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author | Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz> | 2025-09-26 14:51:17 +0200 |
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committer | Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz> | 2025-09-29 09:46:17 +0200 |
commit | b9120619246d733a27e5e93c29e86f2e0401cfc5 (patch) | |
tree | 9c13b377eb5e64ae2f7bf8a43422f65255b3dda1 /rust/helpers/vmalloc.c | |
parent | f7381b9116407ba2a429977c80ff8df953ea9354 (diff) | |
parent | 719a42e563bb087758500e43e67a57b27f303c4c (diff) |
Merge series "SLUB percpu sheaves"
This series adds an opt-in percpu array-based caching layer to SLUB.
It has evolved to a state where kmem caches with sheaves are compatible
with all SLUB features (slub_debug, SLUB_TINY, NUMA locality
considerations). The plan is therefore that it will be later enabled for
all kmem caches and replace the complicated cpu (partial) slabs code.
Note the name "sheaf" was invented by Matthew Wilcox so we don't call
the arrays magazines like the original Bonwick paper. The per-NUMA-node
cache of sheaves is thus called "barn".
This caching may seem similar to the arrays we had in SLAB, but there
are some important differences:
- deals differently with NUMA locality of freed objects, thus there are
no per-node "shared" arrays (with possible lock contention) and no
"alien" arrays that would need periodical flushing
- instead, freeing remote objects (which is rare) bypasses the sheaves
- percpu sheaves thus contain only local objects (modulo rare races
and local node exhaustion)
- NUMA restricted allocations and strict_numa mode is still honoured
- improves kfree_rcu() handling by reusing whole sheaves
- there is an API for obtaining a preallocated sheaf that can be used
for guaranteed and efficient allocations in a restricted context, when
the upper bound for needed objects is known but rarely reached
- opt-in, not used for every cache (for now)
The motivation comes mainly from the ongoing work related to VMA locking
scalability and the related maple tree operations. This is why VMA and
maple nodes caches are sheaf-enabled in the patchset.
A sheaf-enabled cache has the following expected advantages:
- Cheaper fast paths. For allocations, instead of local double cmpxchg,
thanks to local_trylock() it becomes a preempt_disable() and no atomic
operations. Same for freeing, which is otherwise a local double cmpxchg
only for short term allocations (so the same slab is still active on the
same cpu when freeing the object) and a more costly locked double
cmpxchg otherwise.
- kfree_rcu() batching and recycling. kfree_rcu() will put objects to a
separate percpu sheaf and only submit the whole sheaf to call_rcu()
when full. After the grace period, the sheaf can be used for
allocations, which is more efficient than freeing and reallocating
individual slab objects (even with the batching done by kfree_rcu()
implementation itself). In case only some cpus are allowed to handle rcu
callbacks, the sheaf can still be made available to other cpus on the
same node via the shared barn. The maple_node cache uses kfree_rcu() and
thus can benefit from this.
Note: this path is currently limited to !PREEMPT_RT
- Preallocation support. A prefilled sheaf can be privately borrowed to
perform a short term operation that is not allowed to block in the
middle and may need to allocate some objects. If an upper bound (worst
case) for the number of allocations is known, but only much fewer
allocations actually needed on average, borrowing and returning a sheaf
is much more efficient then a bulk allocation for the worst case
followed by a bulk free of the many unused objects. Maple tree write
operations should benefit from this.
- Compatibility with slub_debug. When slub_debug is enabled for a cache,
we simply don't create the percpu sheaves so that the debugging hooks
(at the node partial list slowpaths) are reached as before. The same
thing is done for CONFIG_SLUB_TINY. Sheaf preallocation still works by
reusing the (ineffective) paths for requests exceeding the cache's
sheaf_capacity. This is in line with the existing approach where
debugging bypasses the fast paths and SLUB_TINY preferes memory
savings over performance.
The above is adapted from the cover letter [1], which contains also
in-kernel microbenchmark results showing the lower overhead of sheaves.
Results from Suren Baghdasaryan [2] using a mmap/munmap microbenchmark
also show improvements.
Results from Sudarsan Mahendran [3] using will-it-scale show both
benefits and regressions, probably due to overall noisiness of those
tests.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250910-slub-percpu-caches-v8-0-ca3099d8352c@suse.cz/ [1]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAJuCfpEQ%3DRUgcAvRzE5jRrhhFpkm8E2PpBK9e9GhK26ZaJQt%3DQ@mail.gmail.com/ [2]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250913000935.1021068-1-sudarsanm@google.com/ [3]
Diffstat (limited to 'rust/helpers/vmalloc.c')
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