[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, 2 insertions, 13 deletions

diff --git a/mm/nommu.c b/mm/nommu.c
index 59992488..dfb124f 100644
--- a/mm/nommu.c
+++ b/mm/nommu.c
@@ -931,6 +931,8 @@ int do_munmap(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long addr, size_t len)
 	realalloc -= kobjsize(vml);
 	askedalloc -= sizeof(*vml);
 	kfree(vml);
+
+	update_hiwater_vm(mm);
 	mm->total_vm -= len >> PAGE_SHIFT;
 
 #ifdef DEBUG
@@ -1078,19 +1080,6 @@ void arch_unmap_area(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long addr)
 {
 }
 
-void update_mem_hiwater(struct task_struct *tsk)
-{
-	unsigned long rss;
-
-	if (likely(tsk->mm)) {
-		rss = get_mm_rss(tsk->mm);
-		if (tsk->mm->hiwater_rss < rss)
-			tsk->mm->hiwater_rss = rss;
-		if (tsk->mm->hiwater_vm < tsk->mm->total_vm)
-			tsk->mm->hiwater_vm = tsk->mm->total_vm;
-	}
-}
-
 void unmap_mapping_range(struct address_space *mapping,
 			 loff_t const holebegin, loff_t const holelen,
 			 int even_cows)