[PATCH] dynamic request allocation

This patch adds dynamic allocation of request structures. Right now we
are reserving 256 requests per initialized queue, which adds up to quite
a lot of memory for even a modest number of queues. For the quoted 4000
disk systems, it's a disaster.

Instead, we mempool 4 requests per queue and put an upper limit on the
number of requests that we will put in-flight as well. I've kept the 128
read/write max in-flight limit for now. It is trivial to experiement
with larger queue sizes now, but I want to change one thing at the time
(the truncate scenario doesn't look all that good with a huge number of
requests, for instance).

Patch has been in -mm for a while, I'm running it here against stock 2.5
as well. Additionally, it actually kills quite a bit of code as well

drivers/block/deadline-iosched.c

@@ -71,6 +71,8 @@ struct deadline_data {
 	int fifo_batch;
 	int writes_starved;
 	int front_merges;
+
+	mempool_t *drq_pool;
 };
 
 /*
@@ -690,28 +692,11 @@ deadline_latter_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq)
 static void deadline_exit(request_queue_t *q, elevator_t *e)
 {
 	struct deadline_data *dd = e->elevator_data;
-	struct deadline_rq *drq;
-	struct request *rq;
-	int i;
 
 	BUG_ON(!list_empty(&dd->fifo_list[READ]));
 	BUG_ON(!list_empty(&dd->fifo_list[WRITE]));
 
-	for (i = READ; i <= WRITE; i++) {
-		struct request_list *rl = &q->rq[i];
-		struct list_head *entry;
-
-		list_for_each(entry, &rl->free) {
-			rq = list_entry_rq(entry);
-
-			if ((drq = RQ_DATA(rq)) == NULL)
-				continue;
-
-			rq->elevator_private = NULL;
-			kmem_cache_free(drq_pool, drq);
-		}
-	}
-
+	mempool_destroy(dd->drq_pool);
 	kfree(dd->hash);
 	kfree(dd);
 }
@@ -723,9 +708,7 @@ static void deadline_exit(request_queue_t *q, elevator_t *e)
 static int deadline_init(request_queue_t *q, elevator_t *e)
 {
 	struct deadline_data *dd;
-	struct deadline_rq *drq;
-	struct request *rq;
-	int i, ret = 0;
+	int i;
 
 	if (!drq_pool)
 		return -ENOMEM;
@@ -741,6 +724,13 @@ static int deadline_init(request_queue_t *q, elevator_t *e)
 		return -ENOMEM;
 	}
 
+	dd->drq_pool = mempool_create(BLKDEV_MIN_RQ, mempool_alloc_slab, mempool_free_slab, drq_pool);
+	if (!dd->drq_pool) {
+		kfree(dd->hash);
+		kfree(dd);
+		return -ENOMEM;
+	}
+
 	for (i = 0; i < DL_HASH_ENTRIES; i++)
 		INIT_LIST_HEAD(&dd->hash[i]);
 
@@ -756,33 +746,41 @@ static int deadline_init(request_queue_t *q, elevator_t *e)
 	dd->front_merges = 1;
 	dd->fifo_batch = fifo_batch;
 	e->elevator_data = dd;
+	return 0;
+}
 
-	for (i = READ; i <= WRITE; i++) {
-		struct request_list *rl = &q->rq[i];
-		struct list_head *entry;
+static void deadline_put_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq)
+{
+	struct deadline_data *dd = q->elevator.elevator_data;
+	struct deadline_rq *drq = RQ_DATA(rq);
 
-		list_for_each(entry, &rl->free) {
-			rq = list_entry_rq(entry);
+	if (drq) {
+		mempool_free(drq, dd->drq_pool);
+		rq->elevator_private = NULL;
+	}
+}
 
-			drq = kmem_cache_alloc(drq_pool, GFP_KERNEL);
-			if (!drq) {
-				ret = -ENOMEM;
-				break;
-			}
+static int
+deadline_set_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq, int gfp_mask)
+{
+	struct deadline_data *dd = q->elevator.elevator_data;
+	struct deadline_rq *drq;
 
-			memset(drq, 0, sizeof(*drq));
-			INIT_LIST_HEAD(&drq->fifo);
-			INIT_LIST_HEAD(&drq->hash);
-			RB_CLEAR(&drq->rb_node);
-			drq->request = rq;
-			rq->elevator_private = drq;
-		}
-	}
+	drq = mempool_alloc(dd->drq_pool, gfp_mask);
+	if (drq) {
+		RB_CLEAR(&drq->rb_node);
+		drq->request = rq;
 
-	if (ret)
-		deadline_exit(q, e);
+		INIT_LIST_HEAD(&drq->hash);
+		drq->hash_valid_count = 0;
 
-	return ret;
+		INIT_LIST_HEAD(&drq->fifo);
+
+		rq->elevator_private = drq;
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	return 1;
 }
 
 /*
@@ -933,6 +931,8 @@ elevator_t iosched_deadline = {
 	.elevator_queue_empty_fn =	deadline_queue_empty,
 	.elevator_former_req_fn =	deadline_former_request,
 	.elevator_latter_req_fn =	deadline_latter_request,
+	.elevator_set_req_fn =		deadline_set_request,
+	.elevator_put_req_fn = 		deadline_put_request,
 	.elevator_init_fn =		deadline_init,
 	.elevator_exit_fn =		deadline_exit,
 

drivers/block/elevator.c

@@ -408,6 +408,25 @@ struct request *elv_former_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq)
 	return NULL;
 }
 
+int elv_set_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq, int gfp_mask)
+{
+	elevator_t *e = &q->elevator;
+
+	if (e->elevator_set_req_fn)
+		return e->elevator_set_req_fn(q, rq, gfp_mask);
+
+	rq->elevator_private = NULL;
+	return 0;
+}
+
+void elv_put_request(request_queue_t *q, struct request *rq)
+{
+	elevator_t *e = &q->elevator;
+
+	if (e->elevator_put_req_fn)
+		e->elevator_put_req_fn(q, rq);
+}
+
 int elv_register_queue(struct gendisk *disk)
 {
 	request_queue_t *q = disk->queue;

include/linux/blkdev.h

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 #include <linux/pagemap.h>
 #include <linux/backing-dev.h>
 #include <linux/wait.h>
+#include <linux/mempool.h>
 
 #include <asm/scatterlist.h>
 
@@ -18,10 +19,12 @@ typedef struct request_queue request_queue_t;
 struct elevator_s;
 typedef struct elevator_s elevator_t;
 
+#define BLKDEV_MIN_RQ	4
+#define BLKDEV_MAX_RQ	128
+
 struct request_list {
-	unsigned int count;
-	struct list_head free;
-	wait_queue_head_t wait;
+	int count[2];
+	mempool_t *rq_pool;
 };
 
 /*
@@ -180,7 +183,7 @@ struct request_queue
 	/*
 	 * the queue request freelist, one for reads and one for writes
 	 */
-	struct request_list	rq[2];
+	struct request_list	rq;
 
 	request_fn_proc		*request_fn;
 	merge_request_fn	*back_merge_fn;
@@ -329,7 +332,6 @@ extern void blk_put_request(struct request *);
 extern void blk_attempt_remerge(request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 extern void __blk_attempt_remerge(request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 extern struct request *blk_get_request(request_queue_t *, int, int);
-extern struct request *__blk_get_request(request_queue_t *, int);
 extern void blk_put_request(struct request *);
 extern void blk_insert_request(request_queue_t *, struct request *, int, void *);
 extern void blk_plug_device(request_queue_t *);

include/linux/elevator.h

@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ typedef int (elevator_queue_empty_fn) (request_queue_t *);
 typedef void (elevator_remove_req_fn) (request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 typedef struct request *(elevator_request_list_fn) (request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 typedef struct list_head *(elevator_get_sort_head_fn) (request_queue_t *, struct request *);
+typedef int (elevator_set_req_fn) (request_queue_t *, struct request *, int);
+typedef void (elevator_put_req_fn) (request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 
 typedef int (elevator_init_fn) (request_queue_t *, elevator_t *);
 typedef void (elevator_exit_fn) (request_queue_t *, elevator_t *);
@@ -34,6 +36,9 @@ struct elevator_s
 	elevator_request_list_fn *elevator_former_req_fn;
 	elevator_request_list_fn *elevator_latter_req_fn;
 
+	elevator_set_req_fn *elevator_set_req_fn;
+	elevator_put_req_fn *elevator_put_req_fn;
+
 	elevator_init_fn *elevator_init_fn;
 	elevator_exit_fn *elevator_exit_fn;
 
@@ -59,6 +64,8 @@ extern struct request *elv_former_request(request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 extern struct request *elv_latter_request(request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 extern int elv_register_queue(struct gendisk *);
 extern void elv_unregister_queue(struct gendisk *);
+extern int elv_set_request(request_queue_t *, struct request *, int);
+extern void elv_put_request(request_queue_t *, struct request *);
 
 #define __elv_add_request_pos(q, rq, pos)	\
 	(q)->elevator.elevator_add_req_fn((q), (rq), (pos))