[PATCH v2] ARC: fix memory nodes topology in case of highmem enabled

From: Eugeniy Paltsev
Date: Wed Apr 17 2019 - 06:46:27 EST


Tweak generic node topology in case of CONFIG_HIGHMEM enabled to
prioritize allocations from ZONE_HIGHMEM to avoid ZONE_NORMAL
pressure.

Here is example when we can see problems on ARC with currently
existing topology configuration:

Generic statements:
- *NOT* every memory allocation which could be done from
ZONE_NORMAL also could be done from ZONE_HIGHMEM.
- Every memory allocation which could be done from ZONE_HIGHMEM
also could be done from ZONE_NORMAL (In other words ZONE_NORMAL
is more universal than ZONE_HIGHMEM)

ARC statements:
In case of CONFIG_HIGHMEM enabled we have 2 memory nodes:
- "node 0" has only ZONE_NORMAL memory.
- "node 1" has only ZONE_HIGHMEM memory.

Steps to reproduce the problem:
1) Let's try to allocate some memory from userspace. It can be
allocate from anywhere (ZONE_HIGHMEM/ZONE_NORMAL).
2) Kernel tries to allocate memory from the closest memory node
to this CPU. As we don't have NUMA enabled and don't override
any define from "include/asm-generic/topology.h" the closest
memory node to any CPU will be "node 0"
3) OK, we'll allocate memory from "node 0". Let's choose ZONE
to allocate from. This allocation could be done from both
ZONE_HIGHMEM / ZONE_NORMAL in this node. The allocation
priority between zones is ZONE_HIGHMEM > ZONE_NORMAL.
This is pretty logical - we don't want waste *universal*
ZONE_NORMAL if we can use ZONE_HIGHMEM. But we don't have
ZONE_HIGHMEM in "node 0" that's why we rollback to
ZONE_NORMAL and allocate memory from it.
4) Let's try to allocate a lot of memory [more than we have free
memory in lowmem] from userspace.
5) Kernel allocates as much memory as it can from the closest
memory node ("node 0"). But there is no enough memory in
"node 0". So we'll rollback to another memory node ("node 1")
and allocate the rest of the amount from it.

In other words we have following memory lookup path:
(node 0, ZONE_HIGHMEM) ->
-> (node 0, ZONE_NORMAL) ->
-> (node 1, ZONE_HIGHMEM)

Now we don't have any free memory in (node 0, ZONE_NORMAL)
[Actually this is a simplification, but it doesn't matter
in this example]
6) Oops, some internal kernel memory allocation happen which
requires ZONE_NORMAL. For example "kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL)"
was called.
So the we have following memory lookup path:
(node 0, ZONE_NORMAL) -> ("node 1", ZONE_NORMAL)
There is no free memory in "node 0". And there is no
ZONE_NORMAL in "node 1". We only have some free memory in
(node 1, ZONE_HIGHMEM) but HIGHMEM isn't suitable in this
case.
7) As we can't allocate memory OOM-Killer is invoked, even if
we have some free memory in (node 1, ZONE_HIGHMEM).

This patch tweaks generic node topology and mark memory from
"node 1" as the closest to any CPU.

So the we'll have following memory lookup path:
(node 1, ZONE_HIGHMEM) ->
-> (node 1, ZONE_NORMAL) ->
-> (node 0, ZONE_HIGHMEM) ->
-> (node 0, ZONE_NORMAL)
In case of node configuration on ARC we obtain the degenerate case
of this path:
(node 1, ZONE_HIGHMEM) -> (node 0, ZONE_NORMAL)

In this case we don't waste *universal* ZONE_NORMAL if we can use
ZONE_HIGHMEM so we don't face with the issue pointed in [5-7]

Signed-off-by: Eugeniy Paltsev <Eugeniy.Paltsev@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes v1->v2:
* Changes in commit message and comments in a code. No functional
change intended.

arch/arc/include/asm/Kbuild | 1 -
arch/arc/include/asm/topology.h | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
create mode 100644 arch/arc/include/asm/topology.h

diff --git a/arch/arc/include/asm/Kbuild b/arch/arc/include/asm/Kbuild
index caa270261521..e64e0439baff 100644
--- a/arch/arc/include/asm/Kbuild
+++ b/arch/arc/include/asm/Kbuild
@@ -18,7 +18,6 @@ generic-y += msi.h
generic-y += parport.h
generic-y += percpu.h
generic-y += preempt.h
-generic-y += topology.h
generic-y += trace_clock.h
generic-y += user.h
generic-y += vga.h
diff --git a/arch/arc/include/asm/topology.h b/arch/arc/include/asm/topology.h
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c3b8ab7ed011
--- /dev/null
+++ b/arch/arc/include/asm/topology.h
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+#ifndef _ASM_ARC_TOPOLOGY_H
+#define _ASM_ARC_TOPOLOGY_H
+
+/*
+ * On ARC (w/o PAE) HIGHMEM addresses are smaller (0x0 based) than addresses in
+ * NORMAL aka low memory (0x8000_0000 based).
+ * Thus HIGHMEM on ARC is implemented with DISCONTIGMEM which requires multiple
+ * nodes. So here is memory node map on ARC:
+ * - node 0: ZONE_NORMAL memory (always)
+ * - node 1: ZONE_HIGHMEM memory (only if CONFIG_HIGHMEM is enabled)
+ *
+ * In case of CONFIG_HIGHMEM enabled we tweak generic node topology and mark
+ * node 1 as the closest to all CPUs to prioritize allocations from ZONE_HIGHMEM
+ * where it is possible to avoid ZONE_NORMAL pressure.
+ */
+#ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
+#define cpu_to_node(cpu) ((void)(cpu), 1)
+#define cpu_to_mem(cpu) ((void)(cpu), 1)
+#define cpumask_of_node(node) ((node) == 1 ? cpu_online_mask : cpu_none_mask)
+#endif /* CONFIG_HIGHMEM */
+
+#include <asm-generic/topology.h>
+
+#endif /* _ASM_ARC_TOPOLOGY_H */
--
2.14.5