130 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
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This document summarizes the common approaches for performance fine tuning with
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jemalloc (as of 5.1.0). The default configuration of jemalloc tends to work
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reasonably well in practice, and most applications should not have to tune any
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options. However, in order to cover a wide range of applications and avoid
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pathological cases, the default setting is sometimes kept conservative and
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suboptimal, even for many common workloads. When jemalloc is properly tuned for
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a specific application / workload, it is common to improve system level metrics
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by a few percent, or make favorable trade-offs.
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## Notable runtime options for performance tuning
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Runtime options can be set via
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[malloc_conf](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#tuning).
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* [background_thread](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#background_thread)
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Enabling jemalloc background threads generally improves the tail latency for
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application threads, since unused memory purging is shifted to the dedicated
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background threads. In addition, unintended purging delay caused by
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application inactivity is avoided with background threads.
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Suggested: `background_thread:true` when jemalloc managed threads can be
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allowed.
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* [metadata_thp](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.metadata_thp)
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Allowing jemalloc to utilize transparent huge pages for its internal
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metadata usually reduces TLB misses significantly, especially for programs
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with large memory footprint and frequent allocation / deallocation
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activities. Metadata memory usage may increase due to the use of huge
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pages.
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Suggested for allocation intensive programs: `metadata_thp:auto` or
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`metadata_thp:always`, which is expected to improve CPU utilization at a
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small memory cost.
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* [dirty_decay_ms](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.dirty_decay_ms) and
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[muzzy_decay_ms](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.muzzy_decay_ms)
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Decay time determines how fast jemalloc returns unused pages back to the
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operating system, and therefore provides a fairly straightforward trade-off
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between CPU and memory usage. Shorter decay time purges unused pages faster
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to reduces memory usage (usually at the cost of more CPU cycles spent on
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purging), and vice versa.
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Suggested: tune the values based on the desired trade-offs.
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* [narenas](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.narenas)
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By default jemalloc uses multiple arenas to reduce internal lock contention.
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However high arena count may also increase overall memory fragmentation,
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since arenas manage memory independently. When high degree of parallelism
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is not expected at the allocator level, lower number of arenas often
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improves memory usage.
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Suggested: if low parallelism is expected, try lower arena count while
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monitoring CPU and memory usage.
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* [percpu_arena](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.percpu_arena)
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Enable dynamic thread to arena association based on running CPU. This has
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the potential to improve locality, e.g. when thread to CPU affinity is
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present.
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Suggested: try `percpu_arena:percpu` or `percpu_arena:phycpu` if
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thread migration between processors is expected to be infrequent.
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Examples:
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* High resource consumption application, prioritizing CPU utilization:
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`background_thread:true,metadata_thp:auto` combined with relaxed decay time
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(increased `dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,
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e.g. `dirty_decay_ms:30000,muzzy_decay_ms:30000`).
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* High resource consumption application, prioritizing memory usage:
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`background_thread:true` combined with shorter decay time (decreased
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`dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,
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e.g. `dirty_decay_ms:5000,muzzy_decay_ms:5000`), and lower arena count
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(e.g. number of CPUs).
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* Low resource consumption application:
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`narenas:1,lg_tcache_max:13` combined with shorter decay time (decreased
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`dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,e.g.
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`dirty_decay_ms:1000,muzzy_decay_ms:0`).
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* Extremely conservative -- minimize memory usage at all costs, only suitable when
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allocation activity is very rare:
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`narenas:1,tcache:false,dirty_decay_ms:0,muzzy_decay_ms:0`
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Note that it is recommended to combine the options with `abort_conf:true` which
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aborts immediately on illegal options.
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## Beyond runtime options
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In addition to the runtime options, there are a number of programmatic ways to
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improve application performance with jemalloc.
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* [Explicit arenas](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arenas.create)
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Manually created arenas can help performance in various ways, e.g. by
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managing locality and contention for specific usages. For example,
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applications can explicitly allocate frequently accessed objects from a
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dedicated arena with
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[mallocx()](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#MALLOCX_ARENA) to improve
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locality. In addition, explicit arenas often benefit from individually
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tuned options, e.g. relaxed [decay
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time](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arena.i.dirty_decay_ms) if
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frequent reuse is expected.
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* [Extent hooks](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arena.i.extent_hooks)
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Extent hooks allow customization for managing underlying memory. One use
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case for performance purpose is to utilize huge pages -- for example,
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[HHVM](https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/blob/master/hphp/util/alloc.cpp)
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uses explicit arenas with customized extent hooks to manage 1GB huge pages
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for frequently accessed data, which reduces TLB misses significantly.
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* [Explicit thread-to-arena
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binding](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#thread.arena)
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It is common for some threads in an application to have different memory
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access / allocation patterns. Threads with heavy workloads often benefit
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from explicit binding, e.g. binding very active threads to dedicated arenas
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may reduce contention at the allocator level.
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