Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] sched/numa: do not feed tiering promotions into task placement stats

[Li Zhe]

On 10/29/26 1:51 PM, Bharata B Rao wrote:
> On 28-Oct-26 8:33 PM, Joshua Hahn wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 12:14 AM Li Zhe <lizhe.67@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> NUMA balancing has separate mode bits for normal task placement and
>>> memory tiering. In memory-tiering-only mode, NUMA hinting faults on
>>> slow-tier pages are used to detect hot pages and promote them to a top
>>> tier. They are not normal task-placement faults.
>>>
>>> For slow-tier folios, memory tiering reuses the folio last-cpupid field
>>> to store access-time metadata. numa_migrate_check() therefore cannot
>>> return a real cpupid for those faults. Before this change, it returned the
>>> same all-ones last_cpupid value that normal AutoNUMA uses for a first or
>>> unknown access.
>>>
>>> That can make a memory-tiering-only promotion look like an ordinary first
>>> private AutoNUMA fault. After a successful promotion, do_numa_page()
>>> reports the target top-tier node to task_numa_fault(), so the existing
>>> slow-node skip no longer applies. task_numa_fault() then accounts the
>>> fault in p->numa_faults and p->numa_faults_locality, and
>>> task_numa_placement() can consume that sample to update normal task
>>> placement state even though normal NUMA balancing is disabled. In other
>>> words, hot-page promotion feedback can leak into the CPU placement
>>> heuristic.
>> Hi Zhe,
>>
>> Thanks for the revision. To me, this looks more like a fix than an
>> optimization, since there really is incorrect NUMA balancing behavior
>> happening that could be visible in userspace (unintended
>> task-placement and related accounting). On the other hand patch 3/3
>> doesn't seem like a fix to me despite the name, since this one would
>> mitigate the incorrect behavior.
>>
>> How about we pull this one out of the series and submit it
>> independently with an appropriate Fixes: tag and cc:stable, and
>> discuss 1 and 3 later on?
> Currently only successful promotions feed stats to scan period update.
> This change stops that and nothing updates the scan period for tiering
> mode after this change.
>
> Though the direction of the fix is right, I think this can't be an
> independent fix until there is some alternative which patch 3 in this
> series brings in.
Agreed, thanks for pointing this out.  Patch 2 should not be sent as a
standalone fix without the replacement scan-period feedback path.

Thanks,
Zhe

>
> Also it would be good to get a view from Ying Huang as to why only
> successful promotions drove the fault stats while unsuccessful promotions
> didn't in the tiering mode.
>
> Regards,
> Bharata.