change zonelist order: zonelist order selection logic

Make zonelist creation policy selectable from sysctl/boot option v6.

This patch makes NUMA's zonelist (of pgdat) order selectable.
Available order are Default(automatic)/ Node-based / Zone-based.

[Default Order]
The kernel selects Node-based or Zone-based order automatically.

[Node-based Order]
This policy treats the locality of memory as the most important parameter.
Zonelist order is created by each zone's locality. This means lower zones
(ex. ZONE_DMA) can be used before higher zone (ex. ZONE_NORMAL) exhausion.
IOW. ZONE_DMA will be in the middle of zonelist.
current 2.6.21 kernel uses this.

Pros.
 * A user can expect local memory as much as possible.
Cons.
 * lower zone will be exhansted before higher zone. This may cause OOM_KILL.

Maybe suitable if ZONE_DMA is relatively big and you never see OOM_KILL
because of ZONE_DMA exhaution and you need the best locality.

(example)
assume 2 node NUMA. node(0) has ZONE_DMA/ZONE_NORMAL, node(1) has ZONE_NORMAL.

*node(0)'s memory allocation order:

 node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA -> node(1)'s NORMAL.

*node(1)'s memory allocation order:

 node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

[Zone-based order]
This policy treats the zone type as the most important parameter.
Zonelist order is created by zone-type order. This means lower zone
never be used bofere higher zone exhaustion.
IOW. ZONE_DMA will be always at the tail of zonelist.

Pros.
 * OOM_KILL(bacause of lower zone) occurs only if the whole zones are exhausted.
Cons.
 * memory locality may not be best.

(example)
assume 2 node NUMA. node(0) has ZONE_DMA/ZONE_NORMAL, node(1) has ZONE_NORMAL.

*node(0)'s memory allocation order:

 node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

*node(1)'s memory allocation order:

 node(1)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s NORMAL -> node(0)'s DMA.

bootoption "numa_zonelist_order=" and proc/sysctl is supporetd.

command:
%echo N > /proc/sys/vm/numa_zonelist_order

Will rebuild zonelist in Node-based order.

command:
%echo Z > /proc/sys/vm/numa_zonelist_order

Will rebuild zonelist in Zone-based order.

Thanks to Lee Schermerhorn, he gives me much help and codes.

[Lee.Schermerhorn@hp.com: add check_highest_zone to build_zonelists_in_zone_order]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fix]
Signed-off-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
Cc: "jesse.barnes@intel.com" <jesse.barnes@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 45 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 8cfca173d4bc..df3ff2095f9d 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm:
 - min_slab_ratio
 - panic_on_oom
 - mmap_min_address
+- numa_zonelist_order
 
 ==============================================================
 
@@ -231,3 +232,47 @@ security module.  Setting this value to something like 64k will allow the
 vast majority of applications to work correctly and provide defense in depth
 against future potential kernel bugs.
 
+==============================================================
+
+numa_zonelist_order
+
+This sysctl is only for NUMA.
+'where the memory is allocated from' is controlled by zonelists.
+(This documentation ignores ZONE_HIGHMEM/ZONE_DMA32 for simple explanation.
+ you may be able to read ZONE_DMA as ZONE_DMA32...)
+
+In non-NUMA case, a zonelist for GFP_KERNEL is ordered as following.
+ZONE_NORMAL -> ZONE_DMA
+This means that a memory allocation request for GFP_KERNEL will
+get memory from ZONE_DMA only when ZONE_NORMAL is not available.
+
+In NUMA case, you can think of following 2 types of order.
+Assume 2 node NUMA and below is zonelist of Node(0)'s GFP_KERNEL
+
+(A) Node(0) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(0) ZONE_DMA -> Node(1) ZONE_NORMAL
+(B) Node(0) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(1) ZONE_NORMAL -> Node(0) ZONE_DMA.
+
+Type(A) offers the best locality for processes on Node(0), but ZONE_DMA
+will be used before ZONE_NORMAL exhaustion. This increases possibility of
+out-of-memory(OOM) of ZONE_DMA because ZONE_DMA is tend to be small.
+
+Type(B) cannot offer the best locality but is more robust against OOM of
+the DMA zone.
+
+Type(A) is called as "Node" order. Type (B) is "Zone" order.
+
+"Node order" orders the zonelists by node, then by zone within each node.
+Specify "[Nn]ode" for zone order
+
+"Zone Order" orders the zonelists by zone type, then by node within each
+zone.  Specify "[Zz]one"for zode order.
+
+Specify "[Dd]efault" to request automatic configuration.  Autoconfiguration
+will select "node" order in following case.
+(1) if the DMA zone does not exist or
+(2) if the DMA zone comprises greater than 50% of the available memory or
+(3) if any node's DMA zone comprises greater than 60% of its local memory and
+    the amount of local memory is big enough.
+
+Otherwise, "zone" order will be selected. Default order is recommended unless
+this is causing problems for your system/application.