mm: shmem: implement POSIX_FADV_[WILL|DONT]NEED for shmem
Currently fadvise(2) is supported only for the files that doesn't
associated with noop_backing_dev_info thus for the files, like shmem,
fadvise results into NOP. But then there is file_operations->fadvise()
that lets the file systems to implement their own fadvise implementation.
Use this support to implement some of the POSIX_FADV_XXX functionality for
shmem files.
This patch aims to implement POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED and POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED
advices to shmem files which can be helpful for the clients who may want
to manage the shmem pages of the files that are created through
shmem_file_setup[_with_mnt](). One usecase is implemented on the
Snapdragon SoC's running Android where the graphics client is allocating
lot of shmem pages per process and pinning them. When this process is put
to background, the instantaneous reclaim is performed on those shmem pages
using the logic implemented downstream[3][4]. With this patch, the client
can now issue the fadvise calls on the shmem files that does the
instantaneous reclaim which can aid the use cases like mentioned above.
This usecase lead to ~2% reduction in average launch latencies of the apps
and 10% in total number of kills by the low memory killer running on
Android.
Some questions asked while reviewing this patch:
Q) Can the same thing be achieved with FD mapped to user and use madvise?
A) All drivers are not mapping all the shmem fd's to user space and
want to manage them with in the kernel. Ex: shmem memory can be mapped
to the other subsystems and they fill in the data and then give it to
other subsystem for further processing, where, the user mapping is not
at all required. A simple example, memory that is given for gpu
subsystem which can be filled directly and give to display subsystem.
And the respective drivers know well about when to keep that memory in
ram or swap based on may be a user activity.
Q) Should we add the documentation section in Manual pages?
A) The man[1] pages for the fadvise() whatever says is also applicable
for shmem files. so couldn't feel it correct to add specific to shmem
files separately.
Q) The proposed semantics of POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED is actually similar to
MADV_PAGEOUT and different from MADV_DONTNEED. This is a user facing
API and this difference will cause confusion?
A) man pages [2] says that "POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED attempts to free cached
pages associated with the specified region." This means on issuing this
FADV, it is expected to free the file cache pages. And it is
implementation defined If the dirty pages may be attempted to
writeback. And the unwritten dirty pages will not be freed. So,
FADV_DONTNEED also covers the semantics of MADV_PAGEOUT for file pages
and there is no purpose of PAGEOUT for file pages.
[1] https://linux.die.net/man/2/fadvise
[2] https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/posix_fadvise.2.html
[3] https://git.codelinaro.org/clo/la/platform/vendor/qcom/opensource/graphics-kernel/-/blob/gfx-kernel.lnx.1.0.r3-rel/kgsl_reclaim.c#L289
[4] https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/+/refs/heads/android12-5.10/mm/shmem.c#4310
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/631e42b6dffdcc4b4b24f5be715c37f78bf903db.1676378702.git.quic_charante@quicinc.com
Signed-off-by: Charan Teja Kalla <quic_charante@quicinc.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Cc: Mark Hemment <markhemm@googlemail.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Pavankumar Kondeti <quic_pkondeti@quicinc.com>
Cc: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>