summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md')
-rw-r--r--deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md129
1 files changed, 129 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md b/deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e96399d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/deps/jemalloc/TUNING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+This document summarizes the common approaches for performance fine tuning with
+jemalloc (as of 5.3.0). The default configuration of jemalloc tends to work
+reasonably well in practice, and most applications should not have to tune any
+options. However, in order to cover a wide range of applications and avoid
+pathological cases, the default setting is sometimes kept conservative and
+suboptimal, even for many common workloads. When jemalloc is properly tuned for
+a specific application / workload, it is common to improve system level metrics
+by a few percent, or make favorable trade-offs.
+
+
+## Notable runtime options for performance tuning
+
+Runtime options can be set via
+[malloc_conf](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#tuning).
+
+* [background_thread](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#background_thread)
+
+ Enabling jemalloc background threads generally improves the tail latency for
+ application threads, since unused memory purging is shifted to the dedicated
+ background threads. In addition, unintended purging delay caused by
+ application inactivity is avoided with background threads.
+
+ Suggested: `background_thread:true` when jemalloc managed threads can be
+ allowed.
+
+* [metadata_thp](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.metadata_thp)
+
+ Allowing jemalloc to utilize transparent huge pages for its internal
+ metadata usually reduces TLB misses significantly, especially for programs
+ with large memory footprint and frequent allocation / deallocation
+ activities. Metadata memory usage may increase due to the use of huge
+ pages.
+
+ Suggested for allocation intensive programs: `metadata_thp:auto` or
+ `metadata_thp:always`, which is expected to improve CPU utilization at a
+ small memory cost.
+
+* [dirty_decay_ms](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.dirty_decay_ms) and
+ [muzzy_decay_ms](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.muzzy_decay_ms)
+
+ Decay time determines how fast jemalloc returns unused pages back to the
+ operating system, and therefore provides a fairly straightforward trade-off
+ between CPU and memory usage. Shorter decay time purges unused pages faster
+ to reduces memory usage (usually at the cost of more CPU cycles spent on
+ purging), and vice versa.
+
+ Suggested: tune the values based on the desired trade-offs.
+
+* [narenas](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.narenas)
+
+ By default jemalloc uses multiple arenas to reduce internal lock contention.
+ However high arena count may also increase overall memory fragmentation,
+ since arenas manage memory independently. When high degree of parallelism
+ is not expected at the allocator level, lower number of arenas often
+ improves memory usage.
+
+ Suggested: if low parallelism is expected, try lower arena count while
+ monitoring CPU and memory usage.
+
+* [percpu_arena](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#opt.percpu_arena)
+
+ Enable dynamic thread to arena association based on running CPU. This has
+ the potential to improve locality, e.g. when thread to CPU affinity is
+ present.
+
+ Suggested: try `percpu_arena:percpu` or `percpu_arena:phycpu` if
+ thread migration between processors is expected to be infrequent.
+
+Examples:
+
+* High resource consumption application, prioritizing CPU utilization:
+
+ `background_thread:true,metadata_thp:auto` combined with relaxed decay time
+ (increased `dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,
+ e.g. `dirty_decay_ms:30000,muzzy_decay_ms:30000`).
+
+* High resource consumption application, prioritizing memory usage:
+
+ `background_thread:true,tcache_max:4096` combined with shorter decay time
+ (decreased `dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,
+ e.g. `dirty_decay_ms:5000,muzzy_decay_ms:5000`), and lower arena count
+ (e.g. number of CPUs).
+
+* Low resource consumption application:
+
+ `narenas:1,tcache_max:1024` combined with shorter decay time (decreased
+ `dirty_decay_ms` and / or `muzzy_decay_ms`,e.g.
+ `dirty_decay_ms:1000,muzzy_decay_ms:0`).
+
+* Extremely conservative -- minimize memory usage at all costs, only suitable when
+allocation activity is very rare:
+
+ `narenas:1,tcache:false,dirty_decay_ms:0,muzzy_decay_ms:0`
+
+Note that it is recommended to combine the options with `abort_conf:true` which
+aborts immediately on illegal options.
+
+## Beyond runtime options
+
+In addition to the runtime options, there are a number of programmatic ways to
+improve application performance with jemalloc.
+
+* [Explicit arenas](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arenas.create)
+
+ Manually created arenas can help performance in various ways, e.g. by
+ managing locality and contention for specific usages. For example,
+ applications can explicitly allocate frequently accessed objects from a
+ dedicated arena with
+ [mallocx()](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#MALLOCX_ARENA) to improve
+ locality. In addition, explicit arenas often benefit from individually
+ tuned options, e.g. relaxed [decay
+ time](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arena.i.dirty_decay_ms) if
+ frequent reuse is expected.
+
+* [Extent hooks](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#arena.i.extent_hooks)
+
+ Extent hooks allow customization for managing underlying memory. One use
+ case for performance purpose is to utilize huge pages -- for example,
+ [HHVM](https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/blob/master/hphp/util/alloc.cpp)
+ uses explicit arenas with customized extent hooks to manage 1GB huge pages
+ for frequently accessed data, which reduces TLB misses significantly.
+
+* [Explicit thread-to-arena
+ binding](http://jemalloc.net/jemalloc.3.html#thread.arena)
+
+ It is common for some threads in an application to have different memory
+ access / allocation patterns. Threads with heavy workloads often benefit
+ from explicit binding, e.g. binding very active threads to dedicated arenas
+ may reduce contention at the allocator level.