Re: [PATCH 1/3] fork: dynamically allocate cache array for vmapped stacks using cpuhp

[Hoeun Ryu]

On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 2:52 AM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Hoeun Ryu <hoeun.ryu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 12:39 AM, Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On Sat 04-02-17 00:30:05, Hoeun Ryu wrote:
>>>>  Using virtually mapped stack, kernel stacks are allocated via vmalloc.
>>>> In the current implementation, two stacks per cpu can be cached when
>>>> tasks are freed and the cached stacks are used again in task duplications.
>>>> but the array for the cached stacks is statically allocated by per-cpu api.
>>>>  In this new implementation, the array for the cached stacks are dynamically
>>>> allocted and freed by cpu hotplug callbacks and the cached stacks are freed
>>>> when cpu is down. setup for cpu hotplug is established in fork_init().
>>>
>>> Why do we want this? I can see that the follow up patch makes the number
>>> configurable but the changelog doesn't describe the motivation for that.
>>> Which workload would benefit from a higher value?
>>>
>>
>> The key difference of this implementation, the cached stacks for a cpu
>> is freed when a cpu is down.
>> so the cached stacks are no longer wasted.
>> In the current implementation, the cached stacks for a cpu still
>> remain on the system when a cpu is down.
>> I think we could imagine what if a machine has many cpus and someone
>> wants to have bigger size of stack caches.
>
> Then how about just registering a simple hotplug hook to free the
> stacks without worrying about freeing the tiny array as well?
>

Michal, What do you think about it. it sounds fair enough.

> --Andy