linux-stable.git/include/linux/gfp.h, branch linux-2.6.23.y

Create the ZONE_MOVABLE zone

2007-07-17T17:22:59+00:00

The following 8 patches against 2.6.20-mm2 create a zone called ZONE_MOVABLE
that is only usable by allocations that specify both __GFP_HIGHMEM and
__GFP_MOVABLE.  This has the effect of keeping all non-movable pages within a
single memory partition while allowing movable allocations to be satisfied
from either partition.  The patches may be applied with the list-based
anti-fragmentation patches that groups pages together based on mobility.

The size of the zone is determined by a kernelcore= parameter specified at
boot-time.  This specifies how much memory is usable by non-movable
allocations and the remainder is used for ZONE_MOVABLE.  Any range of pages
within ZONE_MOVABLE can be released by migrating the pages or by reclaiming.

When selecting a zone to take pages from for ZONE_MOVABLE, there are two
things to consider.  First, only memory from the highest populated zone is
used for ZONE_MOVABLE.  On the x86, this is probably going to be ZONE_HIGHMEM
but it would be ZONE_DMA on ppc64 or possibly ZONE_DMA32 on x86_64.  Second,
the amount of memory usable by the kernel will be spread evenly throughout
NUMA nodes where possible.  If the nodes are not of equal size, the amount of
memory usable by the kernel on some nodes may be greater than others.

By default, the zone is not as useful for hugetlb allocations because they are
pinned and non-migratable (currently at least).  A sysctl is provided that
allows huge pages to be allocated from that zone.  This means that the huge
page pool can be resized to the size of ZONE_MOVABLE during the lifetime of
the system assuming that pages are not mlocked.  Despite huge pages being
non-movable, we do not introduce additional external fragmentation of note as
huge pages are always the largest contiguous block we care about.

Credit goes to Andy Whitcroft for catching a large variety of problems during
review of the patches.

This patch creates an additional zone, ZONE_MOVABLE.  This zone is only usable
by allocations which specify both __GFP_HIGHMEM and __GFP_MOVABLE.  Hot-added
memory continues to be placed in their existing destination as there is no
mechanism to redirect them to a specific zone.

[y-goto@jp.fujitsu.com: Fix section mismatch of memory hotplug related code]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: various fixes]
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman 
Cc: Andy Whitcroft 
Signed-off-by: Yasunori Goto 
Cc: William Lee Irwin III 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Add __GFP_MOVABLE for callers to flag allocations from high memory that may be migrated

2007-07-17T17:22:59+00:00

It is often known at allocation time whether a page may be migrated or not.
This patch adds a flag called __GFP_MOVABLE and a new mask called
GFP_HIGH_MOVABLE.  Allocations using the __GFP_MOVABLE can be either migrated
using the page migration mechanism or reclaimed by syncing with backing
storage and discarding.

An API function very similar to alloc_zeroed_user_highpage() is added for
__GFP_MOVABLE allocations called alloc_zeroed_user_highpage_movable().  The
flags used by alloc_zeroed_user_highpage() are not changed because it would
change the semantics of an existing API.  After this patch is applied there
are no in-kernel users of alloc_zeroed_user_highpage() so it probably should
be marked deprecated if this patch is merged.

Note that this patch includes a minor cleanup to the use of __GFP_ZERO in
shmem.c to keep all flag modifications to inode->mapping in the
shmem_dir_alloc() helper function.  This clean-up suggestion is courtesy of
Hugh Dickens.

Additional credit goes to Christoph Lameter and Linus Torvalds for shaping the
concept.  Credit to Hugh Dickens for catching issues with shmem swap vector
and ramfs allocations.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fix]
[hugh@veritas.com: __GFP_ZERO cleanup]
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman 
Cc: Andy Whitcroft 
Cc: Christoph Lameter 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Move remote node draining out of slab allocators

2007-05-09T19:30:56+00:00

Currently the slab allocators contain callbacks into the page allocator to
perform the draining of pagesets on remote nodes.  This requires SLUB to have
a whole subsystem in order to be compatible with SLAB.  Moving node draining
out of the slab allocators avoids a section of code in SLUB.

Move the node draining so that is is done when the vm statistics are updated.
At that point we are already touching all the cachelines with the pagesets of
a processor.

Add a expire counter there.  If we have to update per zone or global vm
statistics then assume that the pageset will require subsequent draining.

The expire counter will be decremented on each vm stats update pass until it
reaches zero.  Then we will drain one batch from the pageset.  The draining
will cause vm counter updates which will then cause another expiration until
the pcp is empty.  So we will drain a batch every 3 seconds.

Note that remote node draining is a somewhat esoteric feature that is required
on large NUMA systems because otherwise significant portions of system memory
can become trapped in pcp queues.  The number of pcp is determined by the
number of processors and nodes in a system.  A system with 4 processors and 2
nodes has 8 pcps which is okay.  But a system with 1024 processors and 512
nodes has 512k pcps with a high potential for large amount of memory being
caught in them.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Slab allocators: remove useless __GFP_NO_GROW flag

2007-05-07T19:12:57+00:00

There is no user remaining and I have never seen any use of that flag.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] optional ZONE_DMA: optional ZONE_DMA in the VM

2007-02-11T18:51:18+00:00

Make ZONE_DMA optional in core code.

- ifdef all code for ZONE_DMA and related definitions following the example
  for ZONE_DMA32 and ZONE_HIGHMEM.

- Without ZONE_DMA, ZONE_HIGHMEM and ZONE_DMA32 we get to a ZONES_SHIFT of
  0.

- Modify the VM statistics to work correctly without a DMA zone.

- Modify slab to not create DMA slabs if there is no ZONE_DMA.

[akpm@osdl.org: cleanup]
[jdike@addtoit.com: build fix]
[apw@shadowen.org: Simplify calculation of the number of bits we need for ZONES_SHIFT]
Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Cc: Andi Kleen 
Cc: "Luck, Tony" 
Cc: Kyle McMartin 
Cc: Matthew Wilcox 
Cc: James Bottomley 
Cc: Paul Mundt 
Signed-off-by: Andy Whitcroft 
Signed-off-by: Jeff Dike 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] in non-NUMA case mark GFP_THISNODE gfp_t

2007-02-09T17:14:06+00:00

... operations with it are OK as is, but flags & ~0 will have no idea that
this ~0 is meant to be ~gfp_t.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] mm: add arch_alloc_page

2006-12-07T16:39:21+00:00

Add an arch_alloc_page to match arch_free_page.

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] Disable GFP_THISNODE in the non-NUMA case

2006-09-27T15:26:12+00:00

GFP_THISNODE must be set to 0 in the non numa case otherwise we disable retry
and warnings for failing allocations in the SMP and UP case.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] Define easier to handle GFP_THISNODE

2006-09-26T15:48:50+00:00

In many places we will need to use the same combination of flags.  Specify
a single GFP_THISNODE definition for ease of use in gfp.h.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] Add __GFP_THISNODE to avoid fallback to other nodes and ignore cpuset/memory policy restrictions

2006-09-26T15:48:50+00:00

Add a new gfp flag __GFP_THISNODE to avoid fallback to other nodes.  This
flag is essential if a kernel component requires memory to be located on a
certain node.  It will be needed for alloc_pages_node() to force allocation
on the indicated node and for alloc_pages() to force allocation on the
current node.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter 
Cc: Andy Whitcroft 
Cc: Mel Gorman 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds