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SubjectRe: [PATCH v2] loop: Add PF_LESS_THROTTLE to block/loop device thread.
On Wed 05-04-17 14:33:50, NeilBrown wrote:
>
> When a filesystem is mounted from a loop device, writes are
> throttled by balance_dirty_pages() twice: once when writing
> to the filesystem and once when the loop_handle_cmd() writes
> to the backing file. This double-throttling can trigger
> positive feedback loops that create significant delays. The
> throttling at the lower level is seen by the upper level as
> a slow device, so it throttles extra hard.
>
> The PF_LESS_THROTTLE flag was created to handle exactly this
> circumstance, though with an NFS filesystem mounted from a
> local NFS server. It reduces the throttling on the lower
> layer so that it can proceed largely unthrottled.
>
> To demonstrate this, create a filesystem on a loop device
> and write (e.g. with dd) several large files which combine
> to consume significantly more than the limit set by
> /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio or dirty_bytes. Measure the total
> time taken.
>
> When I do this directly on a device (no loop device) the
> total time for several runs (mkfs, mount, write 200 files,
> umount) is fairly stable: 28-35 seconds.
> When I do this over a loop device the times are much worse
> and less stable. 52-460 seconds. Half below 100seconds,
> half above.
> When I apply this patch, the times become stable again,
> though not as fast as the no-loop-back case: 53-72 seconds.
>
> There may be room for further improvement as the total overhead still
> seems too high, but this is a big improvement.
>
> Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
> Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
> Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.com>
> ---
>
> I moved where the flag is set, thanks to suggestion from
> Ming Lei.
> I've preserved the *-by: tags I was offered despite the code
> being different, as the concept is identical.
>
> Thanks,
> NeilBrown
>
>
> drivers/block/loop.c | 1 +
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/block/loop.c b/drivers/block/loop.c
> index 0ecb6461ed81..44b3506fd086 100644
> --- a/drivers/block/loop.c
> +++ b/drivers/block/loop.c
> @@ -852,6 +852,7 @@ static int loop_prepare_queue(struct loop_device *lo)
> if (IS_ERR(lo->worker_task))
> return -ENOMEM;
> set_user_nice(lo->worker_task, MIN_NICE);
> + lo->worker_task->flags |= PF_LESS_THROTTLE;
> return 0;

As mentioned elsewhere, PF flags should be updated only on the current
task otherwise there is potential rmw race. Is this safe? The code runs
concurrently with the worker thread.


--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs

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