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NeilBrown a37b0715dd mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE
PF_LESS_THROTTLE exists for loop-back nfsd (and a similar need in the
loop block driver and callers of prctl(PR_SET_IO_FLUSHER)), where a
daemon needs to write to one bdi (the final bdi) in order to free up
writes queued to another bdi (the client bdi).

The daemon sets PF_LESS_THROTTLE and gets a larger allowance of dirty
pages, so that it can still dirty pages after other processses have been
throttled.  The purpose of this is to avoid deadlock that happen when
the PF_LESS_THROTTLE process must write for any dirty pages to be freed,
but it is being thottled and cannot write.

This approach was designed when all threads were blocked equally,
independently on which device they were writing to, or how fast it was.
Since that time the writeback algorithm has changed substantially with
different threads getting different allowances based on non-trivial
heuristics.  This means the simple "add 25%" heuristic is no longer
reliable.

The important issue is not that the daemon needs a *larger* dirty page
allowance, but that it needs a *private* dirty page allowance, so that
dirty pages for the "client" bdi that it is helping to clear (the bdi
for an NFS filesystem or loop block device etc) do not affect the
throttling of the daemon writing to the "final" bdi.

This patch changes the heuristic so that the task is not throttled when
the bdi it is writing to has a dirty page count below below (or equal
to) the free-run threshold for that bdi.  This ensures it will always be
able to have some pages in flight, and so will not deadlock.

In a steady-state, it is expected that PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE tasks might
still be throttled by global threshold, but that is acceptable as it is
only the deadlock state that is interesting for this flag.

This approach of "only throttle when target bdi is busy" is consistent
with the other use of PF_LESS_THROTTLE in current_may_throttle(), were
it causes attention to be focussed only on the target bdi.

So this patch
 - renames PF_LESS_THROTTLE to PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE,
 - removes the 25% bonus that that flag gives, and
 - If PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE is set, don't delay at all unless the
   global and the local free-run thresholds are exceeded.

Note that previously realtime threads were treated the same as
PF_LESS_THROTTLE threads.  This patch does *not* change the behvaiour
for real-time threads, so it is now different from the behaviour of nfsd
and loop tasks.  I don't know what is wanted for realtime.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding style fixes]
Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>	[nfsd]
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@hammerspace.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/87ftbf7gs3.fsf@notabene.neil.brown.name
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
arch arch/parisc/include/asm/pgtable.h: remove unused `old_pte' 2020-06-02 10:59:05 -07:00
block mm: move readahead prototypes from mm.h 2020-06-02 10:59:06 -07:00
certs .gitignore: add SPDX License Identifier 2020-03-25 11:50:48 +01:00
crypto crypto: engine - do not requeue in case of fatal error 2020-05-28 17:27:52 +10:00
Documentation mm: add readahead address space operation 2020-06-02 10:59:06 -07:00
drivers mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE 2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
fs mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE 2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
include mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE 2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
init A single fix for early boot crashes of kernels built with gcc10 and 2020-05-17 11:08:29 -07:00
ipc ipc/util.c: sysvipc_find_ipc() incorrectly updates position index 2020-05-14 10:00:35 -07:00
kernel mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE 2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
lib Printk changes for 5.8 2020-06-01 12:13:30 -07:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Rename other to deprecated 2019-05-03 06:34:32 -06:00
mm mm/writeback: replace PF_LESS_THROTTLE with PF_LOCAL_THROTTLE 2020-06-02 10:59:08 -07:00
net Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2020-06-01 12:00:10 -07:00
samples Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net 2020-05-15 13:10:06 -07:00
scripts checkpatch/coding-style: deprecate 80-column warning 2020-05-31 11:00:42 -07:00
security Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2020-06-01 12:00:10 -07:00
sound sound fixes for 5.7 (rc8 or final) 2020-05-29 13:31:01 -07:00
tools Fixes and new features for pstore 2020-06-01 12:07:34 -07:00
usr kbuild: fix comment about missing include guard detection 2020-04-11 12:09:48 +09:00
virt KVM: Introduce kvm_make_all_cpus_request_except() 2020-05-08 07:44:32 -04:00
.clang-format clang-format: Update with the latest for_each macro list 2020-04-18 13:49:33 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore Opt out of scripts/get_maintainer.pl 2019-05-16 10:53:40 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: use 'dts' diff driver for dts files 2019-12-04 19:44:11 -08:00
.gitignore .gitignore: add SPDX License Identifier 2020-03-25 11:50:48 +01:00
.mailmap i2c: use my kernel.org address from now on 2020-05-05 16:29:09 +02:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Hand MIPS over to Thomas 2020-02-24 22:43:18 -08:00
Kbuild kbuild: rename hostprogs-y/always to hostprogs/always-y 2020-02-04 01:53:07 +09:00
Kconfig docs: kbuild: convert docs to ReST and rename to *.rst 2019-06-14 14:21:21 -06:00
MAINTAINERS Add support for wider Memory Bandwidth Monitoring counters by querying 2020-06-01 12:24:14 -07:00
Makefile Linux 5.7 2020-05-31 16:49:15 -07:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.