ext4: utilize multiple global goals to reduce contention

When allocating data blocks, if the first try (goal allocation) fails and
stream allocation is on, it tries a global goal starting from the last
group we used (s_mb_last_group). This helps cluster large files together
to reduce free space fragmentation, and the data block contiguity also
accelerates write-back to disk.

However, when multiple processes allocate blocks, having just one global
goal means they all fight over the same group. This drastically lowers
the chances of extents merging and leads to much worse file fragmentation.

To mitigate this multi-process contention, we now employ multiple global
goals, with the number of goals being the minimum between the number of
possible CPUs and one-quarter of the filesystem's total block group count.

To ensure a consistent goal for each inode, we select the corresponding
goal by taking the inode number modulo the total number of goals.

Performance test data follows:

Test: Running will-it-scale/fallocate2 on CPU-bound containers.
Observation: Average fallocate operations per container per second.

|CPU: Kunpeng 920   |          P80           |            P1           |
|Memory: 512GB      |------------------------|-------------------------|
|960GB SSD (0.5GB/s)| base  |    patched     | base   |    patched     |
|-------------------|-------|----------------|--------|----------------|
|mb_optimize_scan=0 | 9636  | 19628 (+103%)  | 337597 | 320885 (-4.9%) |
|mb_optimize_scan=1 | 4834  | 7129  (+47.4%) | 341440 | 321275 (-5.9%) |

|CPU: AMD 9654 * 2  |          P96           |             P1          |
|Memory: 1536GB     |------------------------|-------------------------|
|960GB SSD (1GB/s)  | base  |    patched     | base   |    patched     |
|-------------------|-------|----------------|--------|----------------|
|mb_optimize_scan=0 | 22341 | 53760 (+140%)  | 219707 | 213145 (-2.9%) |
|mb_optimize_scan=1 | 9177  | 12716 (+38.5%) | 215732 | 215262 (+0.2%) |

Suggested-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Baokun Li <libaokun1@huawei.com>
Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi <yi.zhang@huawei.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20250714130327.1830534-6-libaokun1@huawei.com
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>

diff --git a/fs/ext4/ext4.h b/fs/ext4/ext4.h
index aae7dac5aca6ca7a8c231c673acc4130903a28d7..b1fa677229ace1816ad16ff4a63b5c24f89074c3 100644 (file)
--- a/fs/ext4/ext4.h
+++ b/fs/ext4/ext4.h
@@ -1629,14 +1629,16 @@ struct ext4_sb_info {
        unsigned int s_mb_order2_reqs;
        unsigned int s_mb_group_prealloc;
        unsigned int s_max_dir_size_kb;
-       /* where last allocation was done - for stream allocation */
-       ext4_group_t s_mb_last_group;
        unsigned int s_mb_prefetch;
        unsigned int s_mb_prefetch_limit;
        unsigned int s_mb_best_avail_max_trim_order;
        unsigned int s_sb_update_sec;
        unsigned int s_sb_update_kb;
 
+       /* where last allocation was done - for stream allocation */
+       ext4_group_t *s_mb_last_groups;
+       unsigned int s_mb_nr_global_goals;
+
        /* stats for buddy allocator */
        atomic_t s_bal_reqs;    /* number of reqs with len > 1 */
        atomic_t s_bal_success; /* we found long enough chunks */

diff --git a/fs/ext4/mballoc.c b/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
index 025b759ca6437f0df00e8ebc55e000ce349e9123..b6aa24b48543311b451d95252adef7661be300be 100644 (file)
--- a/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
@@ -2168,8 +2168,12 @@ static void ext4_mb_use_best_found(struct ext4_allocation_context *ac,
        ac->ac_buddy_folio = e4b->bd_buddy_folio;
        folio_get(ac->ac_buddy_folio);
        /* store last allocated for subsequent stream allocation */
-       if (ac->ac_flags & EXT4_MB_STREAM_ALLOC)
-               WRITE_ONCE(sbi->s_mb_last_group, ac->ac_f_ex.fe_group);
+       if (ac->ac_flags & EXT4_MB_STREAM_ALLOC) {
+               int hash = ac->ac_inode->i_ino % sbi->s_mb_nr_global_goals;
+
+               WRITE_ONCE(sbi->s_mb_last_groups[hash], ac->ac_f_ex.fe_group);
+       }
+
        /*
         * As we've just preallocated more space than
         * user requested originally, we store allocated
@@ -2842,7 +2846,9 @@ ext4_mb_regular_allocator(struct ext4_allocation_context *ac)
 
        /* if stream allocation is enabled, use global goal */
        if (ac->ac_flags & EXT4_MB_STREAM_ALLOC) {
-               ac->ac_g_ex.fe_group = READ_ONCE(sbi->s_mb_last_group);
+               int hash = ac->ac_inode->i_ino % sbi->s_mb_nr_global_goals;
+
+               ac->ac_g_ex.fe_group = READ_ONCE(sbi->s_mb_last_groups[hash]);
                ac->ac_g_ex.fe_start = -1;
                ac->ac_flags &= ~EXT4_MB_HINT_TRY_GOAL;
        }
@@ -3722,10 +3728,19 @@ int ext4_mb_init(struct super_block *sb)
                        sbi->s_mb_group_prealloc, EXT4_NUM_B2C(sbi, sbi->s_stripe));
        }
 
+       sbi->s_mb_nr_global_goals = umin(num_possible_cpus(),
+                                        DIV_ROUND_UP(sbi->s_groups_count, 4));
+       sbi->s_mb_last_groups = kcalloc(sbi->s_mb_nr_global_goals,
+                                       sizeof(ext4_group_t), GFP_KERNEL);
+       if (sbi->s_mb_last_groups == NULL) {
+               ret = -ENOMEM;
+               goto out;
+       }
+
        sbi->s_locality_groups = alloc_percpu(struct ext4_locality_group);
        if (sbi->s_locality_groups == NULL) {
                ret = -ENOMEM;
-               goto out;
+               goto out_free_last_groups;
        }
        for_each_possible_cpu(i) {
                struct ext4_locality_group *lg;
@@ -3750,6 +3765,9 @@ int ext4_mb_init(struct super_block *sb)
 out_free_locality_groups:
        free_percpu(sbi->s_locality_groups);
        sbi->s_locality_groups = NULL;
+out_free_last_groups:
+       kfree(sbi->s_mb_last_groups);
+       sbi->s_mb_last_groups = NULL;
 out:
        kfree(sbi->s_mb_avg_fragment_size);
        kfree(sbi->s_mb_avg_fragment_size_locks);
@@ -3854,6 +3872,7 @@ void ext4_mb_release(struct super_block *sb)
        }
 
        free_percpu(sbi->s_locality_groups);
+       kfree(sbi->s_mb_last_groups);
 }
 
 static inline int ext4_issue_discard(struct super_block *sb,