Re: [PATCH v3 (re-send)] xen/gntdev: Use mempolicy instead of VM_IO flag to avoid NUMA balancing

[Hugh Dickins]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2016, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
> On 11/18/2016 04:51 PM, Hugh Dickins wrote:
> > Hmm, sorry, but this seems overcomplicated to me: ingenious, but an
> > unusual use of the ->get_policy method, which is a little worrying,
> > since it has only been used for shmem (+ shm and kernfs) until now.
> >
> > Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't substituting VM_MIXEDMAP for VM_IO
> > solve the problem more simply?
> 
> It would indeed. I didn't want to use it because it has specific meaning
> ("Can contain "struct page" and pure PFN pages") and that didn't seem
> like the right flag to describe this vma.

It is okay if it contains 0 pure PFN pages; and no worse than VM_IO was.
A comment on why VM_MIXEDMAP is being used there would certainly be good.
But I do find its use preferable to enlisting an unusual ->get_policy.

Hugh