ZRAM performs direct LZO compression algorithm calls, making it the one and only option. While LZO is generally performs well, LZ4 algorithm tends to have a faster decompression (see http://code.google.com/p/lz4/ for full report) Name Ratio C.speed D.speed MB/s MB/s LZ4 (r101) 2.084 422 1820 LZO 2.06 2.106 414 600 Thus, users who have mostly read (decompress) usage scenarious or mixed workflow (writes with relatively high read ops number) will benefit from using LZ4 compression backend. Introduce compressing backend abstraction zcomp in order to support multiple compression algorithms with the following set of operations: .create .destroy .compress .decompress Schematically zram write() usually contains the following steps: 0) preparation (decompression of partioal IO, etc.) 1) lock buffer_lock mutex (protects meta compress buffers) 2) compress (using meta compress buffers) 3) alloc and map zs_pool object 4) copy compressed data (from meta compress buffers) to object allocated by 3) 5) free previous pool page, assign a new one 6) unlock buffer_lock mutex As we can see, compressing buffers must remain untouched from 1) to 4), because, otherwise, concurrent write() can overwrite data. At the same time, zram_meta must be aware of a) specific compression algorithm memory requirements and b) necessary locking to protect compression buffers. To remove requirement a) new struct zcomp_strm introduced, which contains a compress/decompress `buffer' and compression algorithm `private' part. While struct zcomp implements zcomp_strm stream handling and locking and removes requirement b) from zram meta. zcomp ->create() and ->destroy(), respectively, allocate and deallocate algorithm specific zcomp_strm `private' part. Every zcomp has zcomp stream and mutex to protect its compression stream. Stream usage semantics remains the same -- only one write can hold stream lock and use its buffers. zcomp_strm_find() turns caller into exclusive user of a stream (holding stream mutex until zram release stream), and zcomp_strm_release() makes zcomp stream available (unlock the stream mutex). Hence no concurrent write (compression) operations possible at the moment. iozone -t 3 -R -r 16K -s 60M -I +Z test base patched -------------------------------------------------- Initial write 597992.91 591660.58 Rewrite 609674.34 616054.97 Read 2404771.75 2452909.12 Re-read 2459216.81 2470074.44 Reverse Read 1652769.66 1589128.66 Stride read 2202441.81 2202173.31 Random read 2236311.47 2276565.31 Mixed workload 1423760.41 1709760.06 Random write 579584.08 615933.86 Pwrite 597550.02 594933.70 Pread 1703672.53 1718126.72 Fwrite 1330497.06 1461054.00 Fread 3922851.00 3957242.62 Usage examples: comp = zcomp_create(NAME) /* NAME e.g. "lzo" */ which initialises compressing backend if requested algorithm is supported. Compress: zstrm = zcomp_strm_find(comp) zcomp_compress(comp, zstrm, src, &dst_len) [..] /* copy compressed data */ zcomp_strm_release(comp, zstrm) Decompress: zcomp_decompress(comp, src, src_len, dst); Free compessing backend and its zcomp stream: zcomp_destroy(comp) Signed-off-by:Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com> Acked-by:
