mm/slab: save memory by allocating slabobj_ext array from leftover
The leftover space in a slab is always smaller than s->size, and
kmem caches for large objects that are not power-of-two sizes tend to have
a greater amount of leftover space per slab. In some cases, the leftover
space is larger than the size of the slabobj_ext array for the slab.
An excellent example of such a cache is ext4_inode_cache. On my system,
the object size is 1136, with a preferred order of 3, 28 objects per slab,
and 960 bytes of leftover space per slab.
Since the size of the slabobj_ext array is only 224 bytes (w/o mem
profiling) or 448 bytes (w/ mem profiling) per slab, the entire array
fits within the leftover space.
Allocate the slabobj_exts array from this unused space instead of using
kcalloc() when it is large enough. The array is allocated from unused
space only when creating new slabs, and it doesn't try to utilize unused
space if alloc_slab_obj_exts() is called after slab creation because
implementing lazy allocation involves more expensive synchronization.
The implementation and evaluation of lazy allocation from unused space
is left as future-work. As pointed by Vlastimil Babka [1], it could be
beneficial when a slab cache without SLAB_ACCOUNT can be created, and
some of the allocations from the cache use __GFP_ACCOUNT. For example,
xarray does that.
To avoid unnecessary overhead when MEMCG (with SLAB_ACCOUNT) and
MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING are not used for the cache, allocate the slabobj_ext
array only when either of them is enabled on slab allocation.
[ MEMCG=y, MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING=n ]
Before patch (creating ~2.64M directories on ext4):
Slab:
4747880 kB
SReclaimable:
4169652 kB
SUnreclaim: 578228 kB
After patch (creating ~2.64M directories on ext4):
Slab:
4724020 kB
SReclaimable:
4169188 kB
SUnreclaim: 554832 kB (-22.84 MiB)
Enjoy the memory savings!
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/48029aab-20ea-4d90-bfd1-255592b2018e@suse.cz
Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260113061845.159790-8-harry.yoo@oracle.com
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>