Re: [RFC][Patch v11 1/2] mm: page_hinting: core infrastructure

[David Hildenbrand]

On 15.07.19 11:33, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 11.07.19 20:21, Dave Hansen wrote:
>> On 7/10/19 12:51 PM, Nitesh Narayan Lal wrote:
>>> +static void bm_set_pfn(struct page *page)
>>> +{
>>> +	struct zone *zone = page_zone(page);
>>> +	int zone_idx = page_zonenum(page);
>>> +	unsigned long bitnr = 0;
>>> +
>>> +	lockdep_assert_held(&zone->lock);
>>> +	bitnr = pfn_to_bit(page, zone_idx);
>>> +	/*
>>> +	 * TODO: fix possible underflows.
>>> +	 */
>>> +	if (free_area[zone_idx].bitmap &&
>>> +	    bitnr < free_area[zone_idx].nbits &&
>>> +	    !test_and_set_bit(bitnr, free_area[zone_idx].bitmap))
>>> +		atomic_inc(&free_area[zone_idx].free_pages);
>>> +}
>>
>> Let's say I have two NUMA nodes, each with ZONE_NORMAL and ZONE_MOVABLE
>> and each zone with 1GB of memory:
>>
>> Node:         0        1
>> NORMAL   0->1GB   2->3GB
>> MOVABLE  1->2GB   3->4GB
>>
>> This code will allocate two bitmaps.  The ZONE_NORMAL bitmap will
>> represent data from 0->3GB and the ZONE_MOVABLE bitmap will represent
>> data from 1->4GB.  That's the result of this code:
>>
>>> +			if (free_area[zone_idx].base_pfn) {
>>> +				free_area[zone_idx].base_pfn =
>>> +					min(free_area[zone_idx].base_pfn,
>>> +					    zone->zone_start_pfn);
>>> +				free_area[zone_idx].end_pfn =
>>> +					max(free_area[zone_idx].end_pfn,
>>> +					    zone->zone_start_pfn +
>>> +					    zone->spanned_pages);
>>
>> But that means that both bitmaps will have space for PFNs in the other
>> zone type, which is completely bogus.  This is fundamental because the
>> data structures are incorrectly built per zone *type* instead of per zone.
>>
> 
> I don't think it's incorrect, it's just not optimal in all scenarios.
> E.g., in you example, this approach would "waste" 2 * 1GB of tracking
> data for the wholes (2* 64bytes when using 1 bit for 2MB).
> 
> FWIW, this is not a numa-specific thingy. We can have sparse zones
> easily on single-numa systems.
> 
> Node:                 0
> NORMAL   0->1GB, 2->3GB
> MOVABLE  1->2GB, 3->4GB
> 
> So tracking it per zones instead instead of zone type is only one part
> of the story.
> 

Oh, and FWIW,

in setups like

Node:                 0               1
NORMAL   4->5GB, 6->7GB  5->6GB, 8->9GB

What Nitesh proposes is actually better. So it really depends on the use
case - but in general sparsity is the issue.

-- 

Thanks,

David / dhildenb