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Minchan Kim a939888ec3 zram: support idle/huge page writeback
Add a new feature "zram idle/huge page writeback".  In the zram-swap use
case, zram usually has many idle/huge swap pages.  It's pointless to keep
them in memory (ie, zram).

To solve this problem, this feature introduces idle/huge page writeback to
the backing device so the goal is to save more memory space on embedded
systems.

Normal sequence to use idle/huge page writeback feature is as follows,

while (1) {
        # mark allocated zram slot to idle
        echo all > /sys/block/zram0/idle
        # leave system working for several hours
        # Unless there is no access for some blocks on zram,
	# they are still IDLE marked pages.

        echo "idle" > /sys/block/zram0/writeback
	or/and
	echo "huge" > /sys/block/zram0/writeback
        # write the IDLE or/and huge marked slot into backing device
	# and free the memory.
}

Per the discussion at
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20181122065926.GG3441@jagdpanzerIV/T/#u,

This patch removes direct incommpressibe page writeback feature
(d2afd25114f4 ("zram: write incompressible pages to backing device")).

Below concerns from Sergey:
== &< ==

"IDLE writeback" is superior to "incompressible writeback".

"incompressible writeback" is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable;
it depens on data patterns and compression algorithms.  While "IDLE
writeback" is predictable.

I even suspect, that, *ideally*, we can remove "incompressible writeback".
"IDLE pages" is a super set which also includes "incompressible" pages.
So, technically, we still can do "incompressible writeback" from "IDLE
writeback" path; but a much more reasonable one, based on a page idling
period.

I understand that you want to keep "direct incompressible writeback"
around.  ZRAM is especially popular on devices which do suffer from flash
wearout, so I can see "incompressible writeback" path becoming a dead
code, long term.

== &< ==

Below concerns from Minchan:
== &< ==

My concern is if we enable CONFIG_ZRAM_WRITEBACK in this implementation,
both hugepage/idlepage writeck will turn on.  However someuser want to
enable only idlepage writeback so we need to introduce turn on/off knob
for hugepage or new CONFIG_ZRAM_IDLEPAGE_WRITEBACK for those usecase.  I
don't want to make it complicated *if possible*.

Long term, I imagine we need to make VM aware of new swap hierarchy a
little bit different with as-is.  For example, first high priority swap
can return -EIO or -ENOCOMP, swap try to fallback to next lower priority
swap device.  With that, hugepage writeback will work tranparently.

So we could regard it as regression because incompressible pages doesn't
go to backing storage automatically.  Instead, user should do it via "echo
huge" > /sys/block/zram/writeback" manually.

== &< ==

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181127055429.251614-6-minchan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Joey Pabalinas <joeypabalinas@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
arch mm/memblock.c: skip kmemleak for kasan_init() 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
block block: Fix null_blk_zoned creation failure with small number of zones 2018-12-11 16:19:38 -07:00
certs export.h: remove VMLINUX_SYMBOL() and VMLINUX_SYMBOL_STR() 2018-08-22 23:21:44 +09:00
crypto Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2018-12-27 13:53:32 -08:00
Documentation zram: support idle/huge page writeback 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
drivers zram: support idle/huge page writeback 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
firmware kbuild: remove all dummy assignments to obj- 2017-11-18 11:46:06 +09:00
fs userfaultfd: convert userfaultfd_ctx::refcount to refcount_t 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
include mm/memblock.c: skip kmemleak for kasan_init() 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
init debugobjects: call debug_objects_mem_init eariler 2018-12-28 12:11:45 -08:00
ipc ipc: IPCMNI limit check for semmni 2018-10-31 08:54:14 -07:00
kernel kernel, resource: check for IORESOURCE_SYSRAM in release_mem_region_adjustable 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
lib mm: convert zone->managed_pages to atomic variable 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
LICENSES This is a fairly typical cycle for documentation. There's some welcome 2018-10-24 18:01:11 +01:00
mm mm/memblock.c: skip kmemleak for kasan_init() 2018-12-28 12:11:49 -08:00
net mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
samples Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-next 2018-12-27 13:04:52 -08:00
scripts scripts/tags.sh: add more declarations 2018-12-28 12:11:44 -08:00
security mm: convert totalram_pages and totalhigh_pages variables to atomic 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
sound xen: features and fixes for 4.21 2018-12-26 11:35:07 -08:00
tools mm, devm_memremap_pages: fix shutdown handling 2018-12-28 12:11:47 -08:00
usr initramfs: move gen_initramfs_list.sh from scripts/ to usr/ 2018-08-22 23:21:44 +09:00
virt Merge branch 'core-rcu-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2018-12-26 13:07:19 -08:00
.clang-format page cache: Convert find_get_pages_contig to XArray 2018-10-21 10:46:34 -04:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore Kbuild updates for v4.17 (2nd) 2018-04-15 17:21:30 -07:00
.mailmap Merge tag 'nand/for-4.21' of git://git.infradead.org/linux-mtd into mtd/next 2018-12-18 19:59:16 +01:00
COPYING COPYING: use the new text with points to the license files 2018-03-23 12:41:45 -06:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: update entry for MMP platform 2018-12-03 12:39:57 -08:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v4.15 2017-11-17 17:45:29 -08:00
Kconfig kconfig: move the "Executable file formats" menu to fs/Kconfig.binfmt 2018-08-02 08:06:55 +09:00
MAINTAINERS Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2018-12-27 13:53:32 -08:00
Makefile Linux 4.20 2018-12-23 15:55:59 -08:00
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.