[PATCH v3 00/15] mm/memory: optimize fork() with PTE-mapped THP

[Ryan Roberts]

On 31/01/2024 15:05, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 31.01.24 16:02, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>> On 31/01/2024 14:29, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>>>> Note that regarding NUMA effects, I mean when some memory access within the
>>>>> same
>>>>> socket is faster/slower even with only a single node. On AMD EPYC that's
>>>>> possible, depending on which core you are running and on which memory
>>>>> controller
>>>>> the memory you want to access is located. If both are in different quadrants
>>>>> IIUC, the access latency will be different.
>>>>
>>>> I've configured the NUMA to only bring the RAM and CPUs for a single socket
>>>> online, so I shouldn't be seeing any of these effects. Anyway, I've been using
>>>> the Altra as a secondary because its so much slower than the M2. Let me move
>>>> over to it and see if everything looks more straightforward there.
>>>
>>> Better use a system where people will actually run Linux production workloads
>>> on, even if it is slower :)
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll continue to mess around with it until the end of the day. But I'm not
>>>>>> making any headway, then I'll change tack; I'll just measure the
>>>>>> performance of
>>>>>> my contpte changes using your fork/zap stuff as the baseline and post
>>>>>> based on
>>>>>> that.
>>>>>
>>>>> You should likely not focus on M2 results. Just pick a representative bare
>>>>> metal
>>>>> machine where you get consistent, explainable results.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nothing in the code is fine-tuned for a particular architecture so far, only
>>>>> order-0 handling is kept separate.
>>>>>
>>>>> BTW: I see the exact same speedups for dontneed that I see for munmap. For
>>>>> example, for order-9, it goes from 0.023412s -> 0.009785, so -58%. So I'm
>>>>> curious why you see a speedup for munmap but not for dontneed.
>>>>
>>>> Ugh... ok, coming up.
>>>
>>> Hopefully you were just staring at the wrong numbers (e.g., only with fork
>>> patches). Because both (munmap/pte-dontneed) are using the exact same code path.
>>>
>>
>> Ahh... I'm doing pte-dontneed, which is the only option in your original
>> benchmark - it does MADV_DONTNEED one page at a time. It looks like your new
>> benchmark has an additional "dontneed" option that does it in one shot. Which
>> option are you running? Assuming the latter, I think that explains it.
> 
> I temporarily removed that option and then re-added it. Guess you got a wrong
> snapshot of the benchmark :D
> 
> pte-dontneed not observing any change is great (no batching possible).

indeed.

> 
> dontneed should hopefully/likely see a speedup.

Yes, but that's almost exactly the same path as munmap, so I'm sure it really
adds much for this particular series. Anyway, on Altra at least, I'm seeing no
regressions, so:

Tested-by: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts at arm.com>

> 
> Great!
>