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2007-07-16slob: initial NUMA supportPaul Mundt
This adds preliminary NUMA support to SLOB, primarily aimed at systems with small nodes (tested all the way down to a 128kB SRAM block), whether asymmetric or otherwise. We follow the same conventions as SLAB/SLUB, preferring current node placement for new pages, or with explicit placement, if a node has been specified. Presently on UP NUMA this has the side-effect of preferring node#0 allocations (since numa_node_id() == 0, though this could be reworked if we could hand off a pfn to determine node placement), so single-CPU NUMA systems will want to place smaller nodes further out in terms of node id. Once a page has been bound to a node (via explicit node id typing), we only do block allocations from partial free pages that have a matching node id in the page flags. The current implementation does have some scalability problems, in that all partial free pages are tracked in the global freelist (with contention due to the single spinlock). However, these are things that are being reworked for SMP scalability first, while things like per-node freelists can easily be built on top of this sort of functionality once it's been added. More background can be found in: http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=118117916022379&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=118170446306199&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=118187859420048&w=2 and subsequent threads. Acked-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Acked-by: Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> Signed-off-by: Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> Acked-by: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-06-16SLUB: minimum alignment fixesChristoph Lameter
If ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN is set to a value greater than 8 (SLUBs smallest kmalloc cache) then SLUB may generate duplicate slabs in sysfs (yes again) because the object size is padded to reach ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN. Thus the size of the small slabs is all the same. No arch sets ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN larger than 8 though except mips which for some reason wants a 128 byte alignment. This patch increases the size of the smallest cache if ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN is greater than 8. In that case more and more of the smallest caches are disabled. If we do that then the count of the active general caches that is displayed on boot is not correct anymore since we may skip elements of the kmalloc array. So count them separately. This approach was tested by Havard yesterday. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Cc: Haavard Skinnemoen <hskinnemoen@atmel.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-06-08SLUB: return ZERO_SIZE_PTR for kmalloc(0)Christoph Lameter
Instead of returning the smallest available object return ZERO_SIZE_PTR. A ZERO_SIZE_PTR can be legitimately used as an object pointer as long as it is not deferenced. The dereference of ZERO_SIZE_PTR causes a distinctive fault. kfree can handle a ZERO_SIZE_PTR in the same way as NULL. This enables functions to use zero sized object. e.g. n = number of objects. objects = kmalloc(n * sizeof(object)); for (i = 0; i < n; i++) objects[i].x = y; kfree(objects); Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Acked-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-17Slab allocators: define common size limitationsChristoph Lameter
Currently we have a maze of configuration variables that determine the maximum slab size. Worst of all it seems to vary between SLAB and SLUB. So define a common maximum size for kmalloc. For conveniences sake we use the maximum size ever supported which is 32 MB. We limit the maximum size to a lower limit if MAX_ORDER does not allow such large allocations. For many architectures this patch will have the effect of adding large kmalloc sizes. x86_64 adds 5 new kmalloc sizes. So a small amount of memory will be needed for these caches (contemporary SLAB has dynamically sizeable node and cpu structure so the waste is less than in the past) Most architectures will then be able to allocate object with sizes up to MAX_ORDER. We have had repeated breakage (in fact whenever we doubled the number of supported processors) on IA64 because one or the other struct grew beyond what the slab allocators supported. This will avoid future issues and f.e. avoid fixes for 2k and 4k cpu support. CONFIG_LARGE_ALLOCS is no longer necessary so drop it. It fixes sparc64 with SLAB. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-17slub: fix handling of oversized slabsAndrew Morton
I'm getting zillions of undefined references to __kmalloc_size_too_large on alpha. For some reason alpha is building out-of-line copies of kmalloc_slab() into lots of compilation units. It turns out that gcc just isn't smart enough to work out that __builtin_contant_p(size)==true implies that __builtin_contant_p(index)==true. So let's give it a bit of help. Cc: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-17Slab allocators: Drop support for destructorsChristoph Lameter
There is no user of destructors left. There is no reason why we should keep checking for destructors calls in the slab allocators. The RFC for this patch was discussed at http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=117882364330705&w=2 Destructors were mainly used for list management which required them to take a spinlock. Taking a spinlock in a destructor is a bit risky since the slab allocators may run the destructors anytime they decide a slab is no longer needed. Patch drops destructor support. Any attempt to use a destructor will BUG(). Acked-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> Acked-by: Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-16SLUB: It is legit to allocate a slab of the maximum permitted sizeChristoph Lameter
Sorry I screwed up the comparison. It is only an error if we attempt to allocate a slab larger than the maximum allowed size. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-15SLUB: CONFIG_LARGE_ALLOCS must consider MAX_ORDER limitChristoph Lameter
Take MAX_ORDER into consideration when determining KMALLOC_SHIFT_HIGH. Otherwise we may run into a situation where we attempt to create general slabs larger than MAX_ORDER. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Cc: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-07slub: enable tracking of full slabsChristoph Lameter
If slab tracking is on then build a list of full slabs so that we can verify the integrity of all slabs and are also able to built list of alloc/free callers. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-07SLUB: allocate smallest object size if the user asks for 0 bytesChristoph Lameter
Makes SLUB behave like SLAB in this area to avoid issues.... Throw a stack dump to alert people. At some point the behavior should be switched back. NULL is no memory as far as I can tell and if the use asked for 0 bytes then he need to get no memory. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-05-07SLUB coreChristoph Lameter
This is a new slab allocator which was motivated by the complexity of the existing code in mm/slab.c. It attempts to address a variety of concerns with the existing implementation. A. Management of object queues A particular concern was the complex management of the numerous object queues in SLAB. SLUB has no such queues. Instead we dedicate a slab for each allocating CPU and use objects from a slab directly instead of queueing them up. B. Storage overhead of object queues SLAB Object queues exist per node, per CPU. The alien cache queue even has a queue array that contain a queue for each processor on each node. For very large systems the number of queues and the number of objects that may be caught in those queues grows exponentially. On our systems with 1k nodes / processors we have several gigabytes just tied up for storing references to objects for those queues This does not include the objects that could be on those queues. One fears that the whole memory of the machine could one day be consumed by those queues. C. SLAB meta data overhead SLAB has overhead at the beginning of each slab. This means that data cannot be naturally aligned at the beginning of a slab block. SLUB keeps all meta data in the corresponding page_struct. Objects can be naturally aligned in the slab. F.e. a 128 byte object will be aligned at 128 byte boundaries and can fit tightly into a 4k page with no bytes left over. SLAB cannot do this. D. SLAB has a complex cache reaper SLUB does not need a cache reaper for UP systems. On SMP systems the per CPU slab may be pushed back into partial list but that operation is simple and does not require an iteration over a list of objects. SLAB expires per CPU, shared and alien object queues during cache reaping which may cause strange hold offs. E. SLAB has complex NUMA policy layer support SLUB pushes NUMA policy handling into the page allocator. This means that allocation is coarser (SLUB does interleave on a page level) but that situation was also present before 2.6.13. SLABs application of policies to individual slab objects allocated in SLAB is certainly a performance concern due to the frequent references to memory policies which may lead a sequence of objects to come from one node after another. SLUB will get a slab full of objects from one node and then will switch to the next. F. Reduction of the size of partial slab lists SLAB has per node partial lists. This means that over time a large number of partial slabs may accumulate on those lists. These can only be reused if allocator occur on specific nodes. SLUB has a global pool of partial slabs and will consume slabs from that pool to decrease fragmentation. G. Tunables SLAB has sophisticated tuning abilities for each slab cache. One can manipulate the queue sizes in detail. However, filling the queues still requires the uses of the spin lock to check out slabs. SLUB has a global parameter (min_slab_order) for tuning. Increasing the minimum slab order can decrease the locking overhead. The bigger the slab order the less motions of pages between per CPU and partial lists occur and the better SLUB will be scaling. G. Slab merging We often have slab caches with similar parameters. SLUB detects those on boot up and merges them into the corresponding general caches. This leads to more effective memory use. About 50% of all caches can be eliminated through slab merging. This will also decrease slab fragmentation because partial allocated slabs can be filled up again. Slab merging can be switched off by specifying slub_nomerge on boot up. Note that merging can expose heretofore unknown bugs in the kernel because corrupted objects may now be placed differently and corrupt differing neighboring objects. Enable sanity checks to find those. H. Diagnostics The current slab diagnostics are difficult to use and require a recompilation of the kernel. SLUB contains debugging code that is always available (but is kept out of the hot code paths). SLUB diagnostics can be enabled via the "slab_debug" option. Parameters can be specified to select a single or a group of slab caches for diagnostics. This means that the system is running with the usual performance and it is much more likely that race conditions can be reproduced. I. Resiliency If basic sanity checks are on then SLUB is capable of detecting common error conditions and recover as best as possible to allow the system to continue. J. Tracing Tracing can be enabled via the slab_debug=T,<slabcache> option during boot. SLUB will then protocol all actions on that slabcache and dump the object contents on free. K. On demand DMA cache creation. Generally DMA caches are not needed. If a kmalloc is used with __GFP_DMA then just create this single slabcache that is needed. For systems that have no ZONE_DMA requirement the support is completely eliminated. L. Performance increase Some benchmarks have shown speed improvements on kernbench in the range of 5-10%. The locking overhead of slub is based on the underlying base allocation size. If we can reliably allocate larger order pages then it is possible to increase slub performance much further. The anti-fragmentation patches may enable further performance increases. Tested on: i386 UP + SMP, x86_64 UP + SMP + NUMA emulation, IA64 NUMA + Simulator SLUB Boot options slub_nomerge Disable merging of slabs slub_min_order=x Require a minimum order for slab caches. This increases the managed chunk size and therefore reduces meta data and locking overhead. slub_min_objects=x Mininum objects per slab. Default is 8. slub_max_order=x Avoid generating slabs larger than order specified. slub_debug Enable all diagnostics for all caches slub_debug=<options> Enable selective options for all caches slub_debug=<o>,<cache> Enable selective options for a certain set of caches Available Debug options F Double Free checking, sanity and resiliency R Red zoning P Object / padding poisoning U Track last free / alloc T Trace all allocs / frees (only use for individual slabs). To use SLUB: Apply this patch and then select SLUB as the default slab allocator. [hugh@veritas.com: fix an oops-causing locking error] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: various stupid cleanups and small fixes] Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>