Re: [PATCH v2 5/5] selftests/mm: retry migration failures for the full runtime

From: Muhammad Usama Anjum

Date: Mon Jul 27 2026 - 05:21:44 EST


On 25/07/2026 10:25 am, Dev Jain wrote:
>
>
> On 24/07/26 9:27 pm, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
>> On 24/07/2026 4:23 pm, Dev Jain wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 24/07/26 5:23 pm, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
>>>> On 24/07/2026 12:46 pm, Dev Jain wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 24/07/26 3:54 pm, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
>>>>>> move_pages() is best effort and can temporarily fail when concurrent
>>>>>> faults race with page unmapping. A busy shared-anon workload can exhaust
>>>>>> the current 100 retries long before the intended 20-second runtime and
>>>>>> produce a false failure.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Use the full runtime as the retry window. Since the initial page location
>>>>>> is unknown, require it to reach both alternating NUMA targets to confirm
>>>>>> that cross-node migration made progress despite transient contention.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Muhammad Usama Anjum <usama.anjum@xxxxxxx>
>>>>>> ---
>>>>>
>>>>> Makes sense, but see below.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Changes since v1:
>>>>>> - Retry per-page failures for the full runtime
>>>>>> - Verify that both alternating NUMA targets are reached
>>>>>> ---
>>>>>> tools/testing/selftests/mm/migration.c | 39 ++++++++++++++------------
>>>>>> 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/migration.c b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/migration.c
>>>>>> index 29f7492453d43..4d55a424058a9 100644
>>>>>> --- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/migration.c
>>>>>> +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/migration.c
>>>>>> @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
>>>>>> #include "kselftest_harness.h"
>>>>>> #include "hugepage_settings.h"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -#include <strings.h>
>>>>>> +#include <string.h>
>>>>>> #include <pthread.h>
>>>>>> #include <numa.h>
>>>>>> #include <numaif.h>
>>>>>> @@ -20,7 +20,6 @@
>>>>>>
>>>>>> #define TWOMEG (2<<20)
>>>>>> #define RUNTIME (20)
>>>>>> -#define MAX_RETRIES 100
>>>>>> #define ALIGN(x, a) (((x) + (a - 1)) & (~((a) - 1)))
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HUGETLB_SETUP_DEFAULT_PAGES(1)
>>>>>> @@ -110,7 +109,7 @@ int migrate(uint64_t *ptr, int n1, int n2)
>>>>>> int ret, tmp;
>>>>>> int status = 0;
>>>>>> struct timespec ts1, ts2;
>>>>>> - int failures = 0;
>>>>>> + int success = 0;
>>>>>>
>>>>>> if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &ts1))
>>>>>> return -1;
>>>>>> @@ -119,29 +118,33 @@ int migrate(uint64_t *ptr, int n1, int n2)
>>>>>> if (clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &ts2))
>>>>>> return -1;
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - if (ts2.tv_sec - ts1.tv_sec >= RUNTIME)
>>>>>> - return 0;
>>>>>> + if (ts2.tv_sec - ts1.tv_sec >= RUNTIME) {
>>>>>> + /* Reaching both targets verifies a cross-node move. */
>>>>>> + if (success >= 2)
>>>>>> + return 0;
>>>>>> + else
>>>>>> + return -2;
>>>>>> + }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ret = move_pages(0, 1, (void **) &ptr, &n2, &status,
>>>>>> MPOL_MF_MOVE_ALL);
>>>>>> - if (ret) {
>>>>>> - if (ret > 0) {
>>>>>> - /* Migration is best effort; try again */
>>>>>> - if (++failures < MAX_RETRIES)
>>>>>> - continue;
>>>>>> - printf("Didn't migrate %d pages\n", ret);
>>>>>> - }
>>>>>> - else
>>>>>> - perror("Couldn't migrate pages");
>>>>>> - return -2;
>>>>>> + if (ret < 0) {
>>>>>> + perror("Couldn't migrate pages");
>>>>>> + return ret;
>>>>>> }
>>>>>> - failures = 0;
>>>>>> + /* Migration is best effort. Try again */
>>>>>> + if (ret > 0 || status < 0)
>>>
>>> Also what if you migrated accidentally to node 0? In which case you
>>> will return a false success below.
>> What do you mean by "migrated accidentally to node 0"? Can you give an
>> example?
>
> I meant it can happen that ret is 0, status is 0. Then you will pass
> "status != n2" and the function will return 0.
>
> So probably just return -2 instead of status?
I see. Interestingly, it seems sashiko caught the same thing. I'll fix return code
in the next version.

--
Thanks,
Usama