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Documentation / vm / swap_numa.txt


Based on kernel version 4.16.1. Page generated on 2018-04-09 11:53 EST.

1	Automatically bind swap device to numa node
2	-------------------------------------------
3	
4	If the system has more than one swap device and swap device has the node
5	information, we can make use of this information to decide which swap
6	device to use in get_swap_pages() to get better performance.
7	
8	
9	How to use this feature
10	-----------------------
11	
12	Swap device has priority and that decides the order of it to be used. To make
13	use of automatically binding, there is no need to manipulate priority settings
14	for swap devices. e.g. on a 2 node machine, assume 2 swap devices swapA and
15	swapB, with swapA attached to node 0 and swapB attached to node 1, are going
16	to be swapped on. Simply swapping them on by doing:
17	# swapon /dev/swapA
18	# swapon /dev/swapB
19	
20	Then node 0 will use the two swap devices in the order of swapA then swapB and
21	node 1 will use the two swap devices in the order of swapB then swapA. Note
22	that the order of them being swapped on doesn't matter.
23	
24	A more complex example on a 4 node machine. Assume 6 swap devices are going to
25	be swapped on: swapA and swapB are attached to node 0, swapC is attached to
26	node 1, swapD and swapE are attached to node 2 and swapF is attached to node3.
27	The way to swap them on is the same as above:
28	# swapon /dev/swapA
29	# swapon /dev/swapB
30	# swapon /dev/swapC
31	# swapon /dev/swapD
32	# swapon /dev/swapE
33	# swapon /dev/swapF
34	
35	Then node 0 will use them in the order of:
36	swapA/swapB -> swapC -> swapD -> swapE -> swapF
37	swapA and swapB will be used in a round robin mode before any other swap device.
38	
39	node 1 will use them in the order of:
40	swapC -> swapA -> swapB -> swapD -> swapE -> swapF
41	
42	node 2 will use them in the order of:
43	swapD/swapE -> swapA -> swapB -> swapC -> swapF
44	Similaly, swapD and swapE will be used in a round robin mode before any
45	other swap devices.
46	
47	node 3 will use them in the order of:
48	swapF -> swapA -> swapB -> swapC -> swapD -> swapE
49	
50	
51	Implementation details
52	----------------------
53	
54	The current code uses a priority based list, swap_avail_list, to decide
55	which swap device to use and if multiple swap devices share the same
56	priority, they are used round robin. This change here replaces the single
57	global swap_avail_list with a per-numa-node list, i.e. for each numa node,
58	it sees its own priority based list of available swap devices. Swap
59	device's priority can be promoted on its matching node's swap_avail_list.
60	
61	The current swap device's priority is set as: user can set a >=0 value,
62	or the system will pick one starting from -1 then downwards. The priority
63	value in the swap_avail_list is the negated value of the swap device's
64	due to plist being sorted from low to high. The new policy doesn't change
65	the semantics for priority >=0 cases, the previous starting from -1 then
66	downwards now becomes starting from -2 then downwards and -1 is reserved
67	as the promoted value. So if multiple swap devices are attached to the same
68	node, they will all be promoted to priority -1 on that node's plist and will
69	be used round robin before any other swap devices.
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