[PATCH] mm: update_hiwaters just in time

update_mem_hiwater has attracted various criticisms, in particular from those
concerned with mm scalability.  Originally it was called whenever rss or
total_vm got raised.  Then many of those callsites were replaced by a timer
tick call from account_system_time.  Now Frank van Maarseveen reports that to
be found inadequate.  How about this?  Works for Frank.

Replace update_mem_hiwater, a poor combination of two unrelated ops, by macros
update_hiwater_rss and update_hiwater_vm.  Don't attempt to keep
mm->hiwater_rss up to date at timer tick, nor every time we raise rss (usually
by 1): those are hot paths.  Do the opposite, update only when about to lower
rss (usually by many), or just before final accounting in do_exit.  Handle
mm->hiwater_vm in the same way, though it's much less of an issue.  Demand
that whoever collects these hiwater statistics do the work of taking the
maximum with rss or total_vm.

And there has been no collector of these hiwater statistics in the tree.  The
new convention needs an example, so match Frank's usage by adding a VmPeak
line above VmSize to /proc/<pid>/status, and also a VmHWM line above VmRSS
(High-Water-Mark or High-Water-Memory).

There was a particular anomaly during mremap move, that hiwater_vm might be
captured too high.  A fleeting such anomaly remains, but it's quickly
corrected now, whereas before it would stick.

What locking?  None: if the app is racy then these statistics will be racy,
it's not worth any overhead to make them exact.  But whenever it suits,
hiwater_vm is updated under exclusive mmap_sem, and hiwater_rss under
page_table_lock (for now) or with preemption disabled (later on): without
going to any trouble, minimize the time between reading current values and
updating, to minimize those occasions when a racing thread bumps a count up
and back down in between.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/mm/mremap.c b/mm/mremap.c
index 318eea5..ccf4564 100644
--- a/mm/mremap.c
+++ b/mm/mremap.c
@@ -167,6 +167,7 @@ static unsigned long move_vma(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	unsigned long new_pgoff;
 	unsigned long moved_len;
 	unsigned long excess = 0;
+	unsigned long hiwater_vm;
 	int split = 0;
 
 	/*
@@ -205,9 +206,15 @@ static unsigned long move_vma(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	}
 
 	/*
-	 * if we failed to move page tables we still do total_vm increment
-	 * since do_munmap() will decrement it by old_len == new_len
+	 * If we failed to move page tables we still do total_vm increment
+	 * since do_munmap() will decrement it by old_len == new_len.
+	 *
+	 * Since total_vm is about to be raised artificially high for a
+	 * moment, we need to restore high watermark afterwards: if stats
+	 * are taken meanwhile, total_vm and hiwater_vm appear too high.
+	 * If this were a serious issue, we'd add a flag to do_munmap().
 	 */
+	hiwater_vm = mm->hiwater_vm;
 	mm->total_vm += new_len >> PAGE_SHIFT;
 	vm_stat_account(mm, vma->vm_flags, vma->vm_file, new_len>>PAGE_SHIFT);
 
@@ -216,6 +223,7 @@ static unsigned long move_vma(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 		vm_unacct_memory(excess >> PAGE_SHIFT);
 		excess = 0;
 	}
+	mm->hiwater_vm = hiwater_vm;
 
 	/* Restore VM_ACCOUNT if one or two pieces of vma left */
 	if (excess) {