> -----Original Message-----
quoted text
> From: J. Bruce Fields [mailto:bfields@fieldses.org] 
> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 12:44 PM
> To: Weathers, Norman R.
> Cc: Jeff Layton; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; 
> linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org; Neil Brown
> Subject: Re: CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB_LEAK omits size-4096 and larger?
> 
> On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 05:53:20PM -0500, Weathers, Norman R. wrote:
> >  
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: J. Bruce Fields [mailto:bfields@fieldses.org] 
> > > Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 5:04 PM
> > > To: Weathers, Norman R.
> > > Cc: Jeff Layton; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; 
> > > linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org; Neil Brown
> > > Subject: Re: CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB_LEAK omits size-4096 and larger?
> > > 
> > > On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 04:53:31PM -0500, Weathers, 
> Norman R. wrote:
> > > >  
> > > > 
> > > > > > The big one seems to be the __alloc_skb. (This is with 16 
> > > > > threads, and
> > > > > > it says that we are using up somewhere between 12 and 14 GB 
> > > > > of memory,
> > > > > > about 2 to 3 gig of that is disk cache).  If I were to 
> > > put anymore
> > > > > > threads out there, the server would become almost 
> > > > > unresponsive (it was
> > > > > > bad enough as it was).   
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > At the same time, I also noticed this:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > skbuff_fclone_cache: 1842524 __alloc_skb+0x50/0x170
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Don't know for sure if that is meaningful or not....
> > > > > 
> > > > > OK, so, starting at net/core/skbuff.c, this means that 
> > > this memory was
> > > > > allocated by __alloc_skb() calls with something nonzero 
> > > in the third
> > > > > ("fclone") argument.  The only such caller is 
> alloc_skb_fclone().
> > > > > Callers of alloc_skb_fclone() include:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 	sk_stream_alloc_skb:
> > > > > 		do_tcp_sendpages
> > > > > 		tcp_sendmsg
> > > > > 		tcp_fragment
> > > > > 		tso_fragment
> > > > 
> > > > Interesting you should mention the tso...  We recently went 
> > > through and
> > > > turned on TSO on all of our systems, trying it out to see 
> > > if it helped
> > > > with performance...  This could be something to do with 
> > > that.  I can try
> > > > disabling the tso on all of the servers and see if that 
> > > helps with the
> > > > memory.  Actually, I think I will, and I will monitor the 
> > > situation.  I
> > > > think it might help some, but I still think there may be 
> > > something else
> > > > going on in a deep corner...
> > > 
> > > I'll plead total ignorance about TSO, and it sounds like a long
> > > shot--but sure, it'd be worth trying, thanks.
> > > 
> > 
> > Tried it, not for sure if I like the results yet or not...  
> Didn't seem
> > to make a huge difference, but here is something that will 
> really make
> > you want to drink, the 2.6.25.4 kernel does not go into the 
> size-4096
> > hell.
> 
> Remind me what the most recent *bad* kernel was of those you tested?
> (2.6.25?)
> 

The kernel that we were really seeing the problem with was 2.6.25.4, but
I think we may have figured out the 4096 problem, and it was probably a
mistake on my part, but it is important for the NFS users to see it so
they don't make the same mistake.  I had found some performance tuning
guides, and in trying some of the suggestions, found that the setting
changes did seem to help on some things, but of course I never got to
run a check under full load (800 + clients).  A suggestion was to change
the tcp_reordering tunable under /proc/sys/net/ipv4 from the default 3
to 127.  We think that this was actually causing the issue.  I was able
to trace back through all of the changes, and I changed this setting
back to the default 3, and it immediately fixed the size-4096 hell.  It
appears that the reordering just eats into the memory, especially in
high demand situations, and I guess that should make perfect sense if we
are actually buffering up packets for reorder, and we are slamming the
box with thousands of requests per minute.

We still have other performance issues now, but it appears to be more of
a bottleneck, the nodes do not appear to be backing off when the servers
are becoming congested.


quoted text
> Nothing jumped out at me in a quick skim through the commits 
> from 2.6.25
> to 2.6.25.4.
> 
> > The largest users of slab there are the size-1024 and still the
> > skbuff_fclone_cache.  On a box with 16 threads, it will 
> cache up about 5
> > GB of disk data, and still use about 6 GB of slab to put 
> the information
> > out there (without TSO on), but at least it is not causing the disk
> > cache to be evicted, and it appears to be a little more 
> responsive.  If
> > I up it to 32 or more threads, however, it gets very 
> sluggish, but then
> > again, I am hitting it with a lot of nodes.
> > 
> > > > 
> > > > > 		tcp_mtu_probe
> > > > > 	tcp_send_fin
> > > > > 	tcp_connect
> > > > > 	buf_acquire:
> > > > > 		lots of callers in tipc code (whatever that is).
> > > > > 
> > > > > So unless you're using tipc, or you have something in 
> > > userspace going
> > > > > haywire (perhaps netstat would help rule that out?), then 
> > > I suppose
> > > > > there's something wrong with knfsd's tcp code.  Which 
> > > makes sense, I
> > > > > guess.
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Not for sure what tipc is either....
> > > > 
> > > > > I'd think this sort of allocation would be limited by the 
> > > number of
> > > > > sockets times the size of the send and receive buffers.
> > > > > svc_xprt.c:svc_check_conn_limits() claims to be limiting 
> > > the number of
> > > > > sockets to (nrthreads+3)*20.  (You aren't hitting the 
> > > "too many open
> > > > > connections" printk there, are you?)  The total buffer 
> > > size should be
> > > > > bounded by something like 4 megs.
> > > > > 
> > > > > --b.
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, we are getting a continuous stream of the too many 
> > > open connections
> > > > scrolling across our logs.  
> > > 
> > > That's interesting!  So we should probably look more 
> closely at the
> > > svc_check_conn_limits() behavior.  I wonder whether some 
> pathological
> > > behavior is triggered in the case where you're constantly 
> > > over the limit
> > > it's trying to enforce.
> > > 
> > > (Remind me how many active clients you have?)
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > We currently are hitting with somewhere around 600 to 800 
> nodes, but it
> > can go up to over 1000 nodes.  We are artificially starving with a
> > limited number of threads (2 to 3) right now on the older 2.6.22.14
> > kernel because of that memory issue (which may or may not be tso
> > related)...
> 
> So with that many clients all making requests to the server at once,
> we'd start hitting that (serv->sv_nrthreads+3)*20 limit when 
> the number
> of threads was set to less than 30-50.  That doesn't seem to be the
> point where you're seeing a change in behavior, though.
> 

We were estimating between 40 and 50 threads was the cut off for being
able to service all of the (current) requests at once.  I haven't ramped
back up to that level yet.  I wasn't comfortable yet with letting it all
hang back out just in case we get into that hellish mode again, it can
be a pain to try and get into those systems once they are overloaded
(even over serial, sometimes it can just timeout the login).  We had to
actually bring online a second option to help alleviate some of the back
congestion because the servers couldn't handle the workload.  


quoted text
> > I really want to move forward to the newer kernel, but we 
> had an issue
> > where clients all of the sudden wouldn't connect, yet other clients
> > could, to the exact same server NFS export.  I had booted the server
> > into the 2.6.25.4 kernel at the time, and the other admin 
> set us back to
> > the 2.6.22.14 to see if that was it.  The clients started 
> working again,
> > and he left it there (he also took out my options in the 
> exports file,
> > no_subtree_check and insecure).  I know that we are running over the
> > number of privelaged ports, and we probably need the 
> insecure, but I am
> > having a hard time wrapping my self around all of the problems at
> > once....
> 
> The secure ports limitation should be a problem for a client 
> that does a
> lot of nfs mounts, not for a server with a lot of clients.
> 


Ah, OK.  That makes sense.

quoted text
> --b.
> 
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