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author | Sverker Eriksson <[email protected]> | 2014-11-06 20:21:11 +0100 |
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committer | Sverker Eriksson <[email protected]> | 2014-11-06 20:21:11 +0100 |
commit | a0184cdca374f112ecfaa4c85a73b88d036f69f3 (patch) | |
tree | d3519870f7d81e2ce0e637a5ddb9f09b781ceb2a /erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md | |
parent | 3ca75c7e42ab2c0612ceb5e56f60e7932c40f335 (diff) | |
download | otp-a0184cdca374f112ecfaa4c85a73b88d036f69f3.tar.gz otp-a0184cdca374f112ecfaa4c85a73b88d036f69f3.tar.bz2 otp-a0184cdca374f112ecfaa4c85a73b88d036f69f3.zip |
erts: Add internal docs for super carrier and new cpool search.
Diffstat (limited to 'erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md')
-rw-r--r-- | erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md | 191 |
1 files changed, 191 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md b/erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0ad6af41de --- /dev/null +++ b/erts/emulator/internal_doc/SuperCarrier.md @@ -0,0 +1,191 @@ +Super Carrier +============= + +A super carrier is large memory area, allocated at VM start, which can +be used during runtime to allocate normal carriers from. + +The super carrier feature was introduced in OTP R16B03. It is +enabled with command line option +MMscs <size in Mb> +and can be configured with other options. + +Problem +------- + +The initial motivation for this feature was customers asking for a way +to pre-allocate physcial memory at VM start for it to use. + +Other problems were different experienced limitations of the OS +implementation of mmap: + +* Increasingly bad performance of mmap/munmap as the number of mmap'ed areas grow. +* Fragmentation problem between mmap'ed areas. + +A third problem was management of low memory in the halfword +emulator. The implementation used a naive linear search structure to +hold free segments which would lead to poor performance when +fragmentation increased. + + +Solution +-------- + +Allocate one large continious area of address space at VM start and +then use that area to satisfy our dynamic memory need during +runtime. In other words: implement our own mmap. + +### Use cases ### + +If command line option +MMscrpm (Reserve Physical Memory) is set to +false, only virtual space is allocated for the super carrier from +start. The super carrier then acts as an "alternative mmap" implementation +without changing the consumption of physical memory pages. Physical +pages will be reserved on demand when an allocation is done from the super +carrier and be unreserved when the memory is released back to the +super carrier. + +If +MMscrpm is set to true, which is default, the initial allocation +will reserve physical memory for the entire super carrier. This can be +used by users that want to ensure a certain *minimum* amount of +physical memory for the VM. + +However, what reservation of physical memory actually means highly +depends on the operating system, and how it is configured. For +example, different memory overcommit settings on Linux drastically +change the behaviour. + +A third feature is to have the super carrier limit the *maximum* +amount of memory used by the VM. If +MMsco (Super Carrier Only) is set +to true, which is default, allocations will only be done from the +super carrier. When the super carrier gets full, the VM will fail due +to out of memory. +If +MMsco is false, allocations will use mmap directly if the super +carrier is full. + + + +### Implementation ### + +The entire super carrier implementation is kept in erl_mmap.c. The +name suggest that it can be viewed as our own mmap implementation. + +A super carrier needs to satisfy two slightly different kinds of +allocation requests; multi block carriers (MBC) and single block +carriers (SBC). They are both rather large blocks of continious +memory, but MBCs and SBCs have different demands on alignment and +size. + +SBCs can have arbitrary size and do only need minimum 8-byte +alignment. + +MBCs are more restricted. They can only have a number of fixed +sizes that are powers of 2. The start address need to have a very +large aligment (currently 256 kb, called "super alignment"). This is a +design choice that allows very low overhead per allocated block in the +MBC. + +To reduce fragmentation within the super carrier, it is good to keep SBCs +and MBCs apart. MBCs with their uniform alignment and sizes can be +packed very efficiently together. SBCs without demand for aligment can +also be allocated quite efficiently together. But mixing them can lead +to a lot of memory wasted when we need to create large holes of +padding to the next alignment limit. + +The super carrier thus contains two areas. One area for MBCs growing from +the bottom and up. And one area for SBCs growing from the top and +down. Like a process with a heap and a stack growing towards each +other. + + +### Data structures ### + +The MBC area is called **sa** as in super aligned and the SBC area is +called **sua** as in super un-aligned. + +Note that the "super" in super alignment and the "super" in super +carrier has nothing to do with each other. We could have choosen +another naming to avoid confusion, such as "meta" carrier or "giant" +aligment. + + +-------+ <---- sua.top + | sua | + | | + |-------| <---- sua.bot + | | + | | + | | + |-------| <---- sa.top + | | + | sa | + | | + +-------+ <---- sa.bot + + +When a carrier is deallocated a free memory segment will be created +inside the corresponding area, unless the carrier was at the very top +(in `sa`) or bottom (in `sua`) in which case the area will just shrink +down or up. + +We need to keep track of all the free segments in order to reuse them +for new carrier allocations. One initial idea was to use the same +mechanism that is used to keep track of free blocks within MBCs +(alloc_util and the different strategies). However, that would not be +as straight forward as one can think and can also waste quite a lot of +memory as it uses prepended block headers. The granularity of the +super carrier is one memory page (usually 4kb). We want to allocate +and free entire pages and we don't want to waste an entire page just +to hold the block header of the following pages. + +Instead we store the meta information about all the free segments in a +dedicated area apart from the `sa` and `sua` areas. Every free segment is +represented by a descriptor struct (`ErtsFreeSegDesc`). + + typedef struct { + RBTNode snode; /* node in 'stree' */ + RBTNode anode; /* node in 'atree' */ + char* start; + char* end; + }ErtsFreeSegDesc; + +To find the smallest free segment that will satisfy a carrier allocation +(best fit), the free segments are organized in a tree sorted by +size (`stree`). We search in this tree at allocation. If no free segment of +sufficient size was found, the area (`sa` or `sua`) is instead expanded. +If two or more free segments with equal size exist, the one at lowest +address is choosen for `sa` and highest address for `sua`. + +At carrier deallocation, we want to coalesce with any adjacent free +segments, to form one large free segment. To do that, all free +segments are also organized in a tree sorted in address order (`atree`). + +So, in total we keep four trees of free descriptors for the super +carrier; two for `sa` and two for `sua`. They all use the same +red-black-tree implementation that support the different sorting +orders used. + +When allocating a new MBC we first search after a free segment in `sa`, +then try to raise `sa.top`, and then as a fallback try to search after a +free segment in `sua`. When an MBC is allocated in `sua`, a larger segment +is allocated which is then trimmed to obtain the right +alignment. Allocation search for an SBC is done in reverse order. When +an SBC is allocated in `sa`, the size is aligned up to super aligned +size. + +### The free descriptor area ### + +As mentioned above, the descriptors for the free segments are +allocated in a separate area. This area has a constant configurable +size (+MMscrfsd) that defaults to 65536 descriptors. This should be +more than enough in most cases. If the descriptors area should fill up, +new descriptor areas will be allocated first directly from the OS, and +then from `sua` and `sa` in the super carrier, and lastly from the memory +segment itself which is being deallocated. Allocating free descriptor +areas from the super carrier is only a last resort, and should be +avoided, as it creates fragmentation. + +### Halfword emulator ### + +The halfword emulator uses the super carrier implementation to manage +its low memory mappings thar are needed for all term storage. The +super carrier can here not be configured by command line options. One +could imagine a second configurable instance of the super carrier used +by high memory allocation, but that has not been implemented. |