On Tue, 2 May 2017 13:52:00 -0300
Marcelo Tosatti [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

I have several questions about the tunables:

 - What does the vmstat_threshold value mean? What are the implications
   of changing this value? What's the difference in choosing 1, 2, 3
   or 500?  

Its the maximum value for a vmstat statistics counter to hold. After
that value, the statistics are transferred to the global counter:

void __mod_node_page_state(struct pglist_data *pgdat, enum node_stat_item item,
                                long delta)
{
        struct per_cpu_nodestat __percpu *pcp = pgdat->per_cpu_nodestats;
        s8 __percpu *p = pcp->vm_node_stat_diff + item;
        long x;
        long t;

        x = delta + __this_cpu_read(*p);

        t = __this_cpu_read(pcp->stat_threshold);

        if (unlikely(x > t || x < -t)) {
                node_page_state_add(x, pgdat, item);
                x = 0;
        }
        __this_cpu_write(*p, x);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(__mod_node_page_state);

BTW, there is a bug there, should change that to:

        if (unlikely(x >= t || x <= -t)) {

Increasing the threshold value does two things:
	1) It decreases the number of inter-processor accesses.
	2) It increases how much the global counters stay out of
	   sync relative to actual current values.

OK, but I'm mostly concerned with the sysadmin who will have
to change the tunable. So, I think it's a good idea to improve
the doc to contain that information.

quoted

 - If the purpose of having vmstat_threshold is to allow disabling
   the vmstat kworker, why can't the kernel pick a value automatically?  

Because it might be acceptable for the user to accept a small 
out of syncedness of the global counters in favour of performance
(one would have to analyze the situation).

Setting vmstat_threshold == 1 means the global counter is always
in sync with the page counter state of the pCPU.

IMHO, if vmstat_threshold == 1 is the required setting for
disabling the vmstat kworker then I'd go with only one tunable
for now. But that's just a suggestion.

quoted

 - What are the implications of disabling the vmstat kworker? Will vm
   stats still be collected someway or will it be completely off for
   the CPU?  

It will not be necessary to collect vmstats because at every modification
of the vm statistics, pCPUs with vmstat_threshold=1 transfer their 
values to the global counters (that is, there is no queueing of statistics
locally to improve performance).

Ah, OK. Got this now. I'll give this patch a try. But I think we want
to hear from Christoph (who worked on reducing the vmstat interruptions
in the past).

quoted

Also, shouldn't this patch be split into two?  

First add one sysfs file, then add another sysfs file, you mean?

Yes, one tunable per patch.

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