> On Mon, 26 May 2008 23:54:55 +0530
> Balbir Singh <balbir@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> > Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > On large memory systems, the VM can spend way too much time scanning
> > > through pages that it cannot (or should not) evict from memory. Not
> > > only does it use up CPU time, but it also provokes lock contention
> > > and can leave large systems under memory presure in a catatonic state.
> >
> > Hi, Rik,
> >
> > This patchset looks good (I did a brief scan). I'll go ahead and play with it?
> > What is a good memory size to test the patches on (to see improvements).
>
> The larger, the better. One known problem with the current upstream
> VM is large numbers of anonymous pages, or a mix of mlocked and anon
> pages.
>
> Once the system needs to swap something out, every single anon page
> will have the referenced bit set and the system needs to do lots of
> scanning before it can evict the first page. This scanning causes
> multiple CPUs to pile up and things slow down exponentially and/or
> catastrophically :)
>
> Unfortunately the largest system I have access to on a regular basis
> has "only" 16GB of RAM :(
>
> I am also making 2.6.25 based kernel RPMs available with the split LRU
> patch set, at
http://people.redhat.com/riel/splitvm/
>
> The most recently posted patches are newer, though...
>
