mm: limit filemap_fault readahead to VMA boundaries

When a file mapping covers a strict subset of a file, an access to the
mapping can trigger readahead of file pages outside the mapped region. 
Readahead is meant to prefetch pages likely to be accessed soon, but these
pages aren't accessible via the same means, so it fair to say we don't
have a good indicator they'll be accessed soon.  Take an ELF file for
example: an access to the end of a program's read-only segment isn't a
sign that nearby file contents will be accessed next (they are likely to
be mapped discontiguously, or not at all).  The pressure from loading
these pages into the cache can evict more useful pages.

To improve the behavior, make three changes:

* Introduce a new readahead_control field, max_index, as a hard limit on
  the readahead. The existing file_ra_state->size can't be used as a
  limit, it is more of a hint and can be increased by various
  heuristics.
* Set readahead_control->max_index to the end of the VMA in all of the
  readahead paths that can be triggered from a fault on a file mapping
  (both "sync" and "async" readahead).
* Limit the read-around range start to the VMA's start.

Note that these changes only affect readahead triggered in the context of
a fault, they do not affect readahead triggered by read syscalls.  If a
user mixes the two types of accesses, the behavior is expected to be the
following: if a fault causes readahead and places a PG_readahead marker
and then a read(2) syscall hits the PG_readahead marker, the resulting
async readahead *will not* be limited to the VMA end.  Conversely, if a
read(2) syscall places a PG_readahead marker and then a fault hits the
marker, the async readahead *will* be limited to the VMA end.

There is an edge case that the above motivation glosses over: A single
file mapping might be backed by multiple VMAs.  For example, a whole file
could be mapped RW, then part of the mapping made RO using mprotect.  This
patch would hurt performance of a sequential faulted read of such a
mapping, the degree depending on how fragmented the VMAs are.  A usage
pattern like that is likely rare and already suffering from sub-optimal
performance because, e.g., the fragmented VMAs limit the fault-around, so
each VMA boundary in a sequential faulted read would cause a minor fault. 
Still, this patch would make it worse.  See a previous discussion of this
topic at [1].

Tested by mapping and reading a small subset of a large file, then using
the cachestat syscall to verify the number of cached pages didn't exceed
the mapping size.

In practical scenarios, the effect depends on the specific file and usage.
Sometimes there is no effect at all, but, for some ELF files in Android,
we see ~20% fewer pages pulled into the cache.

A comprehensive performance evaluation hasn't been done, but, in addition
to the anecdontal memory savings mentioned above, a benchmark was run with
fio 3.38, showing neutral looking results:

    /data/local/tmp/fio --version

    fio --name=mmap_test --ioengine=mmap --rw=read --bs=4k \
        --offset=1G --size=1G --filesize=3G --numjobs=1 \
        --filename=testfile.bin

        Before: 4366.6 MiB/s (avg of 3459, 4592, 4613, 4697, 4472)
        After:  4444.0 MiB/s (avg of 4633, 4655, 4511, 4571, 3850)
                +1.7%

    Same, with --ioengine=mmap --rw=randread

        Before: 445.6 MiB/s  (avg of 446, 447, 442, 452, 441)
        After:  447.0 MiB/s  (avg of 447, 446, 446, 451, 445)
                +0.3%

    Same, with --ioengine=psync --rw=read

        Before: 3086.6 MiB/s (avg of 3122, 3094, 3066, 3094, 3057)
        After:  3084.6 MiB/s (avg of 3039, 3103, 3103, 3084, 3094)
                -0.06%

    Same, with --ioengine=psync --rw=randread

        Before: 2226.4 MiB/s (avg of 2256, 2183, 2207, 2265, 2221)
        After:  2231.4 MiB/s (avg of 2236, 2241, 2236, 2193, 2251)
                +0.2%


Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260427030148.653228-1-fmayle@google.com
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/ivnv2crd3et76p2nx7oszuqhzzah756oecn5yuykzqfkqzoygw@yvnlkhjjssoz/ [1]
Signed-off-by: Frederick Mayle <fmayle@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Reviewed-by: Kalesh Singh <kaleshsingh@google.com>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>

0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions