linux/mm
Wu Fengguang 7381131cbc writeback: stabilize bdi->dirty_ratelimit
There are some imperfections in balanced_dirty_ratelimit.

1) large fluctuations

The dirty_rate used for computing balanced_dirty_ratelimit is merely
averaged in the past 200ms (very small comparing to the 3s estimation
period for write_bw), which makes rather dispersed distribution of
balanced_dirty_ratelimit.

It's pretty hard to average out the singular points by increasing the
estimation period. Considering that the averaging technique will
introduce very undesirable time lags, I give it up totally. (btw, the 3s
write_bw averaging time lag is much more acceptable because its impact
is one-way and therefore won't lead to oscillations.)

The more practical way is filtering -- most singular
balanced_dirty_ratelimit points can be filtered out by remembering some
prev_balanced_rate and prev_prev_balanced_rate. However the more
reliable way is to guard balanced_dirty_ratelimit with task_ratelimit.

2) due to truncates and fs redirties, the (write_bw <=> dirty_rate)
match could become unbalanced, which may lead to large systematical
errors in balanced_dirty_ratelimit. The truncates, due to its possibly
bumpy nature, can hardly be compensated smoothly. So let's face it. When
some over-estimated balanced_dirty_ratelimit brings dirty_ratelimit
high, dirty pages will go higher than the setpoint. task_ratelimit will
in turn become lower than dirty_ratelimit.  So if we consider both
balanced_dirty_ratelimit and task_ratelimit and update dirty_ratelimit
only when they are on the same side of dirty_ratelimit, the systematical
errors in balanced_dirty_ratelimit won't be able to bring
dirty_ratelimit far away.

The balanced_dirty_ratelimit estimation may also be inaccurate near
@limit or @freerun, however is less an issue.

3) since we ultimately want to

- keep the fluctuations of task ratelimit as small as possible
- keep the dirty pages around the setpoint as long time as possible

the update policy used for (2) also serves the above goals nicely:
if for some reason the dirty pages are high (task_ratelimit < dirty_ratelimit),
and dirty_ratelimit is low (dirty_ratelimit < balanced_dirty_ratelimit),
there is no point to bring up dirty_ratelimit in a hurry only to hurt
both the above two goals.

So, we make use of task_ratelimit to limit the update of dirty_ratelimit
in two ways:

1) avoid changing dirty rate when it's against the position control target
   (the adjusted rate will slow down the progress of dirty pages going
   back to setpoint).

2) limit the step size. task_ratelimit is changing values step by step,
   leaving a consistent trace comparing to the randomly jumping
   balanced_dirty_ratelimit. task_ratelimit also has the nice smaller
   errors in stable state and typically larger errors when there are big
   errors in rate.  So it's a pretty good limiting factor for the step
   size of dirty_ratelimit.

Note that bdi->dirty_ratelimit is always tracking balanced_dirty_ratelimit.
task_ratelimit is merely used as a limiting factor.

Signed-off-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
2011-10-03 21:08:57 +08:00
..
backing-dev.c writeback: stabilize bdi->dirty_ratelimit 2011-10-03 21:08:57 +08:00
bootmem.c crash_dump: export is_kdump_kernel to modules, consolidate elfcorehdr_addr, setup_elfcorehdr and saved_max_pfn 2011-03-23 19:47:19 -07:00
bounce.c bounce: call flush_dcache_page() after bounce_copy_vec() 2010-09-09 18:57:25 -07:00
cleancache.c mm: cleancache core ops functions and config 2011-05-26 10:01:36 -06:00
compaction.c mm: compaction: abort compaction if too many pages are isolated and caller is asynchronous V2 2011-06-15 20:04:02 -07:00
debug-pagealloc.c generic debug pagealloc 2009-04-01 08:59:13 -07:00
dmapool.c devres: fix possible use after free 2011-07-25 20:57:14 -07:00
fadvise.c readahead: introduce FMODE_RANDOM for POSIX_FADV_RANDOM 2010-03-06 11:26:25 -08:00
failslab.c fault-injection: add ability to export fault_attr in arbitrary directory 2011-08-03 14:25:20 -10:00
filemap_xip.c mm: Convert i_mmap_lock to a mutex 2011-05-25 08:39:18 -07:00
filemap.c mm: account skipped entries to avoid looping in find_get_pages 2011-09-14 18:17:56 -07:00
fremap.c mm: don't access vm_flags as 'int' 2011-05-26 09:20:31 -07:00
highmem.c mm: make HASHED_PAGE_VIRTUAL page_address' struct page argument const. 2011-08-17 13:00:20 -07:00
huge_memory.c mm/huge_memory.c: minor lock simplification in __khugepaged_exit 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
hugetlb.c mm: hugetlb: fix coding style issues 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
hwpoison-inject.c Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
init-mm.c atomic: use <linux/atomic.h> 2011-07-26 16:49:47 -07:00
internal.h mm: nommu: sort mm->mmap list properly 2011-05-25 08:39:05 -07:00
Kconfig mm Kconfig typo: cleancacne -> cleancache 2011-06-10 14:47:52 +02:00
Kconfig.debug mm: debug-pagealloc: fix kconfig dependency warning 2011-03-22 17:44:02 -07:00
kmemcheck.c kmemcheck: Fix build errors due to missing slab.h 2010-03-30 22:02:32 +09:00
kmemleak-test.c kmemleak: remove memset by using kzalloc 2011-01-27 18:31:51 +00:00
kmemleak.c atomic: use <linux/atomic.h> 2011-07-26 16:49:47 -07:00
ksm.c ksm: fix NULL pointer dereference in scan_get_next_rmap_item() 2011-06-15 20:04:02 -07:00
maccess.c maccess,probe_kernel: Make write/read src const void * 2011-05-25 19:56:23 -04:00
madvise.c fs: kill i_alloc_sem 2011-07-20 20:47:46 -04:00
Makefile mm: cleancache core ops functions and config 2011-05-26 10:01:36 -06:00
memblock.c mm/memblock.c: avoid abuse of RED_INACTIVE 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
memcontrol.c memcg: Revert "memcg: add memory.vmscan_stat" 2011-09-14 18:09:38 -07:00
memory_hotplug.c mm: extend memory hotplug API to allow memory hotplug in virtual machines 2011-07-25 20:57:08 -07:00
memory-failure.c HWPoison: add memory_failure_queue() 2011-08-03 11:15:58 -04:00
memory.c mm/futex: fix futex writes on archs with SW tracking of dirty & young 2011-07-25 20:57:11 -07:00
mempolicy.c mm/mempolicy.c: make copy_from_user() provably correct 2011-09-14 18:09:36 -07:00
mempool.c mm: remove broken 'kzalloc' mempool 2009-09-22 07:17:35 -07:00
migrate.c migrate: don't account swapcache as shmem 2011-06-16 15:01:24 -07:00
mincore.c mm: clarify the radix_tree exceptional cases 2011-08-03 14:25:24 -10:00
mlock.c mm: don't access vm_flags as 'int' 2011-05-26 09:20:31 -07:00
mm_init.c mm: mminit_loglevel cannot be __meminitdata anymore 2008-08-20 15:40:30 -07:00
mmap.c mmap: fix and tidy up overcommit page arithmetic 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
mmu_context.c exit: fix oops in sync_mm_rss 2010-03-24 16:31:21 -07:00
mmu_notifier.c thp: mmu_notifier_test_young 2011-01-13 17:32:46 -08:00
mmzone.c mm: page allocator: adjust the per-cpu counter threshold when memory is low 2011-01-13 17:32:31 -08:00
mprotect.c thp: mprotect: transparent huge page support 2011-01-13 17:32:44 -08:00
mremap.c mm: Convert i_mmap_lock to a mutex 2011-05-25 08:39:18 -07:00
msync.c sanitize vfs_fsync calling conventions 2010-05-21 18:31:21 -04:00
nobootmem.c memblock/nobootmem: remove unneeded code from alloc_bootmem_node_high() 2011-05-25 08:39:31 -07:00
nommu.c mmap: fix and tidy up overcommit page arithmetic 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
oom_kill.c oom: task->mm == NULL doesn't mean the memory was freed 2011-08-01 15:24:12 -10:00
page_alloc.c fault-injection: add ability to export fault_attr in arbitrary directory 2011-08-03 14:25:20 -10:00
page_cgroup.c mm/page_cgroup.c: simplify code by using SECTION_ALIGN_UP() and SECTION_ALIGN_DOWN() macros 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
page_io.c block: kill off REQ_UNPLUG 2011-03-10 08:52:27 +01:00
page_isolation.c mm: page_isolation: codeclean fix comment and rm unneeded val init 2010-10-26 16:52:11 -07:00
page-writeback.c writeback: stabilize bdi->dirty_ratelimit 2011-10-03 21:08:57 +08:00
pagewalk.c pagewalk: fix code comment for THP 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
percpu-km.c percpu: clear memory allocated with the km allocator 2010-10-02 10:28:42 +03:00
percpu-vm.c mm: remove gfp mask from pcpu_get_vm_areas 2011-01-13 17:32:34 -08:00
percpu.c Merge branch 'for-2.6.40' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/percpu 2011-05-24 11:53:42 -07:00
pgtable-generic.c mm/pgtable-generic.c: fix CONFIG_SWAP=n build 2011-01-26 10:49:58 +10:00
prio_tree.c sanitize <linux/prefetch.h> usage 2011-05-20 12:50:29 -07:00
quicklist.c include cleanup: Update gfp.h and slab.h includes to prepare for breaking implicit slab.h inclusion from percpu.h 2010-03-30 22:02:32 +09:00
readahead.c readahead: readahead page allocations are OK to fail 2011-05-25 08:39:25 -07:00
rmap.c Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wfg/writeback 2011-07-26 10:39:54 -07:00
shmem.c mm: clarify the radix_tree exceptional cases 2011-08-03 14:25:24 -10:00
slab.c slab, lockdep: Annotate the locks before using them 2011-08-04 10:18:00 +02:00
slob.c atomic: use <linux/atomic.h> 2011-07-26 16:49:47 -07:00
slub.c slub: add slab with one free object to partial list tail 2011-08-27 11:58:59 +03:00
sparse-vmemmap.c tree-wide: fix comment/printk typos 2010-11-01 15:38:34 -04:00
sparse.c mm: make some struct page's const 2011-07-25 20:57:07 -07:00
swap_state.c block: remove per-queue plugging 2011-03-10 08:52:07 +01:00
swap.c mm: batch activate_page() to reduce lock contention 2011-05-25 08:39:37 -07:00
swapfile.c mm: let swap use exceptional entries 2011-08-03 14:25:22 -10:00
thrash.c mm: swap-token: add a comment for priority aging 2011-07-25 20:57:08 -07:00
truncate.c mm: a few small updates for radix-swap 2011-08-03 14:25:24 -10:00
util.c mm: nommu: sort mm->mmap list properly 2011-05-25 08:39:05 -07:00
vmalloc.c mm: sync vmalloc address space page tables in alloc_vm_area() 2011-09-14 18:09:38 -07:00
vmscan.c memcg: Revert "memcg: add memory.vmscan_stat" 2011-09-14 18:09:38 -07:00
vmstat.c numa: fix NUMA compile error when sysfs and procfs are disabled 2011-09-14 18:09:37 -07:00