Re: [PATCH RFC 2/8] mm: introduce PG_offline

[David Hildenbrand]

On 13.04.2018 15:40, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Fri 13-04-18 15:16:26, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> online_pages()/offline_pages() theoretically allows us to work on
>> sub-section sizes. This is especially relevant in the context of
>> virtualization. It e.g. allows us to add/remove memory to Linux in a VM in
>> 4MB chunks.
> 
> Well, theoretically possible but this would require a lot of auditing
> because the hotplug and per section assumption is quite a spread one.

Indeed. But besides changing section sizes / size of memory blocks this
seems to be the only way to do it. (btw, I think Windows allows to add
1MB chunks - e.g. 1MB DIMMs)

But as these pages "belong to nobody" nobody (besides kdump) should dare
to access the content, although the section is online.

> 
>> While the whole section is marked as online/offline, we have to know
>> the state of each page. E.g. to not read memory that is not online
>> during kexec() or to properly mark a section as offline as soon as all
>> contained pages are offline.
> 
> But you cannot use a page flag for that, I am afraid. Page flags are
> extremely scarce resource. I haven't looked at the rest of the series
> but _if_ we have a bit spare which I am not really sure about then you
> should prove there are no other ways around this.

Open for suggestions. We could remember per segment/memory block which
parts are online/offline and use that to decide if a section can go offline.

However: kdump will also have to (easily) know which pages are offline,
so it can skip reading them. (see the other patch)

>  
>> Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>


-- 

Thanks,

David / dhildenb