Re: [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: introduce external memory hinting API

[Kirill A. Shutemov]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 12:52:25PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Thu 16-01-20 15:59:50, Minchan Kim wrote:
> > There is usecase that System Management Software(SMS) want to give
> > a memory hint like MADV_[COLD|PAGEEOUT] to other processes and
> > in the case of Android, it is the ActivityManagerService.
> > 
> > It's similar in spirit to madvise(MADV_WONTNEED), but the information
> > required to make the reclaim decision is not known to the app. Instead,
> > it is known to the centralized userspace daemon(ActivityManagerService),
> > and that daemon must be able to initiate reclaim on its own without
> > any app involvement.
> > 
> > To solve the issue, this patch introduces new syscall process_madvise(2).
> > It uses pidfd of an external processs to give the hint.
> > 
> >  int process_madvise(int pidfd, void *addr, size_t length, int advise,
> > 			unsigned long flag);
> > 
> > Since it could affect other process's address range, only privileged
> > process(CAP_SYS_PTRACE) or something else(e.g., being the same UID)
> > gives it the right to ptrace the process could use it successfully.
> > The flag argument is reserved for future use if we need to extend the
> > API.
> > 
> > I think supporting all hints madvise has/will supported/support to
> > process_madvise is rather risky. Because we are not sure all hints make
> > sense from external process and implementation for the hint may rely on
> > the caller being in the current context so it could be error-prone.
> > Thus, I just limited hints as MADV_[COLD|PAGEOUT] in this patch.
> > 
> > If someone want to add other hints, we could hear hear the usecase and
> > review it for each hint. It's more safe for maintainace rather than
> > introducing a buggy syscall but hard to fix it later.
> 
> I have brought this up when we discussed this in the past but there is
> no reflection on that here so let me bring that up again. 
> 
> I believe that the interface has an inherent problem that it is racy.
> The external entity needs to know the address space layout of the target
> process to do anyhing useful on it. The address space is however under
> the full control of the target process though and the external entity
> has no means to find out that the layout has changed. So
> time-to-check-time-to-act is an inherent problem.
> 
> This is a serious design flaw and it should be explained why it doesn't
> matter or how to use the interface properly to prevent that problem.

I agree, it looks flawed.

Also I don't see what System Management Software can generically do on
sub-process level. I mean how can it decide which part of address space is
less important than other.

I see how a manager can indicate that this process (or a group of
processes) is less important than other, but on per-addres-range basis?

-- 
 Kirill A. Shutemov