9BJdTRtAU08M43KO9ME4-dsgfoQ@mail.gmail.com/
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAJD7tka13M-zVZTyQJYL1iUAYvuQ1fcHbCjcOBZcz6POYTV-4g@mail.gmail.com/
> [3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAAPL-u9D2b=iF5Lf_cRnKxUfkiEe0AMDTu6yhrUAzX0b6a6rDg@mail.gmail.com/
> 
> Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> Tested-by: Domenico Cerasuolo <cerasuolodomenico@gmail.com>
> ---
>  include/linux/memcontrol.h |  8 ++--
>  mm/memcontrol.c            | 75 +++++++++++++++++++++++---------------
>  mm/vmscan.c                |  2 +-
>  mm/workingset.c            | 10 +++--
>  4 files changed, 58 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/include/linux/memcontrol.h b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> index a568f70a26774..8673140683e6e 100644
> --- a/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> +++ b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> @@ -1050,8 +1050,8 @@ static inline unsigned long lruvec_page_state_local(struct lruvec *lruvec,
>  	return x;
>  }
>  
> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void);
> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void);
> +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg);
> +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg);
>  
>  void __mod_memcg_lruvec_state(struct lruvec *lruvec, enum node_stat_item idx,
>  			      int val);
> @@ -1566,11 +1566,11 @@ static inline unsigned long lruvec_page_state_local(struct lruvec *lruvec,
>  	return node_page_state(lruvec_pgdat(lruvec), idx);
>  }
>  
> -static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
> +static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
>  }
>  
> -static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void)
> +static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
>  }
>  
> diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
> index 93b483b379aa1..5d300318bf18a 100644
> --- a/mm/memcontrol.c
> +++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
> @@ -670,7 +670,6 @@ struct memcg_vmstats {
>   */
>  static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w);
>  static DECLARE_DEFERRABLE_WORK(stats_flush_dwork, flush_memcg_stats_dwork);
> -static atomic_t stats_flush_ongoing = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
>  static u64 flush_last_time;
>  
>  #define FLUSH_TIME (2UL*HZ)
> @@ -731,35 +730,47 @@ static inline void memcg_rstat_updated(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, int val)
>  	}
>  }
>  
> -static void do_flush_stats(void)
> +static void do_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
> -	/*
> -	 * We always flush the entire tree, so concurrent flushers can just
> -	 * skip. This avoids a thundering herd problem on the rstat global lock
> -	 * from memcg flushers (e.g. reclaim, refault, etc).
> -	 */
> -	if (atomic_read(&stats_flush_ongoing) ||
> -	    atomic_xchg(&stats_flush_ongoing, 1))
> -		return;
> -
> -	WRITE_ONCE(flush_last_time, jiffies_64);
> -
> -	cgroup_rstat_flush(root_mem_cgroup->css.cgroup);
> +	if (mem_cgroup_is_root(memcg))
> +		WRITE_ONCE(flush_last_time, jiffies_64);
>  
> -	atomic_set(&stats_flush_ongoing, 0);
> +	cgroup_rstat_flush(memcg->css.cgroup);
>  }
>  
> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
> +/*
> + * mem_cgroup_flush_stats - flush the stats of a memory cgroup subtree
> + * @memcg: root of the subtree to flush
> + *
> + * Flushing is serialized by the underlying global rstat lock. There is also a
> + * minimum amount of work to be done even if there are no stat updates to flush.
> + * Hence, we only flush the stats if the updates delta exceeds a threshold. This
> + * avoids unnecessary work and contention on the underlying lock.
> + */

What is global rstat lock?

> +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
> -	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> -		do_flush_stats();
> +	static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> +
> +	if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> +		return;
> +
> +	if (!memcg)
> +		memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> +
> +	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> +		mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> +		/* Check again after locking, another flush may have occurred */
> +		if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg))
> +			do_flush_stats(memcg);
> +		mutex_unlock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> +	}
>  }
>  
> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void)
> +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
>  	/* Only flush if the periodic flusher is one full cycle late */
>  	if (time_after64(jiffies_64, READ_ONCE(flush_last_time) + 2*FLUSH_TIME))
> -		mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +		mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  }
>  
>  static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w)
> @@ -768,7 +779,7 @@ static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w)
>  	 * Deliberately ignore memcg_should_flush_stats() here so that flushing
>  	 * in latency-sensitive paths is as cheap as possible.
>  	 */
> -	do_flush_stats();
> +	do_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup);
>  	queue_delayed_work(system_unbound_wq, &stats_flush_dwork, FLUSH_TIME);
>  }
>  
> @@ -1664,7 +1675,7 @@ static void memcg_stat_format(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, struct seq_buf *s)
>  	 *
>  	 * Current memory state:
>  	 */
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  
>  	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memory_stats); i++) {
>  		u64 size;
> @@ -4214,7 +4225,7 @@ static int memcg_numa_stat_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
>  	int nid;
>  	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_seq(m);
>  
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  
>  	for (stat = stats; stat < stats + ARRAY_SIZE(stats); stat++) {
>  		seq_printf(m, "%s=%lu", stat->name,
> @@ -4295,7 +4306,7 @@ static void memcg1_stat_format(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, struct seq_buf *s)
>  
>  	BUILD_BUG_ON(ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stat_names) != ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stats));
>  
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  
>  	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stats); i++) {
>  		unsigned long nr;
> @@ -4791,7 +4802,7 @@ void mem_cgroup_wb_stats(struct bdi_writeback *wb, unsigned long *pfilepages,
>  	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_css(wb->memcg_css);
>  	struct mem_cgroup *parent;
>  
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  
>  	*pdirty = memcg_page_state(memcg, NR_FILE_DIRTY);
>  	*pwriteback = memcg_page_state(memcg, NR_WRITEBACK);
> @@ -6886,7 +6897,7 @@ static int memory_numa_stat_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
>  	int i;
>  	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_seq(m);
>  
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
>  
>  	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memory_stats); i++) {
>  		int nid;
> @@ -8125,7 +8136,11 @@ bool obj_cgroup_may_zswap(struct obj_cgroup *objcg)
>  			break;
>  		}
>  
> -		cgroup_rstat_flush(memcg->css.cgroup);
> +		/*
> +		 * mem_cgroup_flush_stats() ignores small changes. Use
> +		 * do_flush_stats() directly to get accurate stats for charging.
> +		 */
> +		do_flush_stats(memcg);
>  		pages = memcg_page_state(memcg, MEMCG_ZSWAP_B) / PAGE_SIZE;
>  		if (pages < max)
>  			continue;
> @@ -8190,8 +8205,10 @@ void obj_cgroup_uncharge_zswap(struct obj_cgroup *objcg, size_t size)
>  static u64 zswap_current_read(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
>  			      struct cftype *cft)
>  {
> -	cgroup_rstat_flush(css->cgroup);
> -	return memcg_page_state(mem_cgroup_from_css(css), MEMCG_ZSWAP_B);
> +	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_css(css);
> +
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
> +	return memcg_page_state(memcg, MEMCG_ZSWAP_B);
>  }
>  
>  static int zswap_max_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
> diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
> index d8c3338fee0fb..0b8a0107d58d8 100644
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> @@ -2250,7 +2250,7 @@ static void prepare_scan_control(pg_data_t *pgdat, struct scan_control *sc)
>  	 * Flush the memory cgroup stats, so that we read accurate per-memcg
>  	 * lruvec stats for heuristics.
>  	 */
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(sc->target_mem_cgroup);
>  
>  	/*
>  	 * Determine the scan balance between anon and file LRUs.
> diff --git a/mm/workingset.c b/mm/workingset.c
> index dce41577a49d2..7d3dacab8451a 100644
> --- a/mm/workingset.c
> +++ b/mm/workingset.c
> @@ -464,8 +464,12 @@ bool workingset_test_recent(void *shadow, bool file, bool *workingset)
>  
>  	rcu_read_unlock();
>  
> -	/* Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section */
> -	mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited();
> +	/*
> +	 * Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section.
> +	 * XXX: With per-memcg flushing and thresholding, is ratelimiting
> +	 * still needed here?
> +	 */
> +	mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(eviction_memcg);

What if flushing is not rate-limited (e.g. above line is commented)?

>  
>  	eviction_lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(eviction_memcg, pgdat);
>  	refault = atomic_long_read(&eviction_lruvec->nonresident_age);
> @@ -676,7 +680,7 @@ static unsigned long count_shadow_nodes(struct shrinker *shrinker,
>  		struct lruvec *lruvec;
>  		int i;
>  
> -		mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> +		mem_cgroup_flush_stats(sc->memcg);
>  		lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(sc->memcg, NODE_DATA(sc->nid));
>  		for (pages = 0, i = 0; i < NR_LRU_LISTS; i++)
>  			pages += lruvec_page_state_local(lruvec,

Confused...
  
Waiman Long Dec. 2, 2023, 2:56 a.m. UTC | #2
On 12/1/23 20:57, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
>> +/*
>> + * mem_cgroup_flush_stats - flush the stats of a memory cgroup subtree
>> + * @memcg: root of the subtree to flush
>> + *
>> + * Flushing is serialized by the underlying global rstat lock. There is also a
>> + * minimum amount of work to be done even if there are no stat updates to flush.
>> + * Hence, we only flush the stats if the updates delta exceeds a threshold. This
>> + * avoids unnecessary work and contention on the underlying lock.
>> + */
> What is global rstat lock?

It is the cgroup_rstat_lock in kernel/cgroup/rstat.c.

Cheers,
Longman
  
Bagas Sanjaya Dec. 2, 2023, 5:53 a.m. UTC | #3
On 12/2/23 09:56, Waiman Long wrote:
> 
> On 12/1/23 20:57, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>>> -void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
>>> +/*
>>> + * mem_cgroup_flush_stats - flush the stats of a memory cgroup subtree
>>> + * @memcg: root of the subtree to flush
>>> + *
>>> + * Flushing is serialized by the underlying global rstat lock. There is also a
>>> + * minimum amount of work to be done even if there are no stat updates to flush.
>>> + * Hence, we only flush the stats if the updates delta exceeds a threshold. This
>>> + * avoids unnecessary work and contention on the underlying lock.
>>> + */
>> What is global rstat lock?
> 
> It is the cgroup_rstat_lock in kernel/cgroup/rstat.c.
> 

OK, I see that. Thanks!
  
Shakeel Butt Dec. 2, 2023, 8:31 a.m. UTC | #4
On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
[...]
> +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
>  {
> -	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> -		do_flush_stats();
> +	static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> +
> +	if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> +		return;
> +
> +	if (!memcg)
> +		memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> +
> +	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> +		mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);

What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
no one can flush for a potentially long time.

> +		/* Check again after locking, another flush may have occurred */
> +		if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg))
> +			do_flush_stats(memcg);
> +		mutex_unlock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> +	}
>  }
  
Yosry Ahmed Dec. 4, 2023, 7:51 p.m. UTC | #5
[..]
> > diff --git a/mm/workingset.c b/mm/workingset.c
> > index dce41577a49d2..7d3dacab8451a 100644
> > --- a/mm/workingset.c
> > +++ b/mm/workingset.c
> > @@ -464,8 +464,12 @@ bool workingset_test_recent(void *shadow, bool file, bool *workingset)
> >
> >       rcu_read_unlock();
> >
> > -     /* Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section */
> > -     mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited();
> > +     /*
> > +      * Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section.
> > +      * XXX: With per-memcg flushing and thresholding, is ratelimiting
> > +      * still needed here?
> > +      */
> > +     mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(eviction_memcg);
>
> What if flushing is not rate-limited (e.g. above line is commented)?
>

Hmm I think I might be misunderstanding the question. The call to
mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited() does not ratelimit other
flushers, it is rather a flush call that is itself ratelimited. IOW,
it may or may not flush based on when was the last time someone else
flushed.

This was introduced because flushing in the fault path was expensive
in some cases, so we wanted to avoid flushing if someone else recently
did a flush, as we don't expect a lot of pending changes in this case.
However, that was when flushing was always on the root level. Now that
we are flushing on the memcg level, it may no longer be needed as:
- The flush is more scoped, there should be less work to do.
- There is a per-memcg threshold now such that we only flush when
there are pending updates in this memcg.

This is why I added a comment that the ratelimited flush here may no
longer be needed. I didn't want to investigate this as part of this
series, especially that I do not have a reproducer for the fault
latency introduced by the flush before ratelimiting. Hence, I am
leaving the comment such that people know that this ratelimiting may
no longer be needed with this patch.

> >
> >       eviction_lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(eviction_memcg, pgdat);
> >       refault = atomic_long_read(&eviction_lruvec->nonresident_age);
> > @@ -676,7 +680,7 @@ static unsigned long count_shadow_nodes(struct shrinker *shrinker,
> >               struct lruvec *lruvec;
> >               int i;
> >
> > -             mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
> > +             mem_cgroup_flush_stats(sc->memcg);
> >               lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(sc->memcg, NODE_DATA(sc->nid));
> >               for (pages = 0, i = 0; i < NR_LRU_LISTS; i++)
> >                       pages += lruvec_page_state_local(lruvec,
>
> Confused...

Which part is confusing? The call to mem_cgroup_flush_stats() now
receives a memcg argument as flushing is scoped to that memcg only to
avoid doing unnecessary work to flush other memcgs with global
flushing.
  
Yosry Ahmed Dec. 4, 2023, 8:12 p.m. UTC | #6
On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 12:31 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> [...]
> > +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> >  {
> > -     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> > -             do_flush_stats();
> > +     static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > +
> > +     if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> > +             return;
> > +
> > +     if (!memcg)
> > +             memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> > +
> > +     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> > +             mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
>
> What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
> we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
> global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
> latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
> no one can flush for a potentially long time.

I was hoping this was clear from the commit message and code comments,
but apparently I was wrong, sorry. Let me give more context.

In previous versions and/or series, the mutex was only used with
flushes from userspace to guard in-kernel flushers against high
contention from userspace. Later on, I kept the mutex for all memcg
flushers for the following reasons:

(a) Allow waiters to sleep:
Unlike other flushers, the memcg flushing path can see a lot of
concurrency. The mutex avoids having a lot of CPUs spinning (e.g.
concurrent reclaimers) by allowing waiters to sleep.

(b) Check the threshold under lock but before calling cgroup_rstat_flush():
The calls to cgroup_rstat_flush() are not very cheap even if there's
nothing to flush, as we still need to iterate all CPUs. If flushers
contend directly on the rstat lock, overlapping flushes will
unnecessarily do the percpu iteration once they hold the lock. With
the mutex, they will check the threshold again once they hold the
mutex.

(c) Protect non-memcg flushers from contention from memcg flushers.
This is not as strong of an argument as protecting in-kernel flushers
from userspace flushers.

There has been discussions before about changing the rstat lock itself
to be a mutex, which would resolve (a), but there are concerns about
priority inversions if a low priority task holds the mutex and gets
preempted, as well as the amount of time the rstat lock holder keeps
the lock for:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZO48h7c9qwQxEPPA@slm.duckdns.org/

I agree about possible hiccups due to the inner lock being dropped
while the mutex is held. Running a synthetic test with high
concurrency between reclaimers (in-kernel flushers) and stats readers
show no material performance difference with or without the mutex.
Maybe things cancel out, or don't really matter in practice.

I would prefer to keep the current code as I think (a) and (b) could
cause problems in the future, and the current form of the code (with
the mutex) has already seen mileage with production workloads.
  
Yosry Ahmed Dec. 4, 2023, 9:37 p.m. UTC | #7
On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 12:12 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 12:31 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > [...]
> > > +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> > >  {
> > > -     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> > > -             do_flush_stats();
> > > +     static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > +
> > > +     if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> > > +             return;
> > > +
> > > +     if (!memcg)
> > > +             memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> > > +
> > > +     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> > > +             mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> >
> > What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
> > we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
> > global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
> > latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
> > no one can flush for a potentially long time.
>
> I was hoping this was clear from the commit message and code comments,
> but apparently I was wrong, sorry. Let me give more context.
>
> In previous versions and/or series, the mutex was only used with
> flushes from userspace to guard in-kernel flushers against high
> contention from userspace. Later on, I kept the mutex for all memcg
> flushers for the following reasons:
>
> (a) Allow waiters to sleep:
> Unlike other flushers, the memcg flushing path can see a lot of
> concurrency. The mutex avoids having a lot of CPUs spinning (e.g.
> concurrent reclaimers) by allowing waiters to sleep.
>
> (b) Check the threshold under lock but before calling cgroup_rstat_flush():
> The calls to cgroup_rstat_flush() are not very cheap even if there's
> nothing to flush, as we still need to iterate all CPUs. If flushers
> contend directly on the rstat lock, overlapping flushes will
> unnecessarily do the percpu iteration once they hold the lock. With
> the mutex, they will check the threshold again once they hold the
> mutex.
>
> (c) Protect non-memcg flushers from contention from memcg flushers.
> This is not as strong of an argument as protecting in-kernel flushers
> from userspace flushers.
>
> There has been discussions before about changing the rstat lock itself
> to be a mutex, which would resolve (a), but there are concerns about
> priority inversions if a low priority task holds the mutex and gets
> preempted, as well as the amount of time the rstat lock holder keeps
> the lock for:
> https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZO48h7c9qwQxEPPA@slm.duckdns.org/
>
> I agree about possible hiccups due to the inner lock being dropped
> while the mutex is held. Running a synthetic test with high
> concurrency between reclaimers (in-kernel flushers) and stats readers
> show no material performance difference with or without the mutex.
> Maybe things cancel out, or don't really matter in practice.
>
> I would prefer to keep the current code as I think (a) and (b) could
> cause problems in the future, and the current form of the code (with
> the mutex) has already seen mileage with production workloads.

Correction: The priority inversion is possible on the memcg side due
to the mutex in this patch. Also, for point (a), the spinners will
eventually sleep once they hold the lock and hit the first CPU
boundary -- because of the lock dropping and cond_resched(). So
eventually, all spinners should be able to sleep, although it will be
a while until they do. With the mutex, they all sleep from the
beginning. Point (b) still holds though.

I am slightly inclined to keep the mutex but I can send a small fixlet
to remove it if others think otherwise.

Shakeel, Wei, any preferences?
  
Shakeel Butt Dec. 4, 2023, 11:31 p.m. UTC | #8
On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 1:38 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 12:12 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 12:31 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > > +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> > > >  {
> > > > -     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> > > > -             do_flush_stats();
> > > > +     static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > > +
> > > > +     if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> > > > +             return;
> > > > +
> > > > +     if (!memcg)
> > > > +             memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> > > > +
> > > > +     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> > > > +             mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > >
> > > What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
> > > we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
> > > global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
> > > latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
> > > no one can flush for a potentially long time.
> >
> > I was hoping this was clear from the commit message and code comments,
> > but apparently I was wrong, sorry. Let me give more context.
> >
> > In previous versions and/or series, the mutex was only used with
> > flushes from userspace to guard in-kernel flushers against high
> > contention from userspace. Later on, I kept the mutex for all memcg
> > flushers for the following reasons:
> >
> > (a) Allow waiters to sleep:
> > Unlike other flushers, the memcg flushing path can see a lot of
> > concurrency. The mutex avoids having a lot of CPUs spinning (e.g.
> > concurrent reclaimers) by allowing waiters to sleep.
> >
> > (b) Check the threshold under lock but before calling cgroup_rstat_flush():
> > The calls to cgroup_rstat_flush() are not very cheap even if there's
> > nothing to flush, as we still need to iterate all CPUs. If flushers
> > contend directly on the rstat lock, overlapping flushes will
> > unnecessarily do the percpu iteration once they hold the lock. With
> > the mutex, they will check the threshold again once they hold the
> > mutex.
> >
> > (c) Protect non-memcg flushers from contention from memcg flushers.
> > This is not as strong of an argument as protecting in-kernel flushers
> > from userspace flushers.
> >
> > There has been discussions before about changing the rstat lock itself
> > to be a mutex, which would resolve (a), but there are concerns about
> > priority inversions if a low priority task holds the mutex and gets
> > preempted, as well as the amount of time the rstat lock holder keeps
> > the lock for:
> > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZO48h7c9qwQxEPPA@slm.duckdns.org/
> >
> > I agree about possible hiccups due to the inner lock being dropped
> > while the mutex is held. Running a synthetic test with high
> > concurrency between reclaimers (in-kernel flushers) and stats readers
> > show no material performance difference with or without the mutex.
> > Maybe things cancel out, or don't really matter in practice.
> >
> > I would prefer to keep the current code as I think (a) and (b) could
> > cause problems in the future, and the current form of the code (with
> > the mutex) has already seen mileage with production workloads.
>
> Correction: The priority inversion is possible on the memcg side due
> to the mutex in this patch. Also, for point (a), the spinners will
> eventually sleep once they hold the lock and hit the first CPU
> boundary -- because of the lock dropping and cond_resched(). So
> eventually, all spinners should be able to sleep, although it will be
> a while until they do. With the mutex, they all sleep from the
> beginning. Point (b) still holds though.
>
> I am slightly inclined to keep the mutex but I can send a small fixlet
> to remove it if others think otherwise.
>
> Shakeel, Wei, any preferences?

My preference is to avoid the issue we know we see in production alot
i.e. priority inversion.

In future if you see issues with spinning then you can come up with
the lockless flush mechanism at that time.
  
Wei Xu Dec. 4, 2023, 11:46 p.m. UTC | #9
On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 3:31 PM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 1:38 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 12:12 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 12:31 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > > > [...]
> > > > > +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> > > > >  {
> > > > > -     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> > > > > -             do_flush_stats();
> > > > > +     static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > > > +
> > > > > +     if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> > > > > +             return;
> > > > > +
> > > > > +     if (!memcg)
> > > > > +             memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> > > > > +
> > > > > +     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> > > > > +             mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > >
> > > > What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
> > > > we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
> > > > global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
> > > > latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
> > > > no one can flush for a potentially long time.
> > >
> > > I was hoping this was clear from the commit message and code comments,
> > > but apparently I was wrong, sorry. Let me give more context.
> > >
> > > In previous versions and/or series, the mutex was only used with
> > > flushes from userspace to guard in-kernel flushers against high
> > > contention from userspace. Later on, I kept the mutex for all memcg
> > > flushers for the following reasons:
> > >
> > > (a) Allow waiters to sleep:
> > > Unlike other flushers, the memcg flushing path can see a lot of
> > > concurrency. The mutex avoids having a lot of CPUs spinning (e.g.
> > > concurrent reclaimers) by allowing waiters to sleep.
> > >
> > > (b) Check the threshold under lock but before calling cgroup_rstat_flush():
> > > The calls to cgroup_rstat_flush() are not very cheap even if there's
> > > nothing to flush, as we still need to iterate all CPUs. If flushers
> > > contend directly on the rstat lock, overlapping flushes will
> > > unnecessarily do the percpu iteration once they hold the lock. With
> > > the mutex, they will check the threshold again once they hold the
> > > mutex.
> > >
> > > (c) Protect non-memcg flushers from contention from memcg flushers.
> > > This is not as strong of an argument as protecting in-kernel flushers
> > > from userspace flushers.
> > >
> > > There has been discussions before about changing the rstat lock itself
> > > to be a mutex, which would resolve (a), but there are concerns about
> > > priority inversions if a low priority task holds the mutex and gets
> > > preempted, as well as the amount of time the rstat lock holder keeps
> > > the lock for:
> > > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZO48h7c9qwQxEPPA@slm.duckdns.org/
> > >
> > > I agree about possible hiccups due to the inner lock being dropped
> > > while the mutex is held. Running a synthetic test with high
> > > concurrency between reclaimers (in-kernel flushers) and stats readers
> > > show no material performance difference with or without the mutex.
> > > Maybe things cancel out, or don't really matter in practice.
> > >
> > > I would prefer to keep the current code as I think (a) and (b) could
> > > cause problems in the future, and the current form of the code (with
> > > the mutex) has already seen mileage with production workloads.
> >
> > Correction: The priority inversion is possible on the memcg side due
> > to the mutex in this patch. Also, for point (a), the spinners will
> > eventually sleep once they hold the lock and hit the first CPU
> > boundary -- because of the lock dropping and cond_resched(). So
> > eventually, all spinners should be able to sleep, although it will be
> > a while until they do. With the mutex, they all sleep from the
> > beginning. Point (b) still holds though.
> >
> > I am slightly inclined to keep the mutex but I can send a small fixlet
> > to remove it if others think otherwise.
> >
> > Shakeel, Wei, any preferences?
>
> My preference is to avoid the issue we know we see in production alot
> i.e. priority inversion.
>
> In future if you see issues with spinning then you can come up with
> the lockless flush mechanism at that time.

Given that the synthetic high concurrency test doesn't show material
performance difference between the mutex and non-mutex versions, I
agree that the mutex can be taken out from this patch set (one less
global mutex to worry about).
  
Yosry Ahmed Dec. 4, 2023, 11:49 p.m. UTC | #10
On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 3:46 PM Wei Xu <weixugc@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 3:31 PM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 1:38 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Dec 4, 2023 at 12:12 PM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 12:31 AM Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 03:21:53AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > > +void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> > > > > >  {
> > > > > > -     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
> > > > > > -             do_flush_stats();
> > > > > > +     static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > > > > +
> > > > > > +     if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> > > > > > +             return;
> > > > > > +
> > > > > > +     if (!memcg)
> > > > > > +             memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
> > > > > > +
> > > > > > +     if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
> > > > > > +             mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
> > > > >
> > > > > What's the point of this mutex now? What is it providing? I understand
> > > > > we can not try_lock here due to targeted flushing. Why not just let the
> > > > > global rstat serialize the flushes? Actually this mutex can cause
> > > > > latency hiccups as the mutex owner can get resched during flush and then
> > > > > no one can flush for a potentially long time.
> > > >
> > > > I was hoping this was clear from the commit message and code comments,
> > > > but apparently I was wrong, sorry. Let me give more context.
> > > >
> > > > In previous versions and/or series, the mutex was only used with
> > > > flushes from userspace to guard in-kernel flushers against high
> > > > contention from userspace. Later on, I kept the mutex for all memcg
> > > > flushers for the following reasons:
> > > >
> > > > (a) Allow waiters to sleep:
> > > > Unlike other flushers, the memcg flushing path can see a lot of
> > > > concurrency. The mutex avoids having a lot of CPUs spinning (e.g.
> > > > concurrent reclaimers) by allowing waiters to sleep.
> > > >
> > > > (b) Check the threshold under lock but before calling cgroup_rstat_flush():
> > > > The calls to cgroup_rstat_flush() are not very cheap even if there's
> > > > nothing to flush, as we still need to iterate all CPUs. If flushers
> > > > contend directly on the rstat lock, overlapping flushes will
> > > > unnecessarily do the percpu iteration once they hold the lock. With
> > > > the mutex, they will check the threshold again once they hold the
> > > > mutex.
> > > >
> > > > (c) Protect non-memcg flushers from contention from memcg flushers.
> > > > This is not as strong of an argument as protecting in-kernel flushers
> > > > from userspace flushers.
> > > >
> > > > There has been discussions before about changing the rstat lock itself
> > > > to be a mutex, which would resolve (a), but there are concerns about
> > > > priority inversions if a low priority task holds the mutex and gets
> > > > preempted, as well as the amount of time the rstat lock holder keeps
> > > > the lock for:
> > > > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZO48h7c9qwQxEPPA@slm.duckdns.org/
> > > >
> > > > I agree about possible hiccups due to the inner lock being dropped
> > > > while the mutex is held. Running a synthetic test with high
> > > > concurrency between reclaimers (in-kernel flushers) and stats readers
> > > > show no material performance difference with or without the mutex.
> > > > Maybe things cancel out, or don't really matter in practice.
> > > >
> > > > I would prefer to keep the current code as I think (a) and (b) could
> > > > cause problems in the future, and the current form of the code (with
> > > > the mutex) has already seen mileage with production workloads.
> > >
> > > Correction: The priority inversion is possible on the memcg side due
> > > to the mutex in this patch. Also, for point (a), the spinners will
> > > eventually sleep once they hold the lock and hit the first CPU
> > > boundary -- because of the lock dropping and cond_resched(). So
> > > eventually, all spinners should be able to sleep, although it will be
> > > a while until they do. With the mutex, they all sleep from the
> > > beginning. Point (b) still holds though.
> > >
> > > I am slightly inclined to keep the mutex but I can send a small fixlet
> > > to remove it if others think otherwise.
> > >
> > > Shakeel, Wei, any preferences?
> >
> > My preference is to avoid the issue we know we see in production alot
> > i.e. priority inversion.
> >
> > In future if you see issues with spinning then you can come up with
> > the lockless flush mechanism at that time.
>
> Given that the synthetic high concurrency test doesn't show material
> performance difference between the mutex and non-mutex versions, I
> agree that the mutex can be taken out from this patch set (one less
> global mutex to worry about).

Thanks Wei and Shakeel for your input.

Andrew, could you please squash in the fixlet below and remove the
paragraph starting with "Add a mutex to.." from the commit message?

From 19af26e01f93cbf0806d75a234b78e48c1ce9d80 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:43:29 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] mm: memcg: remove stats flushing mutex

The mutex was intended to make the waiters sleep instead of spin, and
such that we can check the update thresholds again after acquiring the
mutex. However, the mutex has a risk of priority inversion, especially
since the underlying rstat lock can de dropped while the mutex is held.

Synthetic testing with high concurrency of flushers shows no
regressions without the mutex, so remove it.

Suggested-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
---
 mm/memcontrol.c | 11 ++---------
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index 5d300318bf18a..0563625767349 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -749,21 +749,14 @@ static void do_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
  */
 void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
-       static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
-
        if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
                return;

        if (!memcg)
                memcg = root_mem_cgroup;

-       if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
-               mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
-               /* Check again after locking, another flush may have occurred */
-               if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg))
-                       do_flush_stats(memcg);
-               mutex_unlock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
-       }
+       if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg))
+               do_flush_stats(memcg);
 }

 void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
--
2.43.0.rc2.451.g8631bc7472-goog
  
Shakeel Butt Dec. 4, 2023, 11:58 p.m. UTC | #11
On Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 03:49:01PM -0800, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
[...]
> 
> From 19af26e01f93cbf0806d75a234b78e48c1ce9d80 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:43:29 +0000
> Subject: [PATCH] mm: memcg: remove stats flushing mutex
> 
> The mutex was intended to make the waiters sleep instead of spin, and
> such that we can check the update thresholds again after acquiring the
> mutex. However, the mutex has a risk of priority inversion, especially
> since the underlying rstat lock can de dropped while the mutex is held.
> 
> Synthetic testing with high concurrency of flushers shows no
> regressions without the mutex, so remove it.
> 
> Suggested-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>

Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
  
Andrew Morton Dec. 12, 2023, 6:43 p.m. UTC | #12
On Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:58:56 +0000 Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 03:49:01PM -0800, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> [...]
> > 
> > From 19af26e01f93cbf0806d75a234b78e48c1ce9d80 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> > Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:43:29 +0000
> > Subject: [PATCH] mm: memcg: remove stats flushing mutex
> > 
> > The mutex was intended to make the waiters sleep instead of spin, and
> > such that we can check the update thresholds again after acquiring the
> > mutex. However, the mutex has a risk of priority inversion, especially
> > since the underlying rstat lock can de dropped while the mutex is held.
> > 
> > Synthetic testing with high concurrency of flushers shows no
> > regressions without the mutex, so remove it.
> > 
> > Suggested-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> 
> Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> 

I'd like to move this series into mm-stable soon.  Are we all OK with that?
  
Shakeel Butt Dec. 12, 2023, 7:11 p.m. UTC | #13
On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 10:43 AM Andrew Morton
<akpm@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:58:56 +0000 Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 03:49:01PM -0800, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > [...]
> > >
> > > From 19af26e01f93cbf0806d75a234b78e48c1ce9d80 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > > From: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> > > Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:43:29 +0000
> > > Subject: [PATCH] mm: memcg: remove stats flushing mutex
> > >
> > > The mutex was intended to make the waiters sleep instead of spin, and
> > > such that we can check the update thresholds again after acquiring the
> > > mutex. However, the mutex has a risk of priority inversion, especially
> > > since the underlying rstat lock can de dropped while the mutex is held.
> > >
> > > Synthetic testing with high concurrency of flushers shows no
> > > regressions without the mutex, so remove it.
> > >
> > > Suggested-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> > > Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> >
> > Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> >
>
> I'd like to move this series into mm-stable soon.  Are we all OK with that?

OK from me.
  
Yosry Ahmed Dec. 12, 2023, 8:44 p.m. UTC | #14
On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 10:43 AM Andrew Morton
<akpm@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:58:56 +0000 Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 03:49:01PM -0800, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > [...]
> > >
> > > From 19af26e01f93cbf0806d75a234b78e48c1ce9d80 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > > From: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> > > Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 23:43:29 +0000
> > > Subject: [PATCH] mm: memcg: remove stats flushing mutex
> > >
> > > The mutex was intended to make the waiters sleep instead of spin, and
> > > such that we can check the update thresholds again after acquiring the
> > > mutex. However, the mutex has a risk of priority inversion, especially
> > > since the underlying rstat lock can de dropped while the mutex is held.
> > >
> > > Synthetic testing with high concurrency of flushers shows no
> > > regressions without the mutex, so remove it.
> > >
> > > Suggested-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> > > Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
> >
> > Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
> >
>
> I'd like to move this series into mm-stable soon.  Are we all OK with that?

Looking forward to that :)
  

Patch

diff --git a/include/linux/memcontrol.h b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
index a568f70a26774..8673140683e6e 100644
--- a/include/linux/memcontrol.h
+++ b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
@@ -1050,8 +1050,8 @@  static inline unsigned long lruvec_page_state_local(struct lruvec *lruvec,
 	return x;
 }
 
-void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void);
-void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void);
+void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg);
+void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg);
 
 void __mod_memcg_lruvec_state(struct lruvec *lruvec, enum node_stat_item idx,
 			      int val);
@@ -1566,11 +1566,11 @@  static inline unsigned long lruvec_page_state_local(struct lruvec *lruvec,
 	return node_page_state(lruvec_pgdat(lruvec), idx);
 }
 
-static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
+static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
 }
 
-static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void)
+static inline void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
 }
 
diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index 93b483b379aa1..5d300318bf18a 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -670,7 +670,6 @@  struct memcg_vmstats {
  */
 static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w);
 static DECLARE_DEFERRABLE_WORK(stats_flush_dwork, flush_memcg_stats_dwork);
-static atomic_t stats_flush_ongoing = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
 static u64 flush_last_time;
 
 #define FLUSH_TIME (2UL*HZ)
@@ -731,35 +730,47 @@  static inline void memcg_rstat_updated(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, int val)
 	}
 }
 
-static void do_flush_stats(void)
+static void do_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
-	/*
-	 * We always flush the entire tree, so concurrent flushers can just
-	 * skip. This avoids a thundering herd problem on the rstat global lock
-	 * from memcg flushers (e.g. reclaim, refault, etc).
-	 */
-	if (atomic_read(&stats_flush_ongoing) ||
-	    atomic_xchg(&stats_flush_ongoing, 1))
-		return;
-
-	WRITE_ONCE(flush_last_time, jiffies_64);
-
-	cgroup_rstat_flush(root_mem_cgroup->css.cgroup);
+	if (mem_cgroup_is_root(memcg))
+		WRITE_ONCE(flush_last_time, jiffies_64);
 
-	atomic_set(&stats_flush_ongoing, 0);
+	cgroup_rstat_flush(memcg->css.cgroup);
 }
 
-void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(void)
+/*
+ * mem_cgroup_flush_stats - flush the stats of a memory cgroup subtree
+ * @memcg: root of the subtree to flush
+ *
+ * Flushing is serialized by the underlying global rstat lock. There is also a
+ * minimum amount of work to be done even if there are no stat updates to flush.
+ * Hence, we only flush the stats if the updates delta exceeds a threshold. This
+ * avoids unnecessary work and contention on the underlying lock.
+ */
+void mem_cgroup_flush_stats(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
-	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup))
-		do_flush_stats();
+	static DEFINE_MUTEX(memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
+
+	if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
+		return;
+
+	if (!memcg)
+		memcg = root_mem_cgroup;
+
+	if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg)) {
+		mutex_lock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
+		/* Check again after locking, another flush may have occurred */
+		if (memcg_should_flush_stats(memcg))
+			do_flush_stats(memcg);
+		mutex_unlock(&memcg_stats_flush_mutex);
+	}
 }
 
-void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(void)
+void mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 {
 	/* Only flush if the periodic flusher is one full cycle late */
 	if (time_after64(jiffies_64, READ_ONCE(flush_last_time) + 2*FLUSH_TIME))
-		mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+		mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 }
 
 static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w)
@@ -768,7 +779,7 @@  static void flush_memcg_stats_dwork(struct work_struct *w)
 	 * Deliberately ignore memcg_should_flush_stats() here so that flushing
 	 * in latency-sensitive paths is as cheap as possible.
 	 */
-	do_flush_stats();
+	do_flush_stats(root_mem_cgroup);
 	queue_delayed_work(system_unbound_wq, &stats_flush_dwork, FLUSH_TIME);
 }
 
@@ -1664,7 +1675,7 @@  static void memcg_stat_format(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, struct seq_buf *s)
 	 *
 	 * Current memory state:
 	 */
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 
 	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memory_stats); i++) {
 		u64 size;
@@ -4214,7 +4225,7 @@  static int memcg_numa_stat_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
 	int nid;
 	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_seq(m);
 
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 
 	for (stat = stats; stat < stats + ARRAY_SIZE(stats); stat++) {
 		seq_printf(m, "%s=%lu", stat->name,
@@ -4295,7 +4306,7 @@  static void memcg1_stat_format(struct mem_cgroup *memcg, struct seq_buf *s)
 
 	BUILD_BUG_ON(ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stat_names) != ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stats));
 
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 
 	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memcg1_stats); i++) {
 		unsigned long nr;
@@ -4791,7 +4802,7 @@  void mem_cgroup_wb_stats(struct bdi_writeback *wb, unsigned long *pfilepages,
 	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_css(wb->memcg_css);
 	struct mem_cgroup *parent;
 
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 
 	*pdirty = memcg_page_state(memcg, NR_FILE_DIRTY);
 	*pwriteback = memcg_page_state(memcg, NR_WRITEBACK);
@@ -6886,7 +6897,7 @@  static int memory_numa_stat_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
 	int i;
 	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_seq(m);
 
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
 
 	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(memory_stats); i++) {
 		int nid;
@@ -8125,7 +8136,11 @@  bool obj_cgroup_may_zswap(struct obj_cgroup *objcg)
 			break;
 		}
 
-		cgroup_rstat_flush(memcg->css.cgroup);
+		/*
+		 * mem_cgroup_flush_stats() ignores small changes. Use
+		 * do_flush_stats() directly to get accurate stats for charging.
+		 */
+		do_flush_stats(memcg);
 		pages = memcg_page_state(memcg, MEMCG_ZSWAP_B) / PAGE_SIZE;
 		if (pages < max)
 			continue;
@@ -8190,8 +8205,10 @@  void obj_cgroup_uncharge_zswap(struct obj_cgroup *objcg, size_t size)
 static u64 zswap_current_read(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 			      struct cftype *cft)
 {
-	cgroup_rstat_flush(css->cgroup);
-	return memcg_page_state(mem_cgroup_from_css(css), MEMCG_ZSWAP_B);
+	struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_css(css);
+
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(memcg);
+	return memcg_page_state(memcg, MEMCG_ZSWAP_B);
 }
 
 static int zswap_max_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index d8c3338fee0fb..0b8a0107d58d8 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2250,7 +2250,7 @@  static void prepare_scan_control(pg_data_t *pgdat, struct scan_control *sc)
 	 * Flush the memory cgroup stats, so that we read accurate per-memcg
 	 * lruvec stats for heuristics.
 	 */
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats(sc->target_mem_cgroup);
 
 	/*
 	 * Determine the scan balance between anon and file LRUs.
diff --git a/mm/workingset.c b/mm/workingset.c
index dce41577a49d2..7d3dacab8451a 100644
--- a/mm/workingset.c
+++ b/mm/workingset.c
@@ -464,8 +464,12 @@  bool workingset_test_recent(void *shadow, bool file, bool *workingset)
 
 	rcu_read_unlock();
 
-	/* Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section */
-	mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited();
+	/*
+	 * Flush stats (and potentially sleep) outside the RCU read section.
+	 * XXX: With per-memcg flushing and thresholding, is ratelimiting
+	 * still needed here?
+	 */
+	mem_cgroup_flush_stats_ratelimited(eviction_memcg);
 
 	eviction_lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(eviction_memcg, pgdat);
 	refault = atomic_long_read(&eviction_lruvec->nonresident_age);
@@ -676,7 +680,7 @@  static unsigned long count_shadow_nodes(struct shrinker *shrinker,
 		struct lruvec *lruvec;
 		int i;
 
-		mem_cgroup_flush_stats();
+		mem_cgroup_flush_stats(sc->memcg);
 		lruvec = mem_cgroup_lruvec(sc->memcg, NODE_DATA(sc->nid));
 		for (pages = 0, i = 0; i < NR_LRU_LISTS; i++)
 			pages += lruvec_page_state_local(lruvec,