Hi Guys, There are about 3 advantages to use direct I/O and AIO on read/write loop's backing file:
1) double cache can be avoided, then memory usage gets decreased a lot 2) not like user space direct I/O, there isn't cost of pinning pages 3) avoid context switch for obtaining good throughput - in buffered file read, random I/O throughput is often obtained only if they are submitted concurrently from lots of tasks; but for sequential I/O, most of times they can be hit from page cache, so concurrent submissions often introduce unnecessary context switch and can't improve throughput much. There was such discussion[1] to use non-blocking I/O to improve the problem for application. - with direct I/O and AIO, concurrent submissions can be avoided and random read throughput can't be affected meantime So this patchset trys to improve loop via AIO, and about 45% memory usage can be decreased, see detailed data in commit log of patch4, also IO throughput isn't affected too. V3: - based on Al's iov_iter work and Christoph's kiocb changes - use kthread_work - introduce IOCB_DONT_DIRTY_PAGE flag - set QUEUE_FLAG_NOMERGES for loop's request queue V2: - remove 'extra' parameter to aio_kernel_alloc() - try to avoid memory allcation inside queue req callback - introduce 'use_mq' sysfs file for enabling kernel aio or disabling it V1: - link: http://marc.info/?t=140803157700004&r=1&w=2 - improve failure path in aio_kernel_submit() drivers/block/loop.c | 166 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------- drivers/block/loop.h | 14 +++--- fs/direct-io.c | 10 ++-- include/linux/fs.h | 1 + 4 files changed, 126 insertions(+), 65 deletions(-) Thanks, Ming Lei -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/