Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v5 2/2] xen/blkback: Squeeze page pools if a memory pressure is detected

[SeongJae Park <sj38.park@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 12:14:44 +0100 "Roger Pau Monné" <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:

> 
> I see that you have already sent v6, for future iterations can you
> please wait until the conversation on the previous version has been
> settled?
> 
> I'm still replying to your replies to v5, and hence you should hold off
> sending v6 until we get some kind of conclusion/agreement.

Sorry, I was inpatient.

> 
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 05:08:12AM +0100, SeongJae Park wrote:
> > On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 12:04:32 +0100 "Roger Pau Monné" <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> 
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > > Each `blkif` has a free pages pool for the grant mapping.  The size of
> > > > the pool starts from zero and be increased on demand while processing
> > > > the I/O requests.  If current I/O requests handling is finished or 100
> > > > milliseconds has passed since last I/O requests handling, it checks and
> > > > shrinks the pool to not exceed the size limit, `max_buffer_pages`.
> > > > 
> > > > Therefore, `blkfront` running guests can cause a memory pressure in the
> > > > `blkback` running guest by attaching a large number of block devices and
> > > > inducing I/O.
> > > 
> > > Hm, I don't think this is actually true. blkfront cannot attach an
> > > arbitrary number of devices, blkfront is just a frontend for a device
> > > that's instantiated by the Xen toolstack, so it's the toolstack the one
> > > that controls the amount of PV block devices.
> > 
> > Right, the problem can occur only if it is mis-configured so that the 
> > frontend
> > running guests can attach a large number of devices which is enough to cause
> > the memory pressure.  I tried to explain it in below paragraph, but seems 
> > above
> > paragraph is a little bit confusing.  I will wordsmith the sentence in the 
> > next
> > version.
> 
> I would word it along these lines:
> 
> "Host administrators can cause memory pressure in blkback by attaching
> a large number of block devices and inducing I/O."

Hmm, much better :)

> 
> > > 
> > > > System administrators can avoid such problematic
> > > > situations by limiting the maximum number of devices each guest can
> > > > attach.  However, finding the optimal limit is not so easy.  Improper
> > > > set of the limit can results in the memory pressure or a resource
> > > > underutilization.  This commit avoids such problematic situations by
> > > > squeezing the pools (returns every free page in the pool to the system)
> > > > for a while (users can set this duration via a module parameter) if a
> > > > memory pressure is detected.
> > > > 
> > > > Discussions
> > > > ===========
> > > > 
> > > > The `blkback`'s original shrinking mechanism returns only pages in the
> > > > pool, which are not currently be used by `blkback`, to the system.  In
> > > > other words, the pages are not mapped with foreign pages.  Because this
> > >                         ^ that               ^ granted
> > > > commit is changing only the shrink limit but uses the mechanism as is,
> > > > this commit does not introduce improper mappings related security
> > > > issues.
> > > 
> > > That last sentence is hard to parse. I think something like:
> > > 
> > > "Because this commit is changing only the shrink limit but still uses the
> > > same freeing mechanism it does not touch pages which are currently
> > > mapping grants."
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Once a memory pressure is detected, this commit keeps the squeezing
> > > > limit for a user-specified time duration.  The duration should be
> > > > neither too long nor too short.  If it is too long, the squeezing
> > > > incurring overhead can reduce the I/O performance.  If it is too short,
> > > > `blkback` will not free enough pages to reduce the memory pressure.
> > > > This commit sets the value as `10 milliseconds` by default because it is
> > > > a short time in terms of I/O while it is a long time in terms of memory
> > > > operations.  Also, as the original shrinking mechanism works for at
> > > > least every 100 milliseconds, this could be a somewhat reasonable
> > > > choice.  I also tested other durations (refer to the below section for
> > > > more details) and confirmed that 10 milliseconds is the one that works
> > > > best with the test.  That said, the proper duration depends on actual
> > > > configurations and workloads.  That's why this commit is allowing users
> > >                                                         ^ allows
> > > > to set it as their optimal value via the module parameter.
> > > 
> > > ... to set the duration as a module parameter.
> > 
> > Thank you for great suggestions, I will apply those.
> > 
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Memory Pressure Test
> > > > ====================
> > > > 
> > > > To show how this commit fixes the memory pressure situation well, I
> > > > configured a test environment on a xen-running virtualization system.
> > > > On the `blkfront` running guest instances, I attach a large number of
> > > > network-backed volume devices and induce I/O to those.  Meanwhile, I
> > > > measure the number of pages that swapped in and out on the `blkback`
> > > > running guest.  The test ran twice, once for the `blkback` before this
> > > > commit and once for that after this commit.  As shown below, this commit
> > > > has dramatically reduced the memory pressure:
> > > > 
> > > >                 pswpin  pswpout
> > > 
> > > I assume pswpin means 'pages swapped in' and pswpout 'pages swapped
> > > out'. Might be good to add a note to that effect.
> > 
> > Good point!  I will add the note.
> > 
> > > 
> > > >     before      76,672  185,799
> > > >     after          212    3,325
> > > > 
> > > > Optimal Aggressive Shrinking Duration
> > > > -------------------------------------
> > > > 
> > > > To find a best squeezing duration, I repeated the test with three
> > > > different durations (1ms, 10ms, and 100ms).  The results are as below:
> > > > 
> > > >     duration    pswpin  pswpout
> > > >     1           852     6,424
> > > >     10          212     3,325
> > > >     100         203     3,340
> > > > 
> > > > As expected, the memory pressure has decreased as the duration is
> > > > increased, but the reduction stopped from the `10ms`.  Based on this
> > > > results, I chose the default duration as 10ms.
> > > > 
> > > > Performance Overhead Test
> > > > =========================
> > > > 
> > > > This commit could incur I/O performance degradation under severe memory
> > > > pressure because the squeezing will require more page allocations per
> > > > I/O.  To show the overhead, I artificially made a worst-case squeezing
> > > > situation and measured the I/O performance of a `blkfront` running
> > > > guest.
> > > > 
> > > > For the artificial squeezing, I set the `blkback.max_buffer_pages` using
> > > > the `/sys/module/xen_blkback/parameters/max_buffer_pages` file.  We set
> > > > the value to `1024` and `0`.  The `1024` is the default value.  Setting
> > > > the value as `0` is same to a situation doing the squeezing always
> > > > (worst-case).
> > > > 
> > > > For the I/O performance measurement, I use a simple `dd` command.
> > > > 
> > > > Default Performance
> > > > -------------------
> > > > 
> > > >     [dom0]# echo 1024 > 
> > > > /sys/module/xen_blkback/parameters/max_buffer_pages
> > > >     [instance]$ for i in {1..5}; do dd if=/dev/zero of=file bs=4k 
> > > > count=$((256*512)); sync; done
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 11.7257 s, 45.8 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8827 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8781 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8737 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8702 s, 38.7 MB/s
> 
> While this is useful, it's kind of too verbose IMO. If you need to do
> this kind of performance comparisons I would recommend using ministat
> (available at least on Debian and FreeBSD) in order to plot the
> results and give the std deviation and statistical difference given a
> confidence level.
> 
> The output of ministat can be pasted in the commit message, since it's
> a text based tool.

Nice suggestion.  I will use it.

> 
> > > > 
> > > > Worst-case Performance
> > > > ----------------------
> > > > 
> > > >     [dom0]# echo 0 > /sys/module/xen_blkback/parameters/max_buffer_pages
> > > >     [instance]$ for i in {1..5}; do dd if=/dev/zero of=file bs=4k 
> > > > count=$((256*512)); sync; done
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 11.7257 s, 45.8 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.878 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8746 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8786 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > >     131072+0 records in
> > > >     131072+0 records out
> > > >     536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 13.8749 s, 38.7 MB/s
> > > > 
> > > > In short, even worst case squeezing makes no visible performance
> > > > degradation.
> > > 
> > > I would argue that with a ~40MB/s throughput you won't see any
> > > performance difference at all regardless of the size of the pool of
> > > free pages or the amount of persistent grants because the bottleneck is
> > > on the storage performance itself.
> > > 
> > > You need to test this using nullblk or some kind of fast storage, or
> > > else the above figures are not going to reflect any changes you make
> > > because they are hidden by the poor performance of the underlying
> > > storage.
> > 
> > Yes, agree that.  My test is just a minimal check for my environment.  I 
> > will
> > note the points and concerns in the commit message.
> 
> I'm afraid that just adding a note about this concerns is not enough.
> 
> We should make sure that this change doesn't regress the current
> performance of fast storage backends, and hence I have to ask you to
> test with null_blk or a fast storage and provide the figures.

Ok, I will try it.

> 
> > > 
> > > > I think this is due to the slow speed of the I/O.  In
> > > > other words, the additional page allocation overhead is hidden under the
> > > > much slower I/O latency.
> > > > 
> > > > Nevertheless, pleaset note that this is just a very simple and minimal
> > > > test.
> > > 
> > > I would like to add that IMO this is papering over an existing issue,
> > > which is how pages to be used to map grants are allocated. Grant
> > > mappings _shouldn't_ consume RAM pages in the first place, and IIRC
> > > the fact that they do is because Linux balloons out memory in order to
> > > re-use those pages to map grants and have a valid page struct.
> > > 
> > > A way to solve this would be to hotplug a fake memory region and use
> > > it in order to map grant pages, without having to balloon out RAM
> > > regions. At the end of day on a PV domain mapping a grant should just
> > > require virtual address space.
> > > 
> > > This is going to get even worse for PVH that requires a physical memory
> > > address in order to map a grant, but that's another story.
> > 
> > Yes, as Paul also pointed out and suggested, we should consider a structural
> > solution in a big picture.  Until the big change is ready, this simple 
> > solution
> > would work as a point fix.
> 
> Getting a proper solution would be my preference, in the mean time I
> guess it's fine to accept such a bodge, as it's pretty small and
> non-intrusive.

Thanks,
SeongJae Park

> 
> Thanks, Roger.
> 

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