Re: [PATCH v2 00/10] virtio-mem: paravirtualized memory
From: Michael S. Tsirkin
Date: Sun Mar 29 2020 - 08:43:04 EST
On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 06:14:12PM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> This series is based on latest linux-next. The patches are located at:
> https://github.com/davidhildenbrand/linux.git virtio-mem-v2
>
> I now have acks for all !virtio-mem changes. I'll be happy to get review
> feedback, testing reports, etc. for the virtio-mem changes. If there are
> no further comments, I guess this is good to go as a v1 soon.
I'd like to queue it for merge after the release. If you feel it's ready
please ping me after the release to help make sure it didn't get
dropped. I see there were some reports about people having trouble
using this, pls keep working on this meanwhile.
Thanks!
> The basic idea of virtio-mem is to provide a flexible,
> cross-architecture memory hot(un)plug solution that avoids many limitations
> imposed by existing technologies, architectures, and interfaces. More
> details can be found below and in linked material.
>
> It's currently only enabled for x86-64, however, should theoretically work
> on any architecture that supports virtio and implements memory hot(un)plug
> under Linux - like s390x, powerpc64, and arm64. On x86-64, it is currently
> possible to add/remove memory to the system in >= 4MB granularity.
> Memory hotplug works very reliably. For memory unplug, there are no
> guarantees how much memory can actually get unplugged, it depends on the
> setup (especially: fragmentation of physical memory).
>
> I am currently getting the QEMU side into shape (which will be posted as
> RFC soon, see below for a link to the current state). Experimental Kata
> support is in the works [4]. Also, a cloud-hypervisor implementation is
> under discussion [5].
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1. virtio-mem
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The basic idea behind virtio-mem was presented at KVM Forum 2018. The
> slides can be found at [1]. The previous RFC can be found at [2]. The
> first RFC can be found at [3]. However, the concept evolved over time. The
> KVM Forum slides roughly match the current design.
>
> Patch #2 ("virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotplug") contains quite some
> information, especially in "include/uapi/linux/virtio_mem.h":
>
> Each virtio-mem device manages a dedicated region in physical address
> space. Each device can belong to a single NUMA node, multiple devices
> for a single NUMA node are possible. A virtio-mem device is like a
> "resizable DIMM" consisting of small memory blocks that can be plugged
> or unplugged. The device driver is responsible for (un)plugging memory
> blocks on demand.
>
> Virtio-mem devices can only operate on their assigned memory region in
> order to (un)plug memory. A device cannot (un)plug memory belonging to
> other devices.
>
> The "region_size" corresponds to the maximum amount of memory that can
> be provided by a device. The "size" corresponds to the amount of memory
> that is currently plugged. "requested_size" corresponds to a request
> from the device to the device driver to (un)plug blocks. The
> device driver should try to (un)plug blocks in order to reach the
> "requested_size". It is impossible to plug more memory than requested.
>
> The "usable_region_size" represents the memory region that can actually
> be used to (un)plug memory. It is always at least as big as the
> "requested_size" and will grow dynamically. It will only shrink when
> explicitly triggered (VIRTIO_MEM_REQ_UNPLUG).
>
> There are no guarantees what will happen if unplugged memory is
> read/written. Such memory should, in general, not be touched. E.g.,
> even writing might succeed, but the values will simply be discarded at
> random points in time.
>
> It can happen that the device cannot process a request, because it is
> busy. The device driver has to retry later.
>
> Usually, during system resets all memory will get unplugged, so the
> device driver can start with a clean state. However, in specific
> scenarios (if the device is busy) it can happen that the device still
> has memory plugged. The device driver can request to unplug all memory
> (VIRTIO_MEM_REQ_UNPLUG) - which might take a while to succeed if the
> device is busy.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 2. Linux Implementation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Memory blocks (e.g., 128MB) are added/removed on demand. Within these
> memory blocks, subblocks (e.g., 4MB) are plugged/unplugged. The sizes
> depend on the target architecture, MAX_ORDER, pageblock_order, and
> the block size of a virtio-mem device.
>
> add_memory()/try_remove_memory() is used to add/remove memory blocks.
> virtio-mem will not online memory blocks itself. This has to be done by
> user space, or configured into the kernel
> (CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG_DEFAULT_ONLINE). virtio-mem will only unplug memory
> that was online to the ZONE_NORMAL. Memory is suggested to be onlined to
> the ZONE_NORMAL for now.
>
> The memory hotplug notifier is used to properly synchronize against
> onlining/offlining of memory blocks and to track the states of memory
> blocks (including the zone memory blocks are onlined to).
>
> The set_online_page() callback is used to keep unplugged subblocks
> of a memory block fake-offline when onlining the memory block.
> generic_online_page() is used to fake-online plugged subblocks. This
> handling is similar to the Hyper-V balloon driver.
>
> PG_offline is used to mark unplugged subblocks as offline, so e.g.,
> dumping tools (makedumpfile) will skip these pages. This is similar to
> other balloon drivers like virtio-balloon and Hyper-V.
>
> Memory offlining code is extended to allow drivers to drop their reference
> to PG_offline pages when MEM_GOING_OFFLINE, so these pages can be skipped
> when offlining memory blocks. This allows to offline memory blocks that
> have partially unplugged (allocated e.g., via alloc_contig_range())
> subblocks - or are completely unplugged.
>
> alloc_contig_range()/free_contig_range() [now exposed] is used to
> unplug/plug subblocks of memory blocks the are already exposed to Linux.
>
> offline_and_remove_memory() [new] is used to offline a fully unplugged
> memory block and remove it from Linux.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 3. Changes v1 -> v2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> - "virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotplug"
> -- Use "__u64" and friends in uapi header
> -- Split out ACPI PXM handling
> - "virtio-mem: Allow to specify an ACPI PXM as nid"
> -- Squash of the ACPI PXM handling and previous "ACPI: NUMA: export
> pxm_to_node"
> - "virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotunplug part 2"
> -- Squashed previous "mm: Export alloc_contig_range() /
> free_contig_range()"
> - "virtio-mem: Allow to offline partially unplugged memory blocks"
> -- WARN and dump_page() in case somebody has a reference to an unplugged
> page
> - "virtio-mem: Better retry handling"
> -- Use retry interval of 5s -> 5m
> - Tweaked some patch descriptions
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4. Future work
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> One of the next TODO things besides the QEMU part is writing a virtio-mem
> spec - however, that might still take some time.
>
> virtio-mem extensions (via new feature flags):
> - Indicate the guest status (e.g., initialized, working, all memory is
> busy when unplugging, too many memory blocks are offline when plugging,
> etc.)
> - Guest-triggered shrinking of the usable region (e.g., whenever the
> highest memory block is removed).
> - Exchange of plugged<->unplugged block for defragmentation.
>
> Memory hotplug:
> - Reduce the amount of memory resources if that tunes out to be an
> issue. Or try to speed up relevant code paths to deal with many
> resources.
> - Allocate vmemmap from added memory.
>
> Memory hotunplug:
> - Performance improvements:
> -- Sense (lockless) if it make sense to try alloc_contig_range() at all
> before directly trying to isolate and taking locks.
> -- Try to unplug bigger chunks within a memory block first.
> - Make unplug more likely to succeed:
> -- There are various idea to limit fragmentation on memory block
> granularity. (e.g., ZONE_PREFER_MOVABLE and smart balancing)
> -- Allocate vmemmap from added memory.
> - OOM handling, e.g., via an OOM handler/shrinker.
> - Defragmentation
> - Support for < MAX_ORDER - 1 blocks (esp. pageblock_order)
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 5. Example Usage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A QEMU implementation (without protection of unplugged memory, but with
> resizable memory regions and optimized migration) is available at (kept
> updated):
> https://github.com/davidhildenbrand/qemu.git virtio-mem
>
> Start QEMU with two virtio-mem devices (one per NUMA node):
> $ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4G,maxmem=204G \
> -smp sockets=2,cores=2 \
> -numa node,nodeid=0,cpus=0-1 -numa node,nodeid=1,cpus=2-3 \
> [...]
> -object memory-backend-ram,id=mem0,size=100G,managed-size=on \
> -device virtio-mem-pci,id=vm0,memdev=mem0,node=0,requested-size=0M \
> -object memory-backend-ram,id=mem1,size=100G,managed-size=on \
> -device virtio-mem-pci,id=vm1,memdev=mem1,node=1,requested-size=1G
>
> Query the configuration:
> QEMU 4.2.50 monitor - type 'help' for more information
> (qemu) info memory-devices
> Memory device [virtio-mem]: "vm0"
> memaddr: 0x140000000
> node: 0
> requested-size: 0
> size: 0
> max-size: 107374182400
> block-size: 2097152
> memdev: /objects/mem0
> Memory device [virtio-mem]: "vm1"
> memaddr: 0x1a40000000
> node: 1
> requested-size: 1073741824
> size: 1073741824
> max-size: 107374182400
> block-size: 2097152
> memdev: /objects/mem1
>
> Add some memory to node 0:
> QEMU 4.2.50 monitor - type 'help' for more information
> (qemu) qom-set vm0 requested-size 1G
>
> Remove some memory from node 1:
> QEMU 4.2.50 monitor - type 'help' for more information
> (qemu) qom-set vm1 requested-size 64M
>
> Query the configuration again:
> QEMU 4.2.50 monitor - type 'help' for more information
> (qemu) info memory-devices
> Memory device [virtio-mem]: "vm0"
> memaddr: 0x140000000
> node: 0
> requested-size: 1073741824
> size: 1073741824
> max-size: 107374182400
> block-size: 2097152
> memdev: /objects/mem0
> Memory device [virtio-mem]: "vm1"
> memaddr: 0x1a40000000
> node: 1
> requested-size: 67108864
> size: 67108864
> max-size: 107374182400
> block-size: 2097152
> memdev: /objects/mem1
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 6. Q/A
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Q: Why add/remove parts ("subblocks") of memory blocks/sections?
> A: Flexibility (section size depends on the architecture) - e.g., some
> architectures have a section size of 2GB. Also, the memory block size
> is variable (e.g., on x86-64). I want to avoid any such restrictions.
> Some use cases want to add/remove memory in smaller granularity to a
> VM (e.g., the Hyper-V balloon also implements this) - especially smaller
> VMs like used for kata containers. Also, on memory unplug, it is more
> reliable to free-up and unplug multiple small chunks instead
> of one big chunk. E.g., if one page of a DIMM is either unmovable or
> pinned, the DIMM can't get unplugged. This approach is basically a
> compromise between DIMM-based memory hot(un)plug and balloon
> inflation/deflation, which works mostly on page granularity.
>
> Q: Why care about memory blocks?
> A: They are the way to tell user space about new memory. This way,
> memory can get onlined/offlined by user space. Also, e.g., kdump
> relies on udev events to reload kexec when memory blocks are
> onlined/offlined. Memory blocks are the "real" memory hot(un)plug
> granularity. Everything that's smaller has to be emulated "on top".
>
> Q: Won't memory unplug of subblocks fragment memory?
> A: Yes and no. Unplugging e.g., >=4MB subblocks on x86-64 will not really
> fragment memory like unplugging random pages like a balloon driver does.
> Buddy merging will not be limited. However, any allocation that requires
> bigger consecutive memory chunks (e.g., gigantic pages) might observe
> the fragmentation. Possible solutions: Allocate gigantic huge pages
> before unplugging memory, don't unplug memory, combine virtio-mem with
> DIMM based memory or bigger initial memory. Remember, a virtio-mem
> device will only unplug on the memory range it manages, not on other
> DIMMs. Unplug of single memory blocks will result in similar
> fragmentation in respect to gigantic huge pages.
>
> Q: How reliable is memory unplug?
> A: There are no guarantees on how much memory can get unplugged
> again. However, it is more likely to find 4MB chunks to unplug than
> e.g., 128MB chunks. If memory is terribly fragmented, there is nothing
> we can do - for now. I consider memory hotplug the first primary use
> of virtio-mem. Memory unplug might usually work, but we want to improve
> the performance and the amount of memory we can actually unplug later.
>
> Q: Why not unplug from the ZONE_MOVABLE?
> A: Unplugged memory chunks are unmovable. Unmovable data must not end up
> on the ZONE_MOVABLE - similar to gigantic pages - they will never be
> allocated from ZONE_MOVABLE. virtio-mem added memory can be onlined
> to the ZONE_MOVABLE, but subblocks will not get unplugged from it.
>
> Q: How big should the initial (!virtio-mem) memory of a VM be?
> A: virtio-mem memory will not go to the DMA zones. So to avoid running out
> of DMA memory, I suggest something like 2-3GB on x86-64. But many
> VMs can most probably deal with less DMA memory - depends on the use
> case.
>
> [1] https://events.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/virtio-mem-Paravirtualized-Memory-David-Hildenbrand-Red-Hat-1.pdf
> [2] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190919142228.5483-1-david@xxxxxxxxxx
> [3] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/547865a9-d6c2-7140-47e2-5af01e7d761d@xxxxxxxxxx
> [4] https://github.com/kata-containers/documentation/pull/592
> [5] https://github.com/cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor/pull/837
>
> Cc: Sebastien Boeuf <sebastien.boeuf@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Samuel Ortiz <samuel.ortiz@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Robert Bradford <robert.bradford@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Pankaj Gupta <pankaj.gupta.linux@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: teawater <teawaterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Igor Mammedov <imammedo@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Dr. David Alan Gilbert <dgilbert@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> David Hildenbrand (10):
> virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotplug
> virtio-mem: Allow to specify an ACPI PXM as nid
> virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotunplug part 1
> virtio-mem: Paravirtualized memory hotunplug part 2
> mm: Allow to offline unmovable PageOffline() pages via
> MEM_GOING_OFFLINE
> virtio-mem: Allow to offline partially unplugged memory blocks
> mm/memory_hotplug: Introduce offline_and_remove_memory()
> virtio-mem: Offline and remove completely unplugged memory blocks
> virtio-mem: Better retry handling
> MAINTAINERS: Add myself as virtio-mem maintainer
>
> MAINTAINERS | 7 +
> drivers/acpi/numa/srat.c | 1 +
> drivers/virtio/Kconfig | 18 +
> drivers/virtio/Makefile | 1 +
> drivers/virtio/virtio_mem.c | 1910 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> include/linux/memory_hotplug.h | 1 +
> include/linux/page-flags.h | 10 +
> include/uapi/linux/virtio_ids.h | 1 +
> include/uapi/linux/virtio_mem.h | 208 ++++
> mm/memory_hotplug.c | 81 +-
> mm/page_alloc.c | 26 +
> mm/page_isolation.c | 9 +
> 12 files changed, 2263 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
> create mode 100644 drivers/virtio/virtio_mem.c
> create mode 100644 include/uapi/linux/virtio_mem.h
>
> --
> 2.24.1