From: | Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> |
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To: | Mel Gorman <mgorman(at)suse(dot)de> |
Cc: | Dave Chinner <david(at)fromorbit(dot)com>, Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu>, Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com>, Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)ymail(dot)com>, "pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org" <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, Joshua Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>, James Bottomley <James(dot)Bottomley(at)hansenpartnership(dot)com>, Claudio Freire <klaussfreire(at)gmail(dot)com>, Jim Nasby <jim(at)nasby(dot)net>, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, "lsf-pc(at)lists(dot)linux-foundation(dot)org" <lsf-pc(at)lists(dot)linux-foundation(dot)org>, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> |
Subject: | Re: [Lsf-pc] Linux kernel impact on PostgreSQL performance |
Date: | 2014-01-15 15:16:27 |
Message-ID: | CA+TgmoYe_KF8hyevvgbaP3=KEXHmpyi_mQU3Tszn4PfkN9iJpw@mail.gmail.com |
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Lists: | pgsql-hackers |
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:44 AM, Mel Gorman <mgorman(at)suse(dot)de> wrote:
> That applies if the dirty pages are forced to be kept dirty. You call
> this pinned but pinned has special meaning so I would suggest calling it
> something like dirty-sticky pages. It could be the case that such hinting
> will have the pages excluded from dirty background writing but can still
> be cleaned if dirty limits are hit or if fsync is called. It's a hint,
> not a forced guarantee.
>
> It's still a hand grenade because if this is tracked on a per-page basis
> because of what happens if the process crashes? Those pages stay dirty
> potentially forever. An alternative would be to track this on a per-inode
> instead of per-page basis. The hint would only exist where there is an
> open fd for that inode. Treat it as a privileged call with a sysctl
> controlling how many dirty-sticky pages can exist in the system with the
> information presented during OOM kills and maybe it starts becoming a bit
> more manageable. Dirty-sticky pages are not guaranteed to stay dirty
> until userspace action, the kernel just stays away until there are no
> other sensible options.
I think this discussion is vividly illustrating why this whole line of
inquiry is a pile of fail. If all the processes that have the file
open crash, the changes have to be *thrown away* not written to disk
whenever the kernel likes.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
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