How many servers were you running it on? I hope it wasn't more than a
handful. I'd recommend starting with one :P

can you do an addr2line? what were your startup args, and what was the
commit sha1 for the branch you pulled?

sorry about that :/

On Thu, 1 Oct 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:

> A few different servers (5 / 205) experienced a segfault all within an hour 
> or so. Unfortunately at this point I'm a bit out of my depth. I have the 
> dmesg output, which is identical for all 5 boxes:
>
> [46545.316351] memcached[2789]: segfault at 0 ip 000000000040e007 sp 
> 00007f362ceedeb0 error 4 in memcached[400000+1d000]
>
>
> I can possibly supply the binary file if needed, though we didn't do anything 
> besides the standard setup and compile.
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 10:27:59 PM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       If you look at the new branch there's a commit explaining the new stats.
>
>       You can watch slab_reassing_evictions vs slab_reassign_saves. you can 
> also
>       test automove=1 vs automove=2 (please also turn on the lru_maintainer 
> and
>       lru_crawler).
>
>       The initial branch you were running didn't add any new stats. It just
>       restored an old feature.
>
>       On Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>
>       > An unrelated prod problem meant I had to stop after about an hour. 
> I'm turning it on again tomorrow morning.
>       > Are there any new metrics I should be looking at? Anything new in the 
> stats output? I'm about to take a look at the diffs as well.
>       >
>       > On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 12:37:45 PM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       >       excellent. if automove=2 is too aggressive you'll see that come 
> in in a
>       >       hit ratio reduction.
>       >
>       >       the new branch works with automove=2 as well, but it will 
> attempt to
>       >       rescue valid items in the old slab if possible. I'll still be 
> working on
>       >       it for another few hours today though. I'll mail again when I'm 
> done.
>       >
>       >       On Tue, 29 Sep 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >
>       >       > I have the first commit (slab_automove=2) running in prod 
> right now. Later today will be a full load production test of the latest 
> code. I'll just let it run for a few days unless I spot any problems. We have 
> good metrics for latency et. al. from the client side, though network 
> normally dwarfs memcached time.
>       >       >
>       >       > On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 3:10:03 AM UTC-7, Dormando 
> wrote:
>       >       >       That's unfortunate.
>       >       >
>       >       >       I've done some more work on the branch:
>       >       >       https://github.com/memcached/memcached/pull/112
>       >       >
>       >       >       It's not completely likely you would see enough of an 
> improvement from the
>       >       >       new default mode. However if your item sizes change 
> gradually, items are
>       >       >       reclaimed during expiration, or get overwritten (and 
> thus freed in the old
>       >       >       class), it should work just fine. I have another patch 
> coming which should
>       >       >       help though.
>       >       >
>       >       >       Open to feedback from any interested party.
>       >       >
>       >       >       On Fri, 25 Sep 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >
>       >       >       > I have it running internally, and it runs fine under 
> normal load. It's difficult to put it into the line of fire for a production 
> workload because of social reasons... As well it's a degenerate case that we 
> normally don't run in to (and actively try to avoid). I'm going to run some 
> heavier load tests on it today. 
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       > On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 10:23:32 AM UTC-7, 
> Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       I'm working on getting a test going internally. 
> I'll let you know how it goes. 
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       > Scott Mansfield
>       >       >       > On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 2:33 PM, dormando wrote:
>       >       >       >       Yo,
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       
> https://github.com/dormando/memcached/commits/slab_rebal_next - would you
>       >       >       >       mind playing around with the branch here? You 
> can see the start options in
>       >       >       >       the test.
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       This is a dead simple modification (a 
> restoration of a feature that was
>       >       >       >       arleady there...). The test very aggressively 
> writes and is able to shunt
>       >       >       >       memory around appropriately.
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       The work I'm exploring right now will allow 
> savings of items being
>       >       >       >       rebalanced from, and increasing the aggression 
> of page moving without
>       >       >       >       being so brain damaged about it.
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       But while I'm poking around with that, I'd be 
> interested in knowing if
>       >       >       >       this simple branch is an improvement, and if so 
> how much.
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       I'll push more code to the branch, but the 
> changes should be gated behind
>       >       >       >       a feature flag.
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       On Tue, 18 Aug 2015, 'Scott Mansfield' via 
> memcached wrote:
>       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       > No worries man, you're doing us a favor. Let 
> me know if there's anything you need from us, and I promise I'll be quicker 
> this time :)
>       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       > On Aug 18, 2015 12:01 AM, "dormando" 
> <dorm...@rydia.net> wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       Hey,
>       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       I'm still really interested in working 
> on this. I'll be taking a careful
>       >       >       >       >       look soon I hope.
>       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       On Mon, 3 Aug 2015, Scott Mansfield 
> wrote:
>       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       > I've tweaked the program slightly, so 
> I'm adding a new version. It prints more stats as it goes and runs a bit 
> faster.
>       >       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       > On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 1:20:37 
> AM UTC-7, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >       Total brain fart on my part. 
> Apparently I had memcached 1.4.13 on my path (who knows how...) Using the 
> actual one that I've built works. Sorry for the confusion... can't believe I 
> didn't realize that before. I'm testing against the compiled one now to see 
> how it behaves.
>       >       >       >       >       >       On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 
> 1:15:06 AM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             You sure that's 1.4.24? 
> None of those fail for me :(
>       >       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             On Mon, 3 Aug 2015, Scott 
> Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > The command line I've 
> used that will start is:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > memcached -m 64 -o 
> slab_reassign,slab_automove
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > the ones that fail are:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > memcached -m 64 -o 
> slab_reassign,slab_automove,lru_crawler,lru_maintainer
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > memcached -o lru_crawler
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > I'm sure I've missed 
> something during compile, though I just used ./configure and make.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > On Monday, August 3, 
> 2015 at 12:22:33 AM UTC-7, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       I've attached a 
> pretty simple program to connect, fill a slab with data, and then fill 
> another slab slowly with data of a different size. I've been trying to get 
> memcached to run with the lru_crawler and lru_maintainer flags, but I get '
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Illegal suboption 
> "(null)"' every time I try to start with either in any configuration.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       I haven't seen it 
> start to move slabs automatically with a freshly installed 1.2.24.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       On Tuesday, July 
> 21, 2015 at 4:55:17 PM UTC-7, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >             I realize 
> I've not given you the tests to reproduce the behavior. I should be able to 
> soon. Sorry about the delay here.
>       >       >       >       >       >             > In the mean time, I 
> wanted to bring up a possible secondary use of the same logic to move items 
> on slab rebalancing. I think the system might benefit from using the same 
> logic to crawl the pages in a slab and compact the data in the background. In 
> the case where we have memory that is assigned to
>       the slab
>       >       but not
>       >       >       >       being used
>       >       >       >       >       because
>       >       >       >       >       >             of replaced
>       >       >       >       >       >             > or TTL'd out data, 
> returning the memory to a pool of free memory will allow a slab to grow with 
> that memory first instead of waiting for an event where memory is needed at 
> that instant.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > It's a change in 
> approach, from reactive to proactive. What do you think?
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > On Monday, July 13, 
> 2015 at 5:54:11 PM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > First, more 
> detail for you:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > We are running 
> 1.4.24 in production and haven't noticed any bugs as of yet. The new LRUs 
> seem to be working well, though we nearly always run memcached scaled to hold 
> all data without evictions. Those with evictions are behaving well. Those 
> without evictions haven't seen crashing or any
>       other
>       >       noticeable
>       >       >       bad
>       >       >       >       behavior.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Neat.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > OK, I think I 
> see an area where I was speculating on functionality. If you have a key in 
> slab 21 and then the same key is written again at a larger size in slab 23 I 
> assumed that the space in 21 was not freed on the second write. With that 
> assumption, the LRU crawler would not free up that
>       space.
>       >       Also just
>       >       >       >       by observation
>       >       >       >       >       in
>       >       >       >       >       >             the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       macro, the space 
> is not freed
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > fast enough to 
> be effective, in our use case, to accept the writes that are happening. Think 
> in the hundreds of millions of "overwrites" in a 6 - 10 hour period across a 
> cluster.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Internally, 
> "items" (a key/value pair) are generally immutable. The only
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       time when it's 
> not is for INCR/DECR, and it still becomes immutable if two
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       INCR/DECR's 
> collide.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       What this means, 
> is that the new item is staged in a piece of free memory
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       while the 
> "upload" stage of the SET happens. When memcached has all of the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       data in memory to 
> replace the item, it does an internal swap under a lock.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       The old item is 
> removed from the hash table and LRU, and the new item gets
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       put in its place 
> (at the head of the LRU).
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Since items are 
> refcounted, this means that if other users are downloading
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       an item which 
> just got replaced, their memory doesn't get corrupted by the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       item changing out 
> from underneath them. They can continue to read the old
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       item until 
> they're done. When the refcount reaches zero the old memory is
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       reclaimed.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Most of the time, 
> the item replacement happens then the old memory is
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       immediately 
> removed.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       However, this 
> does mean that you need *one* piece of free memory to
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       replace the old 
> one. Then the old memory gets freed after that set.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       So if you take a 
> memcached instance with 0 free chunks, and do a rolling
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       replacement of 
> all items (within the same slab class as before), the first
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       one would cause 
> an eviction from the tail of the LRU to get a free chunk.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Every SET after 
> that would use the chunk freed from the replacement of the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       previous memory.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > After that last 
> sentence I realized I also may not have explained well enough the access 
> pattern. The keys are all overwritten every day, but it takes some time to 
> write them all (obviously). We see a huge increase in the bytes metric as if 
> the new data for the old keys was being written
>       for the
>       >       first
>       >       >       time.
>       >       >       >       Since the
>       >       >       >       >       "old"
>       >       >       >       >       >             slab for
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       the same key 
> doesn't
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > proactively 
> release memory, it starts to fill up the cache and then start evicting data 
> in the new slab. Once that happens, we see evictions in the old slab because 
> of the algorithm you mentioned (random picking / freeing of memory). 
> Typically we don't see any use for "upgrading" an item as
>       the new
>       >       data
>       >       >       >       would be entirely
>       >       >       >       >       >             new and
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       should wholesale 
> replace the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > old data for 
> that key. More specifically, the operation is always set, with different data 
> each day.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Right. Most of 
> your problems will come from two areas. One being that
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       writing data 
> aggressively into the new slab class (unless you set the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       rebalancer to 
> always-replace mode), the mover will make memory available
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       more slowly than 
> you can insert. So you'll cause extra evictions in the
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       new slab class.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       The secondary 
> problem is from the random evictions in the previous slab
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       class as stuff is 
> chucked on the floor to make memory moveable.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > As for testing, 
> we'll be able to put it under real production workload. I don't know what 
> kind of data you mean you need for testing. The data stored in the caches are 
> highly confidential. I can give you all kinds of metrics, since we collect 
> most of the ones that are in the stats and some
>       from the
>       >       stats
>       >       >       >       slabs output. If
>       >       >       >       >       >             you have
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       some specific 
> ones that
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > need 
> collecting, I'll double check and make sure we can get those. Alternatively, 
> it might be most beneficial to see the metrics in person :)
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       I just need stats 
> snapshots here and there, and actually putting the thing
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       under load. When 
> I did the LRU work I had to beg for several months
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       before anyone 
> tested it with a production load. This slows things down and
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       demotivates me 
> from working on the project.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Unfortunately my 
> dayjob keeps me pretty busy so ~internet~ would probably
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       be best.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > I can create a 
> driver program to reproduce the behavior on a smaller scale. It would write 
> e.g. 10k keys of 10k size, then rewrite the same keys with different size 
> data. I'll work on that and post it to this thread when I can reproduce the 
> behavior locally.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       Ok. There're slab 
> rebalance unit tests in the t/ directory which do things
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       like this, and 
> I've used mc-crusher to slam the rebalancer. It's pretty
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       easy to run one 
> config to load up 10k objects, then flip to the other
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       using the same 
> key namespace.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > Thanks,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > Scott
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > On Saturday, 
> July 11, 2015 at 12:05:54 PM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Hey,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       On Fri, 
> 10 Jul 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > We've 
> seen issues recently where we run a cluster that typically has the majority 
> of items overwritten in the same slab every day and a sudden change in data 
> size evicts a ton of data, affecting downstream systems. To be clear that is 
> our problem, but I think there's a tweak in
>       memcached
>       >       that might
>       >       >       >       be useful and
>       >       >       >       >       >             another
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       possible feature 
> that
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       would be 
> even
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > better.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > The 
> data that is written to this cache is overwritten every day, though the TTL 
> is 7 days. One slab takes up the majority of the space in the cache. The 
> application wrote e.g. 10KB (slab 21) every day for each key consistently. 
> One day, a change occurred where it started writing
>       15KB (slab
>       >       23),
>       >       >       >       causing a migration
>       >       >       >       >       >             of data
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       from one slab to
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       another. 
> We had -o
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > 
> slab_reassign,slab_automove=1 set on the server, causing large numbers of 
> evictions on the initial slab. Let's say the cache could hold the data at 
> 15KB per key, but the old data was not technically TTL'd out in it's old 
> slab. This means that memory was not being freed by the lru
>       crawler
>       >       thread (I
>       >       >       >       think) because
>       >       >       >       >       its
>       >       >       >       >       >             expiry
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       had not come
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       around. 
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > lines 
> 1199 and 1200 in items.c:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > if 
> ((search->exptime != 0 && search->exptime < current_time) || 
> is_flushed(search)) {
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > If 
> there was a check to see if this data was "orphaned," i.e. that the key, if 
> accessed, would map to a different slab than the current one, then these 
> orphans could be reclaimed as free memory. I am working on a patch to do 
> this, though I have reservations about performing a hash
>       on the
>       >       key on the
>       >       >       >       lru crawler
>       >       >       >       >       >             thread (if
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       the hash is not
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       already 
> available).
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > I have 
> very little experience in the memcached codebase so I don't know the most 
> efficient way to do this. Any help would be appreciated.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       There 
> seems to be a misconception about how the slab classes work. A key,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       if 
> already existing in a slab, will always map to the slab class it
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       currently 
> fits into. The slab classes always exist, but the amount of
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       memory 
> reserved for each of them will shift with the slab_reassign. ie: 10
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       pages in 
> slab class 21, then memory pressure on 23 causes it to move over.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       So if you 
> examine a key that still exists in slab class 21, it has no
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       reason to 
> move up or down the slab classes.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > 
> Alternatively, and possibly more beneficial is compaction of data in a slab 
> using the same set of criteria as lru crawling. Understandably, compaction is 
> a very difficult problem to solve since moving the data would be a pain in 
> the ass. I saw a couple of discussions about this in
>       the
>       >       mailing list,
>       >       >       >       though I didn't
>       >       >       >       >       >             see any
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       firm thoughts 
> about
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       it. I 
> think it
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > can 
> probably be done in O(1) like the lru crawler by limiting the number of items 
> it touches each time. Writing and reading are doable in O(1) so moving should 
> be as well. Has anyone given more thought on compaction?
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       I'd be 
> interested in hacking this up for you folks if you can provide me
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       testing 
> and some data to work with. With all of the LRU work I did in
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       1.4.24, 
> the next things I wanted to do is a big improvement on the slab
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> reassignment code.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Currently 
> it picks essentially a random slab page, empties it, and moves
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       the slab 
> page into the class under pressure.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       One thing 
> we can do is first examine for free memory in the existing slab,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       IE:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Take a 
> page from slab 21
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Scan 
> the page for valid items which need to be moved
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Pull 
> free memory from slab 21, migrate the item (moderately complicated)
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - When 
> the page is empty, move it (or give up if you run out of free
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       chunks).
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       The next 
> step is to pull from the LRU on slab 21:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Take 
> page from slab 21
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Scan 
> page for valid items
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Pull 
> free memory from slab 21, migrate the item
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >         - If no 
> memory free, evict tail of slab 21. use that chunk.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - When 
> the page is empty, move it.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Then, 
> when you hit this condition your least-recently-used data gets
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       culled as 
> new data migrates your page class. This should match a natural
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> occurrance if you would already be evicting valid (but old) items to make
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       room for 
> new items.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       A bonus 
> to using the free memory trick, is that I can use the amount of
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       free 
> space in a slab class as a heuristic to more quickly move slab pages
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       around.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       If it's 
> still necessary from there, we can explore "upgrading" items to a
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       new slab 
> class, but that is much much more complicated since the item has
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       to shift 
> LRU's. Do you put it at the head, the tail, the middle, etc? It
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       might be 
> impossible to make a good generic decision there.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       What 
> version are you currently on? If 1.4.24, have you seen any
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> instability? I'm currently torn between fighting a few bugs and start on
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       improving 
> the slab rebalancer.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       -Dormando
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > On Saturday, 
> July 11, 2015 at 12:05:54 PM UTC-7, Dormando wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Hey,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       On Fri, 
> 10 Jul 2015, Scott Mansfield wrote:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > We've 
> seen issues recently where we run a cluster that typically has the majority 
> of items overwritten in the same slab every day and a sudden change in data 
> size evicts a ton of data, affecting downstream systems. To be clear that is 
> our problem, but I think there's a tweak in
>       memcached
>       >       that might
>       >       >       >       be useful and
>       >       >       >       >       >             another
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       possible feature 
> that
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       would be 
> even
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > better.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > The 
> data that is written to this cache is overwritten every day, though the TTL 
> is 7 days. One slab takes up the majority of the space in the cache. The 
> application wrote e.g. 10KB (slab 21) every day for each key consistently. 
> One day, a change occurred where it started writing
>       15KB (slab
>       >       23),
>       >       >       >       causing a migration
>       >       >       >       >       >             of data
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       from one slab to
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       another. 
> We had -o
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > 
> slab_reassign,slab_automove=1 set on the server, causing large numbers of 
> evictions on the initial slab. Let's say the cache could hold the data at 
> 15KB per key, but the old data was not technically TTL'd out in it's old 
> slab. This means that memory was not being freed by the lru
>       crawler
>       >       thread (I
>       >       >       >       think) because
>       >       >       >       >       its
>       >       >       >       >       >             expiry
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       had not come
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       around. 
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > lines 
> 1199 and 1200 in items.c:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > if 
> ((search->exptime != 0 && search->exptime < current_time) || 
> is_flushed(search)) {
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > If 
> there was a check to see if this data was "orphaned," i.e. that the key, if 
> accessed, would map to a different slab than the current one, then these 
> orphans could be reclaimed as free memory. I am working on a patch to do 
> this, though I have reservations about performing a hash
>       on the
>       >       key on the
>       >       >       >       lru crawler
>       >       >       >       >       >             thread (if
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       the hash is not
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       already 
> available).
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > I have 
> very little experience in the memcached codebase so I don't know the most 
> efficient way to do this. Any help would be appreciated.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       There 
> seems to be a misconception about how the slab classes work. A key,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       if 
> already existing in a slab, will always map to the slab class it
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       currently 
> fits into. The slab classes always exist, but the amount of
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       memory 
> reserved for each of them will shift with the slab_reassign. ie: 10
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       pages in 
> slab class 21, then memory pressure on 23 causes it to move over.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       So if you 
> examine a key that still exists in slab class 21, it has no
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       reason to 
> move up or down the slab classes.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > 
> Alternatively, and possibly more beneficial is compaction of data in a slab 
> using the same set of criteria as lru crawling. Understandably, compaction is 
> a very difficult problem to solve since moving the data would be a pain in 
> the ass. I saw a couple of discussions about this in
>       the
>       >       mailing list,
>       >       >       >       though I didn't
>       >       >       >       >       >             see any
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       firm thoughts 
> about
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       it. I 
> think it
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       > can 
> probably be done in O(1) like the lru crawler by limiting the number of items 
> it touches each time. Writing and reading are doable in O(1) so moving should 
> be as well. Has anyone given more thought on compaction?
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       I'd be 
> interested in hacking this up for you folks if you can provide me
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       testing 
> and some data to work with. With all of the LRU work I did in
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       1.4.24, 
> the next things I wanted to do is a big improvement on the slab
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> reassignment code.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Currently 
> it picks essentially a random slab page, empties it, and moves
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       the slab 
> page into the class under pressure.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       One thing 
> we can do is first examine for free memory in the existing slab,
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       IE:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Take a 
> page from slab 21
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Scan 
> the page for valid items which need to be moved
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Pull 
> free memory from slab 21, migrate the item (moderately complicated)
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - When 
> the page is empty, move it (or give up if you run out of free
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       chunks).
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       The next 
> step is to pull from the LRU on slab 21:
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Take 
> page from slab 21
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Scan 
> page for valid items
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - Pull 
> free memory from slab 21, migrate the item
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >         - If no 
> memory free, evict tail of slab 21. use that chunk.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       - When 
> the page is empty, move it.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       Then, 
> when you hit this condition your least-recently-used data gets
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       culled as 
> new data migrates your page class. This should match a natural
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> occurrance if you would already be evicting valid (but old) items to make
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       room for 
> new items.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       A bonus 
> to using the free memory trick, is that I can use the amount of
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       free 
> space in a slab class as a heuristic to more quickly move slab pages
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       around.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       If it's 
> still necessary from there, we can explore "upgrading" items to a
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       new slab 
> class, but that is much much more complicated since the item has
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       to shift 
> LRU's. Do you put it at the head, the tail, the middle, etc? It
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       might be 
> impossible to make a good generic decision there.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       What 
> version are you currently on? If 1.4.24, have you seen any
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       
> instability? I'm currently torn between fighting a few bugs and start on
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       improving 
> the slab rebalancer.
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >       -Dormando
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > --
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       >
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > ---
>       >       >       >       >       >             >       > You received 
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>       >       >       >       >       >             >
>       >       >       >       >       >             > --
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